Category Archives: cloud computing

cloud computing

When backups fail

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Jeff Attwood has lost the content from two popular blogs that he runs:

http://blog.stackoverflow.com
http://www.codinghorror.com

thanks to:

100% data loss at our hosting provider, CrystalTech.

He gives a little more detail here. He is now trying to recover data from search engine caches such as Google’s – a painful business, apparently; Google banned his IP.

Backup is a complex problem. I’d been meaning to post on the subject following another recent incident. Here’s a quote from an email a friend received from his ISP after asking whether the SQL Server database was backed up:

Needless to say, we do back the databases up every 12 hours to a remote location automatically.

Just 11 days later “a crucial disk” failed on that SQL Server; following which the ISP discovered that its recent back-ups were also “corrupt” and data was lost. In the end a data recovery specialist was enlisted and most, but not all data recovered.

No doubt the post-mortem will reveal multiple issues; but it shows that knowing backups are being done is insufficient. You have to do test restores as well, because the backup might not be working as well as you think.

In addition, as Attwood is now tweeting:

don’t trust the hosting provider, make your OWN offsite backups, too!

Good advice for those of us using commodity ISPs. But it also gives me pause for thought following the CloudForce event I attended earlier this week. A specialist like Salesforce.com has more resources to put into data resilience than any of its users. So if Salesforce.com (or Amazon, or Google, or Microsoft) is your ISP, is it then OK to leave backup to them?

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cloud computing, salesforce.com

Salesforce Chatter: Twitter-like status updates for the Enterprise

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Today I attended Cloudforce in London: essentially the Salesforce.com Dreamforce conference on tour. The platform marches on: CEO Marc Benioff says the company is growing at 20% per year, and in general the customers I spoke too seem pleased with their choice. Benioff was as usual full of jabs at the “old stuff” – things like Siebel, Microsoft Office, anything that is not Cloud – but made so many jibes aimed at SharePoint that I began to think he has some respect for Microsoft’s document collaboration platform.

The major theme of the conference was Chatter, which is being rolled out to Salesforce.com users next year. Chatter takes key features from Twitter, including status updates and followers, and integrates them with the platform. There is also a Facebook-like profile page for all users. We saw several possible applications for the feature:

  • Keeping in touch with what colleagues are up to
  • Keeping in touch with progress on specific projects or opportunities, which can have their own status feeds
  • Using the Chatter mechanism as a commenting system, for example for collaborating on a draft document

There is a security mechanism, whereby alerts can be restricted to certain people or groups. You can also filter alerts to reduce noise.

We also saw a desktop client built with Adobe AIR, for monitoring status feeds in the same style as familiar Twitter clients.

While I don’t question the potential of Chatter, the current craze for Twitterising everything reminds me of the hype around RSS a few years back, which which it has many parallel. In the end it is another way to communicate, with better contextualisation than email and less vulnerability to spam.

Twitter itself has little chance of penetrating the Enterprise, when it is so easy to re-implement its essential features.

There was not much developer content here, sadly, though we did see a “30 minute Cloudforce application” in one of the sessions. It was all wizard-drive data form design, and strongly reminiscent of what we used to with the likes of Access and FileMaker, but all browser-hosted. One difference though is that the Salesforce platform has built-in workflow and approval. Another advantage is that you are in effect extending an application that already knows about your organisation’s users and contacts. The result is that working applications can be put together quickly, provided that they fit nicely with the platform model.

adobe, cloud computing, flash, google, microsoft, silverlight, web authoring

Google Gears out, HTML 5 in: what this means for offline web apps

I was interested to read that Google is abandoning Gears in favour of HTML 5.

While that makes sense, it is a hassle for developers who have developed for Gears, since there are differences between features such as HTML 5 local storage and Gears LocalServer. The Gears API was tidy and effective so in some ways I’m sorry to see it go, though a broad standard will be much more useful.

Still, this does mean that you can develop to the HTML 5 standard for Offline Web Applications with some hope that, although broad implementation is lacking now, it will come in future. Even IE 9 is likely to have a fair amount of HTML 5 in it.

It is a critical standard because the success of something like Google’s Chrome OS will depend on it. Nobody can count on being always connected.

In the meantime, there are also offline features in Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight.

cloud computing, google, intel, windows

Hands on with Intel Moblin

When I saw that trying out Intel’s Moblin Linux 2.1 was as easy as downloading an image and writing it to a USB pen drive, I could not resist giving it a try.

