Amazon S3 goes down is a big news of today , when Amazon S3 goes down its takes down a lot of other clients with it and many many customers , the important question is not why Amazon went down but the alternate paradise that cloud computing is proposing is it reality or just a mirage .let us first remove some clouds from the term cloud computing and see what it is .

Cloud computing as the name suggests has something to do with cloud of boxes(hardware) and what do you get by putting a cloud of boxes — scalability . Each box (from now on for hardware boxes ) has similar system and is managed through a typical load balancer , which results in seamless response to requests , the USP hers is scalability you need more computing power you simply add more boxes

Source- readwriteweb.com

Now how it is different from traditional (well it is not that old as it sounds) system used for web applications like LAMP which is acronym for (Linux, Apache, My SQL, PHP/PERL/PYTHON),LAMP serves as a foundation on which powerful and scalable web applications can be developed but scalability is hindered by the limitation of MY SQL relational databases which is difficult to manage after a point of time .

Importance of Cloud computing to Startups

Cloud computing gives infinite scalability to startups and they donot have to worry about managing costly servers and hardware and data centers and can concentrate on their work

What it also does for a startup is it converts the large upfront fixed costs into minimal recurring costs which makes the job of bootstrapping very easy.

Let us look at a small startup and the data costs it will pay (Data For Amazon S3)

BANDWIDTH

	Cost of 1 Dollar (in Rs)	Amazon cost per GB of transfer (in dollars)	Average transfer per view (mb)	No of pageviews	Total Bandwidth Used (MB)	Bandwidth used in GB	Bandwidth cost (Rs)
First Scenario	40	0.17	2.5	1000000	2500000	2500	17000
Second Scenario	40	0.17	2.5	100000	250000	250	1700
Third Scenario	40	0.17	2.5	10000	25000	25	170

STORAGE

	Cost of 1 Dollar (in Rs)	Amazon cost per GB of storage (in dollars)	No of Items on Amazon	Average Item Size(MB)	Storage Used in GB	Storage Cost (in RS)
First Scenario	40	0.15	40000	2.5	100	600
Second Scenario	40	0.15	4000	2.5	10	60
Third Scenario	40	0.15	400	2.5	1	6

Requests (POST, PUT and GET)

	Cost of 1 Dollar (in Rs)	Amazon cost per Request	No of Put/Post Requests	Number of Views	Number of Get Requests	Cost of Requests(Rs)
First Scenario	40	0.01	40000	1000000	2000000	96
Second Scenario	40	0.01	4000	100000	200000	9.6
Third Scenario	40	0.01	400	10000	20000	0.96

As is clear from above data Amazon S3 provides a really cheaper way to run your web applications .

Cloud Computing probably brings in a radical change in how web applications are run by treating data storage and computing as a out of shelf product which you can buy or as Jeff Bezos aptly says it will be more akin to electricity for traditional industries , you use whatever you require and not construct a power plant at home

Coming back to the Amazon Service going down , it think taking cue from the electricity example it is not about why it is going down or how it is going down but about how frequently it is going down , i guess if it goes down once a a year not many of us will have a problem.

With Google also jumping on the bandwagon next few days are going to be crucial for cloud computing but fundamentally looking this is the future of different business models on web where specialized tasks are left foe specialists , though there are many issues like data security and others which will also have a bearing on how cloud computing evolves

Some of the top sites using Amazon S3

1. SmugMug
2. Altexa
3. Smartsheet.com
4. Alexa
5. ShareThis
6. DigitalChalk

List of Cloud Platforms, Providers, and Enablers

• 3Tera – AppLogic grid OS used as cloud computing platform by service providers and enterprises
• Agathon Group – Cloud provider. Services include highly available VPS, virtual private datacenters and ready-to-use LAMP stacks. Self-service ordering. Custom development and managed services available.
• Amazon Web Services – Amazon EC2/S3 (Hardware-a-a-S & Cloud Storage)
• Appistry – Cloud computing middleware - Enables easily scalable cloud computing in the enterprise.
• Bungee Connect – Provides end to end tools and systems required to develop, deploy and host web applications (Platform as a Service)
• CAM Solutions - SaaS Provider.  Cloud Event Management, Autonomics and Monitoring-as-a-Service(TM)
• Cassatt – Cassatt Active Response platform for enterprise clouds (using existing data center resources)
• CloudScale Networks – Cloud enabler.  Currently in private ALPHA only
• CloudStatus- CloudEnabler. Real-time performance trending of cloud infrastructure (currently AWS).
• Coherence – Oracle Coherence Data Grid for EC2 and other cloud platforms
• CohesiveFT – CohesiveFT Elastic Server On-Demand
• ElasticHosts – UK-based instant, on-demand servers in the cloud
• Enomaly Inc – Service Provider & Cloud Enabler – Developer of the Enomalism Elastic Computing Platform & Elastic Drive
• Flexiscale – Another instant provisioner of web servers with some advanced features like auto-scaling coming soon.
• Force.com – Salesforce.com’s application development platform (PaaS)
• GigaSpaces – middleware for the cloud, “cloudware”
• GoGrid – instant, on-demand servers offering “control in the cloud”. Deploy Windows/Linux servers via web-interface in minutes
• Google AppEngine – (PaaS)
• GridLayer – Cloud Provider.  A service by Layered Technologies that delivers Virtual Private Datacenters and virtual private servers from grids of commodity servers.
• Heroku – Ruby on Rails in their Cloud
• LayeredTechnologies - Cloud Provider. provider of on-demand hosting and cloud and utility computing solutions through its brand GridLayer.
• Kaavo’s IMOD is an easy to use online application.  Cloud Computing Made Easy.
• Microsoft Mesh – (PaaS)
• Mosso – Rackspace’s cloud hosting service
• Nasstar -  SaaS provider.  Business grade Hosted Desktop service, UK market leaders.
• Newservers – Instant provisioning of web servers either Windows or Linux
• Nirvanix – Cloud Storage
• Qrimp – An AJAX based PaaS
• RightScale – Cloud Enabler.  The RightScripts Launch Platform and Dashboard.

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