I Cloud

Earlier today Apple announced a revolutionary set of services called iCloud.  I must say it sounds incredible to be able to edit a document, sync contacts, view my calendar, listen to music, read my electronic books, view my photos, and access my email from any internet enabled device. , It does seem like a great advantage to not have to upload to a cloud music service like the Amazon Cloud Player or Google Music, which iCloud offers via iTunes "scan and match" and I'm certain it will be another service I try in my attempt to find the best cloud experience.   I've been happily clouding for some time now, and hope that Apple does good things in the space.  Happy clouding.

Chromebook first dibs

Being a test pilot has some perks.  The latest of which is a special invitation to early released Chromebooks via the Gilt Groupe.  Below is the email I received earlier today inviting me to Gilt's privileged offering of the newest Chromebook.

Be the first to get a Chromebook.
Since we announced the Chrome Notebook Pilot Program back in December, we’ve been humbled by the amount of interest that we’ve received from users like you. We’re excited about the brand-new Samsung Chromebook that goes on sale on June 15. Fortunately, we’ve managed to get our hands on a few machines a little earlier, and we’d like to make these available to you, our biggest enthusiasts. When you buy your Chromebook, you’ll also be getting a limited edition, custom-fit Chrome sleeve designed by Rickshaw so you can carry your new Chromebook in style. Our good friends over at Gilt, the premier invitation-only shopping site, have agreed to put these Chromebooks up for sale -- but only for a very limited time.

Duostack acquired by dotCloud

A few weeks ago I wrote about utilizing the Duostack platform as a service to host a Node.js application on the cloud.  Today Duostack announced they were joining forces with dotCloud, another platform as a service provider.  Here is the announcement as I received it:

Duostack Announcement - May 24, 2011

We are pleased to announce that Duostack is joining forces with DotCloud.

 

DotCloud is a Platform as a Service that provides unsurpassed flexibility. Developers have the freedom to assemble their own deployment environment by selecting stack components on DotCloud, instead of being restricted to a limited stack configuration typical of cloud platforms. Supported components include PHP, Ruby, Python, Perl, Java, Node.js, MySQL, Redis, RabbitMQ, Solr, PostgreSQL, and now MongoDB.

 

As part of DotCloud, we will continue to raise the bar for cloud platforms and further our commitment as the best place to deploy apps.

 

See the full acquisition announcement here:

DotCloud Acquires Duostack, Expands Footprint in PaaS Market to Further "One Platform, Any Stack" Vision

 

What does this mean for apps hosted on Duostack?

Current Duostack developers will receive immediate access to DotCloud. Invite codes will be delivered by email.

 

Apps currently hosted on Duostack will remain online through the end of June 2011. We will provide assistance for migrating apps to DotCloud. More information about the transition will be available this week.

 

The Duostack name will be phased out. However, the best parts of the Duostack platform and the feedback from our beta program will be incorporated into DotCloud. This starts today as DotCloud launches support for MongoDB, and there is plenty more to come.

 

We are very happy to welcome you to DotCloud.

Chromebooks!

Yesterday, at Day 2 of Google I/O, it was officially announced that Chromebooks will be available in retail locations worldwide starting June 15th.  Perhaps even more exciting news was the mention that for Educational institutions (and businesses) these would be available at $20/month/user ($28/mo/user for business) which could be a huge savings (70% over traditional PCs according to the graphic here).

Here is the Keynote from Google I/O day two for those who missed it:

Duostack: Cloud Platform as a Service

I have been using and trying many of the all-in-one solutions for web-based development on my Cr-48, but what happens when your favorite editor does not deploy directly to where you want your app to live (cloud9)?  I tried this recently with a NodeJS app and a cloud platform (currently in beta) called Duostack.  For my NodeJS app, just as everyone else toying with Node, I reinvented reworked the wheel and used Ryan Dahl's (creator of NodeJS) basic chat application.  All I did was partition the client to act like it had multiple rooms rather than one group room as in the original.  That is not what this post is about. This post is about how easy it is to get a node instance up and running on Duostack.

Duostack is a super easy to use cloud platform as a service for Node and Ruby apps.  Databases that are available by default are MySQL, MongoDB, and Redis (the documentation states external DBs are welcome).  The deployments live on the Amazon EC2 by default, but there is 'cross-cloud reliability' that will allow for fail over to the Proactive Cloud in case of a possible Amazon outage.  Deployment is as simple as it could get with a cloud platform (well it could get simpler, but its super easy as you can read below). 

To setup Duostack I had to move away from Chrome OS and into Ubuntu on my Cr-48.  I followed the simple steps to get the command line interface installed.  I used the curl method versus the node package manager install and had my Duostack instance configured shortly thereafter.  So now to create a Duostack app.  This is even easier then setup of the command line client, simply type 'duostack create <yourappnamehere>' and you have it. Duostack uses Git to control deployment so deploying is also a snap, just feed the command 'git push duostack master' from your git repository, wait a few seconds while Duostack works the deployment magic, and you have your Duostack application deployed.  Mine lives here.  So far I am more than pleased with my Duostack beta access and invite anyone with interest in deploying a Node or Ruby app to a cloud platform to signup and give it a try.  I have a few other betas for platform as a service solutions to check out, but Duostack got first dibs by granting me beta access before the others.