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How To Install and Run WordPress on AWS EC2?

cloudtweaks — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:07:57 +0000

Here is a fantastic illustration I’ve come across on how to get your WordPress site up and running in the cloud in 15 minutes. Very helpful!

Introduction

One thing we often hear from Web developers, especially those who offer Web site design and consulting services, is the need to get a Web site up quickly, which runs fast and gives them total control of the server for maximum flexibility and scalability. Today’s post offers a quick walkthrough on how to run WordPress on Amazon’s EC2 Cloud and the Microsoft Web Platform. After you followed the steps in this walkthrough you will have a live production WordPress blog on the Internet.
Here are quick summary of the steps you have to follow:

Sign up for Amazon EC2
Start an “Microsoft Web Platform – WordPress ” instance via the Amazon Web Services Management Console.
Retrieve the Administrator password and connect to the instance via RDP.
Finalize the WordPress installation.
Enter blog posts and browse to your blog.

1. Amazon EC2 Sign-up

Signing up for Amazon EC2 is a straightforward process. All you need is

a valid e-mail address,
a valid phone number you can be reached at (make sure the phone is nearby, you will be called during sign-up!),
and a valid credit card number

The sign-up URL is http://aws.amazon.com/ec2. It’s even easier if you are already an Amazon customer because you can use your existing credit card information and e-mail address.

Note: Billing data verification usually happens within minutes. It might take a couple of hours though. Currently (April 2010) the error message you get is not very meaningful:
“It looks like you don’t have an EC2 account*. To use the Amazon EC2 Console you must first sign up for Amazon EC2. It’s quick & free to sign up.”
Just be patient and wait for a little longer.

2. Starting an “Microsoft Web Platform – WordPress” Instance

Once you are signed up successfully you will have access to the Amazon EC2 Management Console. The URL is https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/home.

Once you are logged in make sure you switch your region to “US West”. The Microsoft Web Platform images are currently only available in the US West region. Before we do anything lets set up the firewall rules (called Security Groups in Amazon lingo) for your WordPress instance.

Firewall Rules

Select the item “Security Groups” on the left hand side. Your existing Security Groups will show in the center pane. Click the “Create Security Group” button on top.

Name the new group you are about to create, for example “Microsoft Web Platform Firewall Rules”.

You want to configure the following rules:

RDP is needed so you can connect via Remote Desktop to your Amazon EC2 instance. The current “Source (IP or group)” settings allows these connections from any IP address. Please lock down this settings if you have more stringent security requirements.
HTTP is needed so your customers can connect via HTTP your Amazon EC2 instance.
HTTPS is needed if you plan to use SSL. You don’t need this setting if you do not plan to use SSL.
Port 8172 is opened to allow remote administration of IIS and publishing of content via Visual Studio 2010. You don’t have to open port 8172 if you do not plan to use remote administration or remote content publishing.

Now we are ready to launch an EC2 DotNetNuke instance.

Launching an DotNetNuke Instance

Click the “Instances” menu item on the left hand sid eand click the ”Launch Instance” button.

Now select “Community Images” in the resulting dialog.

By typing “microsoft/” in the “Community AMIs” dialog you will reduce the selection to the four Microsoft images:
Press “Select” in the “Microsoft Web Platform – WordPress …” row.

In the next dialog page (Instance Details) you can select how much computing power you want to have for your WordPress instance. It’s probably prudent to start with type small. Click the “Continue” button. Nothing to worry about on the next page either. Just click “Continue” at the bottom of the “Advanced Instance Options” dialog. Now we are getting to the “Create Key Pair” dialog.

If you already have a key, simply use it. If not you have to create one by entering a name for your key pair and clicking the “Create & Download Key Pair” button. As soon as you click the button a key pair will be created by Amazon an you are asked by your browser to download it. Save the file in a location where you will find it later. The key pair you created will allow you to decrypt the Administrator password that Amazon creates for your WordPress instance. Click the “Continue” button.

