Social networks
The economics of cloud computing
Feb 25th
The new big thing of the IT world is “cloud computing”, a general purpose technology that could provide a fundamental contribution to promote efficiency in the private and public sectors and promote growth, competition, and business creation.
Cloud computing is an Internet-based technology (hence “cloud”) which stores information in servers and provides it as an on-demand service. The economic impact of cloud computing will be substantial on both households and companies.
- On one side, consumers will be able to access all of their documents and data from any device (the home or work PC, the mobile phone, an internet point), as they already do for email services or social networks.
- On the other side, firms will be able to rent computing power (both hardware and software in their latest versions) and storage from a service provider, while paying on demand, as they already do for other inputs such as energy and electricity.
The former application will affect our lifestyles, but the latter will have a profound impact on the cost structure of all the industries. For instance, it can provide huge cost savings and greater efficiency in large areas of the public sector including hospitals and healthcare (especially to provide information and technologies in remote or poorer locations), education (especially for e-learning) and the activity of government agencies with periodic spikes in usage. Moreover, substantial positive externalities are expected because of energy savings: the improvement of energy efficiency may contribute to the reduction of total carbon emissions in a substantial way.
If we look at the private sector, again the introduction of cloud computing can provide cost savings. It can create multilateral network effects between businesses, and it can promote entry and innovation in all the sectors where IT costs are restrictive and are drastically reduced by the adoption of cloud computing. This last effect can have a large effect on the wider economy. Continue Reading…Full Source
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Cloud storage in a post-SQL world
Feb 24th
Since the rise of the Web, SQL-based relational databases have been the dominant structured storage technology behind online applications. The past few years have seen the emergence of the cloud as a compelling environment for online application development, bringing true utility computing into the infrastructure pantheon. But the cloud and SQL do not mix well, and multiple efforts are now underway to offer viable alternatives to the venerable database. In this article, I’ll review the forces that have led to this shift, and I’ll argue that while relational databases are by no means doomed, they will soon be joined in the cloud, and possibly out-shined by, new non-relational database technologies.
The trouble with SQL
For most developers, SQL-based relational databases work just fine. Support for SQL is extremely broad, setup has become reasonably straightforward, there are plenty of resources to help with management, and modern hardware allows a single machine to handle a lot of transactions quickly. For smaller projects, SQL databases can offer something close to a plug-and-play storage environment. But there are weaknesses, and for some teams these are big problems.
Foremost of the weaknesses of relational databases is their inability to scale horizontally. Some database packages allow teams with large budgets to scale vertically, to a point, using expensive “big iron” hardware, but others (most notably MySQL) run into architectural limitations long before the hardware is exhausted. (See page two of my prior article for a brief discussion.) Either way, there’s a ceiling there.
Despite steady improvement in the field of clustered databases, in the relational world these remain fairly limited both in feature-set and in scalability. We can confidently say that these limitations will not go away any time soon: Brewer’s Theorem (aka the CAP Theorem), demonstrated in 2002 by Gilbert & Lynch, says in effect that a system cannot have high Consistency, Availability, and Partition Tolerance simultaneously. SQL offers a variety of strict consistency guarantees (both ACID transactional semantics and data-integrity tools such as foreign keys), and for online applications, high availability is a must. Given this, partition tolerance—in effect meaning the system’s ability to withstand internal latency and failures—must be low, limiting the size of any reliable clustered database technology with SQL’s semantics.
Additionally, managing relational databases in a production environment can become labor intensive and error-prone. Each database package comes with its own world of configuration options, performance sensitivities, bugs, and tools. While these issues usually start small, they can become a drain on developers’ time and resources as the product matures and its needs become more complex. This complexity of management arises from the complexity of the database packages themselves; it is their very breadth of capabilities which makes them difficult to manage.
Finally, SQL encourages (but does not require) developers to perform data processing in the database itself, in addition to data storage. Much of the time, the easiest way to map two tables together is to use a JOIN, and the easiest way to sort the results is with an ORDER BY, and so forth. Doing so adds load to the database’s CPU, often a precious resource, while saving load on the application host—a bad trade-off that leads more quickly to the relational database’s scaling wall.
These issues alone have spurred the development of relational-database alternatives. But it is the cloud which will ultimately drive their success.
