Overview of Cloud Computing and how it can be used by startups. Case study on how the cloud helped the development of PriceChirp.com. Talk given to Barcamp NOLA 2009

1. Cloud Computing and Startups
Case Study: PriceChirp.com
Steven Evatt
Blog: http://www.evatt.com/blog
Web: http://PriceChirp.com
Twitter: @sevatt
NOLA Barcamp 2009

2. Today We'll Cover:
 Cloud Computing Basics
 Ruby on Rails Projects
 Case Study of PriceChirp.com
 Take Aways
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3. Ideas to Make $$
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4. What is Cloud Computing?
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5. Formal Definition: Cloud Computing
 Wikipedia
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.
 Comparisons
 Grid Computing
 Utility Computing
 Autonomic Computing
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6. Common Definition: Cloud Computing
 No consensus on the definition of
“Cloud Computing”. It is a generic
marketing term for any computing
resources on the internet.
 To many, it means:
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7. My Definition: Cloud Computing
 Cloud computing to me:
Using computer resources in the interwebs,
without real control over the hardware
specifications, it's location, and having the ability to
add or remove resources without capital expenses
and/or contracts, preferably in an automated
fashion.
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8. Benefits of the Cloud
 Application Building blocks
 Stable APIs
 Proven Infrastructures
 Low cost of entry
 No long term commitment
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9. Options other than the Cloud
 Cheap / Budget host
 GoDaddy, HostGator, WebHostGiant, etc...
 Dedicated hardware
 Colocation
 Hosting on your own hardware / internet
agreements
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10. Discussing Three Clouds
 Amazon Web Services
 Google App Engine
 The Rackspace Cloud / Slicehost
 Many More
Citrix, Google Apps, IBM, Microsoft, Sun, Zoho
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11. Amazon Web Services
 Offerings
 Hardware as a service – AWS-EC2
− Red Hat Enterprise, Windows Server 2003,
OpenSolaris, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Debian, etc...
− IBM DB2, Apache, IIS, Oracle 11g, MS SQL,
MySQL Enterprise, Ruby on Rails, Jboss, Java
Application Server, Windows Media Server, etc...
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12. Amazon Web Services
 Offerings
 Storage as a service – AWS-S3
 Database as a service – SimpleDB
 Queuing as a service – SQS
 CDN as a service – CloudFront
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13. AWS – Some Use Cases
 Startups
 Low entry point (10 cents an hour for a CPU)
 Can scale up to Terabytes of storage and
thousands of servers with the same price structure
 Everything is automated and has programmatic
access (No calls to system admin to configure or
restart a server)
 Enterprise
 Performance testing
 Compatibility testing
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14. Google App Engine
 Exposes the Google Infrastructure
 The Python Runtime – (webapp, Django, CherryPy, Pylons,
Web.py)
 Datastore API (BigTable) – Google's Database
 Images API – Image manipulation service
 Mail API – Send mail from your app
 Memcache API – Distributed memory cache
 URL Fetch API – Access other hosts from your app
 User API – Integrate Google users with your app
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15. Google App Engine
 Costs
 Free for 500 MB storage and 5 million page views
 $0.10 – $0.12 per CPU core-hour
 $0.15 – $0.18 per GB-month of storage
 $0.11 – $0.13 per GB outgoing bandwidth
 $0.09 – $0.11 per GB incoming bandwidth
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16. Google App Engine
 Bonuses
 Automatic scaling
 Using the same infrastructure Google uses
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17. Google App Engine
 Issues
 Python
 If not starting from scratch, expect a complete
re-write
 BigTable – must rethink the way you use a DB
− Not a relation DB
− Can only query indexed data
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18. The Rackspace Cloud / Slicehost
 Offerings
 Hardware as a service – Cloud Servers
 Storage as a service – Cloud Files
 Compared to Amazon AWS
 Utility Billing
 Persistent data
 Only support Linux instances
 Support smaller instances, so they have
less expensive options
 Slicehost is the same as The Rackspace
Cloud with flat billing
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19. Rackspace / Slicehost Rates
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20. The Choice for PriceChirp
 What part of the cloud is right for PriceChirp?
 Slicehost
− Support Linux
− Static IP included
− Persistent data
− Root access
− Full support for Ruby on Rails
− Flat billing
− Only need a 512 MB instance
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21. Programming Frameworks
 Frameworks  CMS
 Ruby on Rails (Ruby)  Drupal (PHP)
 Sinatra (Ruby)  Joomla (PHP)
 Django (Python)  Wordpress (PHP)
 Zend (PHP)  MovableType (Perl)
 Cake (PHP)
 Catalyst (Perl)
 CodeIgniter (PHP)
 Symphony (PHP)
 Plone (Zope)
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22. Kung-Fu?
“Ruby on Rails is astounding. Using it is like
watching a kung-fu movie, where a dozen bad-
ass frameworks prepare to beat up on the little
newcomer only to be handed their asses in a
variety of imaginative ways.”
– Nathan Torkington, O'Reilly Program Chair for OSCON
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23. Ruby on Rails
 Ruby – fewer lines with more readable code, shorter
development times, simple but powerful
 Convention over configuration => almost no config files,
predefined directory structure, naming conventions => less
code, easier maintenance
 Best Practices: MVC, DRY, Testing
 Almost everything in Rails is Ruby code (SQL and JavaScript
are abstracted)
 Integrated AJAX support. Web services with REST.
 Good community, tools, and documentation
 Extracted from a real application
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24. Rails Frameworks
 Bort – Kick start a project
Restful Authentication, OpenID support, Exception
Notifier, Will Paginate
 Insoshi – Open source Social Networking
Activity feeds, profiles, photo sharing, comment
wall, blogs, forums, user messaging, and an admin
panel.
 Lovd By Less – Open Source Social Networking
Activity feeds, profiles, messaging, blogs, photo
galleries, site search for friends, Flickr and
YouTube integration
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25. Other Free Tools
 Google Analytics
 Enterprise-class web analytics
 Free for up to 5 million page view a month
 Google Webmaster Tools
 Monitor how google spiders your site
 Sitemaps
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26. What all this meant for PriceChirp
 Low setup / monthly costs
 Linux environment
 Powerful tools
 Quick prototyping and development
 Reliable service
 Excellent performance for the end user
 Low maintenance
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27. Take Aways
• The cloud provides a low
barrier to entry
• Frameworks simplify work
required to build a site
• Free tools
• Easier than you expect
• Try one of your ideas,
very little to lose
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28. Thanks for Coming!
Steven Evatt
Email: steven@evatt.com
Site: PriceChirp.com
Blog: www.evatt.com/blog
Twitter: @sevatt
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