Note: Internet Explorer might not show the download dialog that asks you where to save the key pair file. If that happens to you, please look for the file (.pem) in Internet Explorers Temporary Files folder. On Windows 7 search for *.pem in “%userprofile%\ AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files”. Make sure you copy the .pem file to a more permanent directory .

Once you created your key pair you can configure firewall rules. You could for example only allow HTTP requests to the machine. Amazon calls firewall rules “Security Groups” which is a bit confusing if you ask me. For this demo we are picking the “default” Security Group which doesn’t put any firewall restrictions on the instance. You might want to configure these settings to be a bit more restrictive later on.
Click “Continue” to move to the “Launch” page. The only thing left to do on the summary page is to press the big “Launch” button. Once you do that Amazon EC2 will spin up your personal virtual instance of our WordPress image. Good job. It’s time to get some coffee. Spinning up your instance will take some time, usually around 3 to 5 minutes.

3. Retrieving the Administrator Password

After finishing the “Launch Instance” wizard you should be back on the main page of the AWS Management Console. Click the “Instances” link to figure out how your WordPress instance is doing.

You should see something like this:

Right click on the row and select the “Get Windows Password” menu item.

Now it’s time to use the key pair file (.PEM) that you created before. If the password is already available (you might have to wait a couple of minutes as said before) you will see the following dialog:

Open the .PEM file in notepad and copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl+A selects all, Ctrl+C copies it into the clipboard). Now paste the contents into the textbox of the dialog (Ctrl+V). Click the “Decrypt” button.

Note: Because decryption is a very CPU intensive operation you might run into the following security dialog if you use Internet Explorer: Contrary to intuition you have to press “No” to go on. You probably have to hit “No” a couple of times to get your password decrypted. More details on this security feature can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/175500
If you are interested in a more permanent fix you can execute the following command on command-line: reg add “HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Styles” /v MaxScriptStatements /t REG_DWORD /d 0x5F5E100
By setting the MaxScriptStatements to 100,000,000 (0x5F5E100) I don’t see any security popups anymore.

Once the password is decrypted write it down or copy it to the clipboard and close the dialog. Finally we are ready to connect to the WordPress instance. Right click the instance and select “Connect”.

Click “Download shortcut file” in the dialog that follows:

The file to be downloaded is an .RDP file that has all the right settings to connect you to the EC2 instance in the cloud. Click “Open” if you use IE or double click the file in Firefoxes Download window and a Remote Desktop session is established. When Remote Desktop asks you for credentials you simply enter the username “Administrator” and the password that we retrieved previously.
Once connected you will get logged on to the remote machine. Don’t get to impatient because after the logon it will take a few moments until the WordPress install kicks in.

4. Finalization of the WordPress Installation

The initial logon will automatically launch the WordPress installation via the Web Platform Installer. You should see the following dialog:

Just click “Install” and you will be asked if it is ok to download the latest WordPress and MySQL bits. Most likely a local copy will be used for the install. Only if newer bits are available Web Platform Installer will go out and download new binaries. This should only take seconds given Amazon’s bandwidth.

Next you get asked for your MySQL password. Pick a good one!

After the MySQL install Web Platform Installer asks you some additional questions with regards to your WordPress installation.

Step 1 of 2 in Web Platform Installer

You can leave everything as it is. Only one change you might want to consider:
If you want to install wordpress as the root of your site you might want to remove the string “wordpress” in the “Application name” textbox. If you don’t do that you have to always enter http://%3cname-of-your-site/wordpress. Leaving the field empty will put the wordpress files into the root of the Default Web Site, i.e. you can enter http://%3cname-of-your-website/> to get to your WordPress blog. If you install WordPress in the root you will get a popup that warns you about overwriting content. That’s ok though. It only overwrites IIS’s default home page.

Click “Yes” and then “Continue”.

Now the last few settings – Step 2 of 2

To make the WordPress install successful you need to configure WordPress’s MySQL connection and the credentials you want to use to administer WordPress. Enter the MySQL password you picked previously as the Database Administrator Password. These credentials will be used to create the wordpress database within MySQL.