The promise of utility computing
The move to the cloud is arguably the most visible force in the world of online application development. Not everyone is moving, but as I argued in my last article, the cloud is going to be an increasingly common backbone for applications. From a developer’s perspective, cloud computing platforms (particularly in the up-and-coming Platform as a Service (PaaS) flavor) ideally offer infrastructure components as utility services rather than discrete units of servers running software. This simplified approach not only saves development time, but enables application scalability by offering what amounts to inexhaustible resources.
In this landscape, the conventional relational database is something of an alien. SQL itself enforces a server-centric view of the world: clients persistently connect to individual servers, each with their own namespace and no mutual awareness. Database servers are long-running and have configurations fairly specific to the hardware on which they run. Unpredictable resource contention means that sharing server resources between customers is risky beyond very small workloads. Because of this, cloud platform providers are offering relational databases as dedicated servers running on virtual machines, e.g., Amazon’s MySQL-based RDS, Heroku’s PostgreSQL-based database units, etc. But this approach resembles managed hosting much more than cloud computing—it is not a utility service. To offer developers truly scalable structured storage services, providers must turn away from SQL. Continue Reading at Ars Technica
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CloudCamp – Cloud Computing Event in London
Feb 10th
CloudCamp is an unconference where early adapters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas. With the rapid change occurring in the industry, we need a place we can meet to share our experiences, challenges and solutions. At CloudCamp, you are encouraged you to share your thoughts in several open discussions, as we strive for the advancement of Cloud Computing. End users, IT professionals and vendors are all encouraged to participate.
How To Participate in a CloudCamp
CloudCamp follows an interactive, unscripted unconference format. You can propose your own session or you can attend a session proposed by someone else. Either way, you are encouraged to engage in the discussion and “Vote with your feet”, which means … “find another session if you don’t find the session helpful”. Pick and choose from the conversations; rant and rave, or sit back and watch.
How it works
Other than the opening session, there is no pre-existing agenda. CloudCamp sessions will be determined using the Open Space (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology) process. Attendees will propose session topics during the opening session. Each proposed session will get its own room and attendees will choose which sessions they want to attend. This format encourages group discussion which is important when an industry like Cloud Computing is new.
London CloudCamps have a slightly more structured format than the pure unconferences run in the US, that’s the way we Brit’s seem to like it.
For the Unpanel we will select the panel members on the night (if you have expertise to share put yourself forward), the panel will answer questions from the floor. Any Unpanel discussions needed further debate will be voted on to become the topics for unconference discussion.
Timing
29th June 2010
2.30pm – 5.30pm
Attendance to the Camp is FREE
Simply register for your Free Exhibition pass and get access to the Cloud Camp unconference.
To register with our events partner click here
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Salesforce to offer social networking for companies – CloudTweaks.com
Nov 19th
Salesforce to offer social networking for companies
Salesforce Chatter gives a social networking angle to the company’s Web-based business services.
Salesforce.com on Wednesday announced a social networking service called Salesforce Chatter for its customers’ in-house operations, giving a corporate flavor to a technology that’s largely been for personal use.
Salesforce Chatter lets employees set up profiles to connect with coworkers, issue status updates to say what they’re up to, and subscribe to feeds from people–and from applications. Also for collaboration, it lets people join groups to share updates and content. And the service integrates with today’s two hot social-networking services, Twitter and Facebook.
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Twitter Vs Facebook History – Moving into the Cloud?