Moblin (it rhymes with Goblin) is aimed at netbooks running Intel’s Atom processor, though it also runs on other Intel processors – mine is a Core 2 Duo. The supplied intro says it is a “completely new user experience” and “the next evolution in operating systems”. Well, one thing greatly impressed me. Moblin booted perfectly when plugged into my Toshiba M400 Portege laptop, playing sound and video, and picking up the wi-fi card without any messing around.

Next, I spent a few minutes exploring the user interface. There are some fun, bouncy mouse-over effects, though the cutesy default imagery, featuring an unlikely friendship between what I think is a cat and some birds, did nothing for me. I discovered a browser based on Mozilla, but hiding many of its features, a media player, an application gallery with easy install of a selection of further apps (the usual Linux things), and an effort to bring social networking to the fore by integrating with Twitter and last.fm, with others presumably to follow.

I am not sure about it though; I suspect the first thing I would do with a Moblin netbook is to work out how to install Ubuntu or some other Linux that is less sugar-coated and exposes all the features I am used to; and I suspect most users (given the choice) would rather have Windows 7.

My instant and probably unfair reaction is that Microsoft has nothing to fear from Moblin, even though I can see that a lot of work has gone into making it easy to use.

It is an interesting contrast to Google Chrome OS, which I have also been trying. Although Moblin has more features right now, Chrome OS is more compelling; Chrome OS feels stripped-down rather than simplified, and embraces a new model of computing that I think can be made to work.

Incidentally, Google acknowledges Moblin as one of the open-source projects which it uses in Chrome OS.

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cloud computing, google, Uncategorized

Chrome OS: will Google keep its vision?

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I spent some time with Chrome OS over the weekend and yesterday, first doing my own build of the open source Chromium OS, and then running it and writing a review.

The build process was interesting: you actually compile Chromium OS from a chroot virtual environment. My first efforts were unsuccessful, for two reasons. First, Chromium OS assumes the presence of a pre-built Chromium (the browser), so you have to either build Chromium first, or download a pre-built version. However, the Chromium build has to be customised for Chromium OS. I did manage to build Chromium, but it failed to run, with what looked like a gtk version error, so I gave up and downloaded a zip.

Chromium OS itself I did build successfully, though I ran into an error that needed this patch, which I applied manually. I was using the latest code from the git repository at the time. I expect that this problem has been fixed now though you may run into different ones; life on the bleeding edge can be painful.

I also had difficulty logging in. You are meant to log in with a Google account, which presumes a live internet connection at least on the first occasion. Although Chromium OS successfully used the ethernet connection on my laptop, getting an IP address and successfully pinging internet sites, the login still failed with a “Network not connected” error. Studying the logs revealed a certificate error. You can also create a backdoor user at build time, so I did that instead.

Once I got Chromium OS up and running, booting from a USB key, I found it mostly worked OK. It is a fascinating project, because of Google’s determination to avoid local application installs, thereby gaining better security as well as driving the user towards web solutions for all their needs.

That’s a bold vision, but also an annoying one. Normally, when reviewing something relevant like an operating system or a word processor, I try to write the review in the product I am testing. In fact, I am writing this post in Chromium OS. However, I could not write my review on Chromium OS, because I needed screenshots; and although there are excellent web-based image editing tools, I could not find a way to take screenshots and paste or upload them into those tools. The solution I adopted was to run Chromium OS in a virtual machine – I used VirtualBox – and take the screenshots from the host operating system.

It is a small point; but makes me wonder whether Google will end up bundling just a few local utilities to make the web-based life a little easier. If it does so, third parties will want to add their own; and Google will be under pressure to abandon its idea of no local application installs.

Another interesting point: the rumour is that Google will unify Chrome OS  with Android, which does allow application installs. Can that happen without providing a way to run Android apps on Chrome?

Chromium OS includes a calculator utility, which opens in a panel. Mine does not work though; I get a blank panel with the URL http://welcome-cros.appspot.com/calculator.html – which seems to be a broken link. Still, is that really a sensible way to provide a calculator? What about offline – will it work from a Gears local web server, or as a static HTML page with a JavaScript calculator, or will it not work at all?

I will be interested to see whether Google ends up compromising a little in order to improve the usability and features of its new OS.

azure, cloud computing, microsoft, software development, sql, visual studio, windows

PDC day one: Windows in the cloud

Today was cloud day at PDC. Microsoft announced that Windows Azure will become a production platform on January 1st, with billing starting from February 1st. It also announced the beta of Windows Server AppFabric role, for on-premise apps that can either stay on-premise or be deployed to Azure later; and some new developments like the Windows Server Virtual Machine role on Azure, a pre-configured Windows Server VM into which you will be able to deploy an application.