Then pick some new credentials for the user account that WordPress itself uses to connect to the WordPress database in MySQL:

Everything else can be left in place without impacting the installation.
Once the install finishes you can get started with WordPress. Click the “Launch WordPress” link on the final Web Platform Installer page:

Now you are ready to go and you can customize WordPress to your liking.

One last tip: You can get to your blog from outside the Remote Desktop session. Your instance has a public DNS address you can use.

Copy the public DNS name shown in the AWS Management Console to the clipboard and enter it into the browser. If you need a more permanent DNS address you have to register a DNS name and also get an Elastic IP address from Amazon. But this is a story for another day.

Summary

It’s amazing how easy it now is to get a dedicated Web server on the internet and get started. With the help of Amazon EC2, the Microsoft Web Platform Installer and WordPress we just deployed a working and fully configured blog application to the cloud. Let us know what you think about this:Questions or feedback? Send itto ec2@microsoft.com.

Full Credit to Thomad at: ISS.Net

Another Educational Institute Moves Into the Cloud (Digital Media Arts College)

cloudtweaks — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:56:43 +0000

Enrollment Rx, LLC is pleased to announce that Digital Media Arts College (DMAC) has selected Enrollment Rx as the Enrollment Management CRM solution for the school’s Marketing and Admissions Departments.

Schiller Park, IL (PRWEB) July 16, 2010

Enrollment Rx, LLC is pleased to announce that Digital Media Arts College (DMAC) has selected Enrollment Rx as the Enrollment Management CRM solution for the school’s Marketing and Admissions Departments. Enrollment Rx augments DMAC’s legacy Student Information System (SIS) with a powerful product that manages the full life-cycle of prospective students, and empowers the school to accurately track, control, and report upon their entire Enrollment pool.

“We are very excited to integrate the capabilities of Enrollment Rx’s CRM solution; effectively streamlining our inquiry and admissions processes and workflows, improving and managing our relationships with prospective students and managing our budgets and campaign effectiveness. With the backing of Salesforce, we believe this is the optimal solution for our college’s current state and future growth,” said Corey Ganzman, Director of Marketing, Digital Media Arts College.

Lawrence Levy, President of Enrollment Rx said, “We are very pleased to welcome DMAC to our fast growing list of Higher Ed clients that are adopting our cloud computing platform to manage prospect relationships. DMAC was facing the typical Enrollment Management challenges we see in many Higher Ed institutions: namely limited transparency, scalability, and efficiencies. By deploying our world-class Higher Ed CRM solution, built on the industry-leading Force.com platform, DMAC can take charge of their entire inquiry management process, from initial inquiry through acceptance. No other Higher Ed CRM vendor can offer the same blend of industry-leading technology, with the best potential for future growth, at the lowest total cost of ownership. Cloud computing is transforming Higher Education, and Enrollment Rx is pioneering the way in expanding the Force.com presence in the Ed Tech space. We look forward to seeing the positive impact that Enrollment Rx will have on DMAC over the weeks and months ahead, as the school adopts the new system to improve their enrollment yield.”

About DMAC

Digital Media Arts College (DMAC) is a private, accredited arts college in the heart of South Florida offering specialized Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in Computer Animation and Graphic Design (with a concentration in Advertising Design option) as well as Master of Fine Arts degrees in Special Effects Animation and Graphic Design. Founded in 2001, the college provides its students a multitude of opportunities to express their creativity while developing artistic fundamentals and learning current technological standards. The campus is located at 5400 Broken Sound Boulevard in Boca Raton, Florida.

About Enrollment Rx

Enrollment Rx, LLC delivers cloud based solutions for Student Relationship Management in the Education Sector. Built entirely on the Force.com platform from salesforce.com, Enrollment Rx delivers powerful CRM and SIS solutions to academic institutions both large and small. Enrollment Rx is well-immersed in the cloud computing revolution and combines that understanding with our strong Higher Education background, to deliver world-class solutions that are second to none in terms of functionality, infrastructure, and scalability.

CloudTweaks Update! New Cloud Computing Job Board!!

cloudtweaks — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:58:07 +0000

CloudTweaks is pleased to offer our visitors the opportunity to find and post jobs related to SaaS and Cloud Computing. Visit: CloudTweaks Jobs for more information.

