Demistifying EC2
Living without a cloud computing definition
Iwein Fuld

Iwein Fuld
Spring EC2
Integration
Elmar project
Messaging + OSGi
Lightweight SOA
ESB

Talking points
• Definitions
• What is EC2 (and what it’s not)
• Practicalities
• Experience / War stories

Cloud = the Thing

Definitions
a priori proposition: a proposition whose
justification does not rely upon experience
a posteriori proposition: a proposition whose
justification does rely upon experience

High Clouds (+6km)
• Cirrus: Thin feather-like crystal clouds.
• Cirrocumulus: Thin clouds that appear as small "cotton patches."
• Cirrostratus: Thin white clouds that resemble veils.
Middle Clouds (+3km)
• Altocumulus: Gray or white layer or patches of solid clouds with rounded shapes.
• Altostratus: Grayish or bluish layer of clouds that can obscure the Sun.
Low Clouds
• Stratus: Thin, gray sheet-like clouds with low bases; may bring drizzle and snow.
• Stratocumulus: Rounded cloud masses that form on top of a layer.
• Nimbostratus: Dark, gray shapeless cloud layers containing rain, snow, and ice
pellets.
Clouds with Vertical Development
• Cumulus: Fair-weather clouds with flat bases and domeshaped tops.
• Cumulonimbus: Large, dark, vertical clouds with bulging tops that bring showers,
thunder, and lightning.

Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically
scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service
over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or
control over the technology infrastructure in the "cloud" that
supports them.
????

“as a Service”
• CaaS
• SaaS
• PaaS
• IaaS

AWS
Availability Zone
Instance Volume
run upload volume inc.
EC2 EBS
instance bundle from snap backup
Secure Storage
AMI Snapshot
<guards>
Bucket
DevPay
S3

Let’s try

operations
• Manage (instances, IP’s, AMI’s)
• Use (ssh, sftp)
• applications (bundle volumes, startup
scripts)
• hardware agnostic

users
• Use http, xmpp, ...
• web apps
• node agnostic

AWS
x509 Manage
ssh
Admin
Use
http instance
User

Tools (EC2)
• ElasticFox
• AWS Toolkit for Eclipse
• command line

Tools (S3)
• S3 Browser (and plenty of alternatives)
• s3browse.com (for public buckets)

AWS is just hardware
• IaaS ≠ PaaS
• pro: you are in
control
• con: you have to DIY

AWS is just hardware
• IaaS
• pro: you are in
control
• con: you have to
speak Linux (or
worse)

Improvements
• Autoscaling: elasticgrid?
• Assembly: CohesiveFT?
• PaaS: GAE, Cloud Foundry?
• What would you pay for?

Powerful combinations
• EC2 + Messaging + OSGi
• Load balancing + SOA + Autoscaling

Service Node
Service Node
Service Node
Service Node
Service Node
Service Node
Load
Balancer
OSGI
container
Bus

Things to remember
• The term cloud computing isn’t very
meaningful, but this doesn’t mean it’s
useless
• Mastering a technology is hardly about
knowing how to use it, but much more
about knowing when not to use it.

What did we learn?
• Terminology used in AWS
• Tools
• Tips and tricks

The end