Azure was first announced at the 2008 PDC, and had a stuttering start, with a CTP (Community Tech Preview) that was difficult to use, major changes to SQL Server Data Services – a simplified cloud database that was scrapped and replaced with full SQL Server – and generally poor marketing from Microsoft. I was not sure whether the company was serious about Azure, or merely trying to tick the cloud box.

I do now think it is serious, and delivering some interesting technology for easily scalable cloud-hosted applications. Microsoft does not sees its cloud services as replacing your in-house servers (no surprise there), but more as a way of deploying certain kinds of web applications. A great feature is that thanks to Active Directory Federation Services in combination with the new .NET library called Windows Identity Foundation you can relatively easily have use your Azure applications authenticated against your internal Active Directory.

The surprise of the day was when Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame turned up to demo WordPress running on Azure, which now supports PHP and MySQL as well as Java applications. Another unexpected guest was Loic Le Meur of Seesmic, who introduced Seesmic for Windows and also talked about a coming Silverlight version.

That said, the keynote did not exactly crackle with excitement. Microsoft seemed almost to downplay what is now possible with Azure, perhaps sensing that it could be disruptive to its own business model. A telling moment came during a press briefing when Doug Hauger, Azure General Manager, denied that Windows or Office were in any sort of decline. Despite his position he seems to be under the illusion that we will happily continue with our fragile on-premise, single platform, micro-managed IT systems.

I enjoyed the day though. The beauty of PDC is that Microsoft rolls out its best speakers; it was great to hear Mark Russinovich explain the kernel changes in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 – same kernel of course – and I will be writing more about the session shortly.

I’m expecting more focus on Office, Silverlight and Visual Studio tomorrow, when Steven Sinofsky, Scott Guthrie and Kurt DelBene will be giving the keynote, and hoping for some compelling announcements.

cloud computing, microsoft

A critical PDC for Microsoft

I’m in Los Angeles for Microsoft’s Professional Developer’s Conference – one that has a strangely subdued build-up. I have been to many PDCs but this one is different. One thing I’ve noticed is that a combination of the difficult economy and a rumoured shortfall in attendance has resulted in some obvious slimming-down: flimsy bag, no breakfast for attendees, no free shuttle to the airport on the last day, no big party at LA Universal Studios.

There’s always a case for less extravagance at conferences; but it conveys a subtle PR message that isn’t a good one for Microsoft.

What matters though is the content. Clearly there are two strands to this. One is the regular turning of the Microsoft wheel – Windows 7 development, new Office, new SharePoint, maybe a new IE and a new Silverlight.

Microsoft has to do this; but there is no escaping: the world is changing, and bloated desktop apps and complex in-house servers and server applications are not the wave of the future.

I am still mulling over something said to me recently by an IT admin in education, when I was researching the progress there of Google Apps and Microsoft Live@Edu. He had overseen a migration of student email to Google Apps, over 20,000 accounts, and I asked him what problems he had encountered. I’ve been in IT for years, he told me, and there are always unexpected issues; but this time there really were none.

So the other theme at PDC is whether Microsoft’s cloud efforts can get off the ground and compete in this new world. The interesting thought is this: even if Windows Azure is a wild success, and if the Live properties start to perform, what chance does Microsoft have of even sustaining its current level of revenue and profit?

In practice, the company will always be under irresistible pressure to use any cloud success to promote the products from which it makes its money: Windows and Office. And that in turn will undermine its cloud efforts, as users realise they are not getting the liberation from hefty client-side dependencies which is inherent to a true cloud story.

Just to remind you: check out the “online” section of recent Microsoft financial reports.

That said, there is an unexpected twist in the run-up to PDC, which is the gathering Google backlash. The must-read is Tim O’Reilly’s War for the Web:

We’re heading into a war for control of the web. And in the end, it’s more than that, it’s a war against the web as an interoperable platform. Instead, we’re facing the prospect of Facebook as the platform, Apple as the platform, Google as the platform, Amazon as the platform, where big companies slug it out until one is king of the hill.

And it’s time for developers to take a stand. If you don’t want a repeat of the PC era, place your bets now on open systems. Don’t wait till it’s too late.

O’Reilly closes his piece with a thought-provoking comment:

P.S. One prediction: Microsoft will emerge as a champion of the open web platform, supporting interoperable web services from many independent players, much as IBM emerged as the leading enterprise backer of Linux.