Companies Currently Hiring

The cloud job market: A golden opportunity for IT pros

cloudtweaks — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:42:22 +0000

With the market heating up for cloud computing talent, many are rushing to learn more and updating their résumés — and a few are lying

We’re seeing a lot of strategic and well-publicized hires in the cloud computing world these days, such as Cisco Systems grabbing up cloud computing mainstay and former Sun Microsystems executive Lew Tucker to oversee its cloud computing initiatives. But most of the brokering of cloud computing talent is done behind the scenes. Most companies are considering or actually moving to cloud computing, and they’re seeking their own experts to make the move. Can you cash in?

However, there are far too many positions chasing far too few qualified candidates these days, and that’s causing some organizations to hire less-than-qualified people. It’s also causing the cost of those people to go way up. I’m interrupted daily by a headhunter looking for “cloud people,” offering executive-level comp packages for very technical and tactical gigs. Who says unemployment is still a problem?

So how do you take advantage of this spike in need for cloud computing ninjas?

First, read all you can get your hands on. With the hype raging around cloud computing, there are actually only a handful of books that do a good job teaching about the cloud. Make sure to purchase books that work through the requirements and the architecture first, and then learn specific cloud computing technologies. You need a good context. Also, read all of the better cloud blogs: Having current knowledge is key these days.

Second, learn by doing. One of the great things about cloud computing is that the services are often free for a trial period. Even if there is a cost, it’s nominal. So get that Google App Engine account or play around with Amazon Web Services to see how this stuff actually works. Build a few prototypes to undertand the skills along with the concepts.

Finally, don’t “cloudwash” yourself. Many people seeking to take advantage of the need for cloud computing people are “cloudwashing” their résumés to make themselves seem more relevant. This is pretty transparent to anybody in the know, and it nearly guarantees your stuff tossed will be tossed in the trash. Instead, focus on relevant, real skills and knowledge. Most employers understand this is new stuff, and it shouldn’t count against you if you don’t have two decades of cloud computing experience. After all, who does?

Full Credit to: David Linthicum at InfoWorld.com

Cloud Computing For Dummies Basic Cheat Sheet

cloudtweaks — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:49:07 +0000

Cloud Computing For Dummies Basic Cheat Sheet

Cloud computing models vary: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Manage your cloud computing service level via the surrounding management layer.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The IaaS layer offers storage and compute resources that developers and IT organizations can use to deliver business solutions.
Platform as a Service (PaaS). The PaaS layer offers black-box services with which developers can build applications on top of the compute infrastructure. This might include developer tools that are offered as a service to build services, or data access and database services, or billing services.
Software as a Service (SaaS). In the SaaS layer, the service provider hosts the software so you don’t need to install it, manage it, or buy hardware for it. All you have to do is connect and use it. SaaS Examples include customer relationship management as a service.

Deploying Public, Private, or Hybrid Clouds

Cloud computing happens on a public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud. Governance and security are crucial to computing on the cloud, whether the cloud is in your company’s firewall or not.

Public clouds are virtualized data centers outside of your company’s firewall. Generally, a service provider makes resources available to companies, on demand, over the public Internet.
Private clouds are virtualized cloud data centers inside your company’s firewall. It may also be a private space dedicated to your company within a cloud provider’s data center.
Hybrid clouds combine aspects of both public and private clouds.

Cloud Computing Characteristics

Cloud computing requires searching for a cloud provider. Whether your cloud is public, private, or hybrid, look for elasticity, scalability, provisioning, standardization, and billed usage:

Elasticity and scalability. The cloud is elastic, meaning that resource allocation can get bigger or smaller depending on demand. Elasticity enables scalability, which means that the cloud can scale upward for peak demand and downward for lighter demand. Scalability also means that an application can scale when adding users and when application requirements change.
Self-service provisioning. Cloud customers can provision cloud services without going through a lengthy process. You request an amount of computing, storage, software, process, or more from the service provider. After you use these resources, they can be automatically deprovisioned.
Standardized interfaces. Cloud services should have standardized APIs, which provide instructions on how two application or data sources can communicate with each other. A standardized interface lets the customer more easily link cloud services together.
Billing and service usage metering. You can be billed for resources as you use them. This pay-as-you-go model means usage is metered and you pay only for what you consume.