Jul 9th
Twitter Vs Facebook
HISTORY FACEBOOK
The advent of Facebook came about as a spin-off of a Harvard University version of Hot or Not called Facemash.[11] Mark Zuckerberg, while attending Harvard as a sophomore, concocted Facemash on October 28, 2003. Zuckerberg was blogging about a girl and trying to think of something to do to get her off his mind.[12] According to The Harvard Crimson, Facemash “used photos compiled from the online facebooks of nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the ‘hotter’ person.” To accomplish this, Zuckerberg hacked into the protected areas of Harvard’s computer network and copied the house’s private dormitory ID images. “Perhaps Harvard will squelch it for legal reasons without realizing its value as a venture that could possibly be expanded to other schools (maybe even ones with good-looking people … ),” Zuckerberg wrote in his personal blog. “But one thing is certain, and it’s that I’m a jerk for making this site. Oh well. Someone had to do it eventually … “[13] The site was quickly forwarded to several campus group list-servers but was shut down a few days later by the Harvard administration. Zuckerberg was charged by the administration with breach of security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy and faced expulsion, but ultimately the charges were dropped.[14]
The following semester, Zuckerberg founded “The Facebook”, originally located at thefacebook.com, on February 4, 2004.[15] “Everyone’s been talking a lot about a universal face book within Harvard,” Zuckerberg told The Harvard Crimson. “I think it’s kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week.”[16] Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard College, and within the first month, more than half the undergraduate population at Harvard was registered on the service.[17] Eduardo Saverin (business aspects), Dustin Moskovitz (programmer), Andrew McCollum (graphic artist), and Chris Hughes soon joined Zuckerberg to help promote the website. In March 2004, Facebook expanded to Stanford, Columbia, and Yale.[18] This expansion continued when it opened to all Ivy League and Boston area schools, and gradually most universities in Canada and the United States.[19] Facebook incorporated in the summer of 2004 and the entrepreneur Sean Parker, who had been informally advising Zuckerberg, became the company’s president.[20] In June 2004, Facebook moved its base of operations to Palo Alto, California.[18] The company dropped The from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com in 2005 for $200,000.[21]
Facebook launched a high school version in September 2005, which Zuckerberg called the next logical step.[22] At that time, high school networks required an invitation to join.[23] Facebook later expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft.[24] Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006 to everyone of ages 13 and older with a valid e-mail address.[25][26] In October 2008, Facebook announced that it was to set up its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.[27]
HISTORY TWITTER
A circa 2000 blueprint sketch by Jack Dorsey, envisioning a SMS-based social network.
The birth of Twitter materialized out of a “daylong brainstorming session” where board members of the podcasting company Odeo, in an attempt to break out of a creative slump, broke up into teams to come up with ideas. During this session, Jack Dorsey introduced the idea of a service that used SMS to tell small groups what an individual was doing, partly inspired by TXTMob[8], an sms group messaging project which is now defunct.
The working name was just “Status” for a while. It actually didn’t have a name. We were trying to name it, and mobile was a big aspect of the product early on … We liked the SMS aspect, and how you could update from anywhere and receive from anywhere.
We wanted to capture that in the name — we wanted to capture that feeling: the physical sensation that you’re buzzing your friend’s pocket. It’s like buzzing all over the world. So we did a bunch of name-storming, and we came up with the word “twitch,” because the phone kind of vibrates when it moves. But “twitch” is not a good product name because it doesn’t bring up the right imagery. So we looked in the dictionary for words around it, and we came across the word “twitter,” and it was just perfect. The definition was “a short burst of inconsequential information,” and “chirps from birds.” And that’s exactly what the product was.
—Jack Dorsey[9]
The original product name/codename for the service was named twttr; inspired by Flickr and the fact that American SMS short codes are five characters. The developers prototyped with “10958″ as short code, later changing it to “40404″ for “ease of use and memorability.”[8] Work on the project started on March 21, 2006 when Dorsey published the first Twitter message at 12:50 PM PST: “just setting up my twttr”.[10]
The first Twitter prototype was used as an internal service for Odeo employees, later launching publicly into a full-scale version in July 2006. In October 2006, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, Dorsey and other members of Odeo formed Obvious Corp and acquired Odeo and all of its assets – including Odeo.com and Twitter.com – from the investors and other shareholders.[11] Twitter later spun off into its own company in April 2007.[12]
The tipping point for Twitter’s popularity came at the 2007 South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas. During the event, usage tripled from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000.[13] According to Laughing Squid blogger Scott Beale, Twitter “absolutely rul[ed]” SXSW. Social software researcher Danah Boyd said Twitter “own[ed]” the festival.[14] “The Twitter people cleverly placed two 60-inch plasma screens in the conference hallways, exclusively streaming Twitter messages,” according to Newsweek’s Steven Levy. “Hundreds of conference-goers kept tabs on each other via constant twitters. Panelists and speakers mentioned the service, and the bloggers in attendance touted it. Soon everyone was buzzing and posting about this new thing that was sort of instant messaging and sort of blogging and maybe even a bit of sending a stream of telegrams.”[15] Also at the festival, Twitter won the SXSW Web Award. The team said, “We’d like to thank you in 140 characters or less. And we just did!”[16]