It sounds unlikely; but where do you go if your mood is “anything but Google”? We could see some surprising new alliances; though I honestly do not see the Windows-Office empire within Microsoft accepting that kind of role under the current leadership.

The PDC is generally where Microsoft sets out its strategy for the coming year or more. It had better be good.

cloud computing, microsoft, virtualization

Love and hate for Microsoft Small Business Server

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I’ve just completed a migration from Small Business Server 2003 to 2008. I’ve worked on and off with SBS since version 4.0, and have mixed feelings about the product. It has always been great value, but massive complexity lurks not far beneath its simple wizards.

The difficulty of migration is probably its worst feature: it chugs along for a few years gradually outgrowing its hardware, and then when the time comes for a new server customers are faced with either starting from scratch with a clean install – set up new accounts, import mailboxes, every client machine removed and rejoined to a new domain – or else a painful migration.

I took the latter route, and also decided to go virtual on Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. In most important respects it went smoothly: Active Directory behaved itself, and the Exchange mailboxes all came over cleanly.

Still, several things struck me during the migration. Microsoft has a handy 79-page step-by-step document, but anyone who thinks that carefully following the steps will guarantee success will be disappointed. There are always surprises. The document does not properly cover DHCP, for example. The migration is surprisingly messy in places. The new SBS has different sets of permissions than the old one, and after the upgrade you have to somehow merge the two. The migration is not fully automated, and there is plenty of manual editing of various settings.

Even migrating SBS 2008 to SBS 2008, for a new server, has brought forth a 58-page document from Microsoft.

Then there are the errors to deal with. There are always errors. You have to figure out which ones are significant and how to fix them. I would like to meet a windows admin who could look me in the eye and say they have no errors in their event log.

Things got bad when applying all the updates to bring the server up-to-date. At one point SharePoint broke completely and could not contact its configuration database.  There’s also the mystery of security update KB967723, which Windows Update installed insisting that it was “important,” and which then generated the following logged message 79 times in the space of a few seconds:

Windows Servicing identified that package KB967723(Security Update) is not applicable for this system

Nevertheless, a little tender care and attention got the system into reasonable shape. It is even smart enough to change Outlook settings to the new server automatically. A great feature of the migration is that email flow is never interrupted.

One problem: although running SBS virtual is a supported configuration, the built-in backup system doesn’t handle it well, because it assumes use of external USB drives which Hyper-V guests cannot access directly. There are many solutions, none perfect, and it appears that Microsoft did not think this one through.

That said, the virtual solution has some inherent advantages for backup and restore, the main one being that you can guarantee identical hardware for disaster recovery. If you shut the guests down and backup the host, or export the VM, you have a reliable system backup. You can also back up a running guest from the host, though in my experience this is more fragile.

Migrating an SBS system is actually harder than working with grown-up Windows systems on separate servers (or virtual servers) because it all has to be done together. I reckon Microsoft could do a better job with the tools; but it is a complex process with multiple potential points of failure.

The experience overall does nothing to shake my view that cloud-based services are the future. I would like to see SBS become a kind of smart cache for cloud storage and services, rather than being a local all-or-nothing box that can absorb large amounts of troubleshooting time. Microsoft is going to lose a lot of this SME business, because it has ploughed on with more of the same rather than helping its existing SBS customers to move on.

Nevertheless, if you have made the decision to run your own email and collaboration services, rather than being at the mercy of a hosted service, SBS 2008 does it all.

cloud computing, google, microsoft, windows

The cloud in education: Google Apps vs Live@Edu

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I’ve been researching the use of cloud apps in education for a talk I am giving next week. I’m normally more business-focused, and it’s been interesting to uncover another area where Microsoft and Google are in hot competition. Both companies are happy to give educational institutions free cloud email and collaboration services; and the offer is being snapped up by colleges and universities hard-pressed for money and tired of fighting spam-clogged inboxes. 

Microsoft has first mover advantage here: Live@Edu has been around since March 2005 as a service based on hotmail, though its evolution into a fuller collaboration system is more recent, whereas Google Apps for Education did not appear until October 2006. They are both generous schemes – of course the providers want to get students hooked on their stuff – and as far as I can tell both are well liked.

What is interesting is to look at the points of differentiation, which show the contrasting approach of these two companies. Microsoft is pursuing its “software plus services” strategy, which means desktop applications still play an important role. The email is Exchange-based, so you can use other email clients, but only Outlook on Windows will deliver full features. Document collaboration is based primarily on cloud storage rather then editing, though when Office Web Apps appear next year users will have some lightweight editing tools.