Cloud Computing Issues

Cloud computing issues span models (IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS) and types (public, private, or hybrid). Computing on the cloud requires vigilance about security, manageability, standards, governance, and compliance:

Cloud security. The same security principles that apply to on-site computing apply to cloud computing security.
- Identity management. Managing personal identity information so that access to computer resources, applications, data, and services is controlled properly.
- Detection and forensics. Separating legitimate from illegitimate activity.
- Encryption. Coding to protect your information assets.
Cloud manageability. You need a consistent view across both on-premises and cloud-based environments. This includes managing the assets provisioning as well as the quality of service (QOS) you’re receiving from your service provider.
Cloud standards. A standard is an agreed-upon approach for doing something. Cloud standards ensure interoperability, so you can take tools, applications, virtual images, and more, and use them in another cloud environment without having to do any rework. Portability lets you take one application or instance running on one vendor’s implementation and deploy it on another vendor’s implementation.
Cloud governance and compliance. Governance defines who’s responsible for what and the policies and procedures that your people or groups need to follow. Cloud governance requires governing your own infrastructure as well as infrastructure that you don’t totally control. Cloud governance has two key components: understanding compliance and risk and business performance goals.
Data in the cloud. Managing data in the cloud requires data security and privacy, including controls for moving data from point A to point B. It also includes managing data storage and the resources for large-scale data processing.

The 3rd International SOA Symposium and the 2nd International Cloud

cloudtweaks — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:47:56 +0000

The 3rd International SOA Symposium and the 2nd International Cloud Symposium continue to be the largest and most comprehensive SOA event of the year. This event is dedicated to showcasing the world’s leading SOA experts and authors from around the world.

Themes and topics are as follows: Exploring Modern Service Technologies & Practices

Service Architecture & Service Engineering

Service Governance & Scalability

SOA Case Studies & Strategic Planning

REST Service Design & RESTful SOA

Service Security & Policies

Semantic Services & Patterns

Service Modeling & BPM

Find out More at: SoaSymposium

Google Cloud IO Launch – Live Webstream at 10:45 am EST Watch Now!

cloudtweaks — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:46:04 +0000

Coming up at 10:45 EDT: Joseph Smarr, Technical Staff at Google

Cloud Tools – Deploying Java Spring and Grails applications

cloudtweaks — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:09:05 +0000

Cloud Tools is a set of tools for deploying, managing and testing Java EE applications on Amazon’s Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) and VMware environments. There are three main parts to Cloud Tools:

EC2Deploy – the core framework. This framework manages virtual instances (e.g. EC2), configures MySQL, Tomcat, Terracotta and Apache and deploys the application. See this blog entry for an overview.
Maven and Grails plugins that use EC2Deploy to deploy an application
Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) that are configured to run Tomcat and work with EC2Deploy. See list of installed software.

NEW: Cloud Tools now has adaptors for vSphere and vCloud (Terremark vCloudExpress platform), see the blog entry.

Grails Plugin

The Grails plugin makes it easy to deploy a Grails application to the cloud. It takes care of configuring MySQL, Tomcat and Apache and deploys the application. The plugin provides many scripts including:

cloud-tools-deploy – deploy the web application
cloud-tools-describe – display information about the running EC2 instances
cloud-tools-redeploy – redeploys the application
cloud-tools-stop – terminates the instances

You can download the plugin from here. See GettingStartedWithTheCloudToolsGrailsPlugin for information about configuring the plugin.

Maven Plugin

The Maven plugin is an easy way to use Cloud Tools. Once you have configured the plugin in the pom.xml you can deploy your web application with “mvn cloudtools:deploy”. This goal will:

Launch the specified number of Amazon EC2 instances
Configure a MySQL master database: create the schema, and run your database initialization scripts
Configure zero or more MySQL slaves (optionally in a different availability zone)
Upload your web application to EC2
Configure one or more Tomcat servers and deploy your web application
Configure an Apache instance to load balance across the Tomcat servers

The Cloud Tools maven plugin also supports the following other goals:

cloudtools:jmeter – runs a load test
cloudtools:redeploy – redeploys the web application
cloudtools:dbsave – save a database snapshot in S3
cloudtools:dbrestore – restore the database from S3
cloudtools:clone – creates a copy of the cluster
cloudtools:describe – describes the cluster
cloudtools:list – lists the available clusters
cloudtools:stop – shutdown the cluster

See these instructions on using the Maven plugin.

Source: Cloud Foundry

How to Negotiate a Better Cloud Computing Contract

cloudtweaks — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:34:09 +0000

The typical cloud computing contract can look downright simple to an experienced IT outsourcing customer accustomed to inking pacts hundreds of pages long that outline service levels and penalties, pricing and benchmarks, processes and procedures, security and business continuity requirements, and clauses delineating the rights and responsibilities of the IT services supplier and customer.

And that simplicity, say IT outsourcing experts, is the problem with cloud computing.

“Failure to understand the true meaning of the cloud and to address the serious legal and contractual issues associated with cloud computing can be catastrophic,” says Daniel Masur, a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of law firm Mayer Brown. “The data security issues are particularly challenging, and failure to address them in the contract can expose a customer to serious violations of applicable privacy laws.”

If a cloud services contract (whether it’s for software-, infrastructure- or platform-as a service) seems less complex, that’s because it’s designed to offer products and services “as is”–without any vendor representations or warranties, responsibility for adequate security or data protection, or liability for damages, says Masur. (See Cloud-Computing Services: “Fine Print” Disappointment Forecasted.)

Cloud service providers will tell you the simplicity is precisely the point. They can offer customers low-cost, instantly available, pay-per-use options for everything from infrastructure on-demand to desktop support to business applications only by pooling resources and putting the onus for issues like data location or disaster recovery on the client. Adding more robust contractual protections erodes their value proposition.

“It is reasonable for vendors, particularly those who provide both traditional and cloud-type services, to point out that the further they are getting away from standard contracts–and, by implication, standard services–the more difficult it is for them to close the business case,” says Doug Plotkin, head of U.S. sourcing for PA Consulting Group. “Much of the economic benefit that the cloud can deliver is predicated on the services–and the agreements–being standard.”

Thus, the average cloud contract on the street is a one-sided document with little room for customer-specific protection or customization, says Masur. The question for new cloud computing customers is, Should you sign on that dotted line?

And the frustrating answer is, Sometimes.

“More robust contractual protection may or may not be the correct answer,” says Masur. “It depends.”

When to Negotiate a Better Cloud Services Contract

Prospective cloud customers should take into account the criticality of the software, data or services in question, the unique issues associated with cloud computing, and the availability and price of various alternatives, says Masur.

For non-core business tools or services involving routine, non-sensitive data, it often makes sense for customers to accept looser contract terms for that lower price.

But when you’re considering a cloud-related option involving mission critical systems, regulated personal data or sensitive business intelligence, it’s time to call legal and get the red pens ready. “A customer may opt to require a private cloud, data encryption, geographic restrictions, and other such terms,” says Masur.

The biggest mistake new cloud services customers can make is either assuming the vendor’s contract provides adequate customer protection or presuming there’s no room to negotiate at all. “Many prospective customers assume incorrectly that cloud contracting is very similar to traditional IT contracting and either fail to address the issues unique to cloud computing, such as data privacy and compliance issues, or do so in a manner that increases their price without delivering commensurate value,” says Masur.

While many cloud providers have been reluctant to deviate from their standard contracts whether due to their own restrictive business models or industry inexperience, that’s beginning to change in this quickly evolving market.