Google on the other hand is primarily web based, with desktop support as an add-on. Google has the lead when it comes to online document editing, since it has had Google Docs for some time, whereas Office Web Apps are still in beta. Google has no bias towards Windows and Office. With Google, a document’s primary existence is in the cloud, although you can export and import with possible loss of data or formatting.

Something else I noticed is that Google has big plans for integration with mobile devices, whereas Microsoft seems mainly concerned with Exchange synchronisation.

Microsoft’s pitch is that if you live in Windows anyway, with Exchange and SharePoint on the server, and Windows and Office on the client, then its cloud service integrates nicely. Google on the other hand is more revolutionary, not caring about what you run as long as you can connect to its services.

Although the software plus services idea has attractions, it sounds more like a transitional strategy than one for the long term. Over time, as the web platform gets more powerful, and as rich internet applications take over from pure desktop applications, the services part will grow absolutely dominant.

Google is a cooler brand than Microsoft, which helps its case when students are asked which platform they prefer.

Has anyone tried both platforms? Or even just one of them? I’d be interested in hearing your comments.

cloud computing, linux, ubuntu, Uncategorized

Ubuntu Linux: the agony and the ecstasy

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Just after writing a positive review of Ubuntu Karmic Koala I noticed this piece on The Register: Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu’s Karmic Koala:

Blank and flickering screens, failure to recognize hard drives, defaulting to the old 2.6.28 Linux kernel, and failure to get encryption running are taking their toll, as early adopters turn to the web for answers and log fresh bug reports in Ubuntu forums.

Did I get it wrong? Should I be warning users away from an operating system and upgrade that will only bring them grief?

I doubt it, though I see both sides of this story. I’ve been there: hours spent trying to get Bluetooth working on the Toshiba laptop on which I’m typing; or persuading an Asus Eee PC to connect to my wi-fi; or running dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg to try to get Compiz working or to escape basic VGA; or running Super Grub to fix an Ubuntu PC that will not boot; or trying to fix a failed migration from Lilo to Grub 2 on my Ubuntu server.

That said, I noticed that the same laptop which gave me Ubuntu Bluetooth grief a couple of years ago now works fine with a clean install, Bluetooth included. It’s even possible that my own contribution helped – that’s how Linux works – though I doubt it in this case.

I also noticed how Ubuntu 9.10 has moved ahead of Windows in several areas. Here are three:

  1. Cloud storage and synchronization

    Microsoft has Live Mesh. Typical Microsoft: some great ideas, I suspect over-engineered, requires complex runtime to be downloaded and installed, not clear where it fits into Microsoft’s overall strategy, still in beta long after it was first trumpeted as a big new thing. So is this thing built into Windows 7? No way.

    By contrast Ubuntu turns up with what looks like a dead simple cloud storage and synchronization piece, web access, file system access, optional sharing, syncs files over multiple computers. Ubuntu One. I’ve not checked how it handles conflicts; but then Mesh was pretty poor at that too, last time I looked. All built-in to Karmic Koala, click, register, done.

  2. Multiple workspaces

    Apple and Linux have had this for years; I have no idea why it isn’t in Windows 7, or Vista for that matter. Incredibly useful – if the screen is busy but you don’t fancy closing all those windows, just switch to a new desktop.

  3. Application install

    This is so much better on Linux than on Windows or Mac; the only platform I know of that is equally user-friendly is the iPhone. OK, iPhone is better, because it has user ratings and so on; but Ubuntu is pretty good: Software Centre – browse – install.

I could go on. Shift-Alt-UpArrow, Ubuntu’s version of Exposé, very nice, not on Windows. And the fact that I can connect a file explorer over SSL using Places – Connect to server, where on Windows I have to download and install WinScp or the like.

Plus, let’s not forget that Ubuntu is free.

Of course you can make a case for Windows too. It’s more polished, it’s ubiquitous, app availability is beyond compare. It is a safe choice. I’m typing this on Ubuntu in BlogGTK but missing Windows Live Writer.

Still, Ubuntu is a fantastic deal, especially with Ubuntu One included. I don’t understand the economics by which Canonical can give everyone in the world 2GB of free cloud storage; if it is hoping that enough people will upgrade to the 50GB paid-for version that it will pay for the freeloaders, I fear it will be disappointed.

My point: overall, there is far more right than wrong with Ubuntu in general and Karmic Koala in particular; and I am still happy to recommend it.