For would-be cloud consumers looking to beef up the standard vendor agreement, the traditional IT outsourcing contract can be a good model. While there are no standard best practices in cloud contracting and no one-size-fits-all document capable of covering the spectrum of services available in the cloud, it can help to peruse a list of standard outsourcing provisions: privacy and security standards, regulatory and compliance issues, service level requirements and penalties, change management processes, business continuity, mandatory flow-down of all terms to subcontractors, termination rights.

Determine which are critical to address in your cloud services deal. After all, cloud computing is just another way to purchase software or infrastructure services, says Masur. Traditional outsourcing contract terms offer useful guidelines for cloud computing engagements, particularly infrastructure-as-a-service transactions involving sensitive data. And software licensing terms offer useful precedent for SaaS deals.

When Los Angeles and its IT outsourcing provider CSC signed a three-year Google Apps contract, the city was able to incorporate a surprising number of customer-friendly terms into the deal: a private cloud for sensitive data, mandatory data encryption, U.S.-only data storage and access, service levels with meaningful penalties, e-discovery functionality, a four-hour service restoration requirement, clearly defined exit rights, mandatory subcontractor flow-down, and broad indemnification obligation with unlimited liability for certain breaches.

The average cloud services customer may not be so lucky. You may find no cloud computing vendors willing to agree to your must-have terms–an indication you’re not ready to send that particular IT service into the cloud.

But watch out for the converse, as well–an overeager provider that agrees to everything.

“A provider can agree to anything, and if the service level penalty for failing to deliver is insignificant, it can be cheaper to fail than in fact to deliver,” says Plotkin. “This is a danger for all service providers. But it is probably a bit more of an issue because many of the cloud providers are less mature and have not gone through the crucible of having to keep promises as the larger, traditional providers have over many years.”
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/21/urnidgns852573C4006938800025770C0069DA68.DTL#ixzz0lpd4qeFs

Top 5 Cloud Computing Related Job Websites

cloudtweaks — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 12:39:56 +0000

The chart provides the 3-month moving total beginning in 2004 of permanent IT jobs citing Cloud Computing within the UK as a proportion of the total demand within the Miscellaneous category.

Worldwide chart from Indeed.

CloudTweaks.com - Cloud Computing Community » Education

How To Install and Run WordPress on AWS EC2?

Here is a fantastic illustration I’ve come across on how to get your WordPress site up and running in the cloud in 15 minutes. Very helpful!

Introduction

1. Amazon EC2 Sign-up

2. Starting an “Microsoft Web Platform – WordPress” Instance

Firewall Rules

Launching an DotNetNuke Instance

3. Retrieving the Administrator Password

4. Finalization of the WordPress Installation

Step 1 of 2 in Web Platform Installer

Now the last few settings – Step 2 of 2

Summary

Another Educational Institute Moves Into the Cloud (Digital Media Arts College)

Enrollment Rx, LLC is pleased to announce that Digital Media Arts College (DMAC) has selected Enrollment Rx as the Enrollment Management CRM solution for the school’s Marketing and Admissions Departments.

CloudTweaks Update! New Cloud Computing Job Board!!

CloudTweaks is pleased to offer our visitors the opportunity to find and post jobs related to SaaS and Cloud Computing. Visit: CloudTweaks Jobs for more information.

Companies Currently Hiring

The cloud job market: A golden opportunity for IT pros

With the market heating up for cloud computing talent, many are rushing to learn more and updating their résumés — and a few are lying

Cloud Computing For Dummies Basic Cheat Sheet

Cloud Computing For Dummies Basic Cheat Sheet

Deploying Public, Private, or Hybrid Clouds

Cloud Computing Characteristics

Cloud Computing Issues

The 3rd International SOA Symposium and the 2nd International Cloud

Google Cloud IO Launch – Live Webstream at 10:45 am EST Watch Now!

Cloud Tools – Deploying Java Spring and Grails applications

Grails Plugin

Maven Plugin

How to Negotiate a Better Cloud Computing Contract

Top 5 Cloud Computing Related Job Websites

Here are 5 websites which may help you find that Cloud Computing Job.

Cloudcomputingjobs.org

Cloudjobs.net

Indeed.com

Simply Hired

ITjobswatch.co.uk

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