Databases in the Cloud

Ken North writes a great article in Dr. Dobb's Journal on Databases in the Cloud. Check out Dr. Dobb's | Databases in the Cloud: Elysian Fields or Briar Patch? | August 3, 2009:

The cloud is an elastic computing and data storage engine, a virtual network of servers, storage devices, and other computing resources. It's a major milestone in on-demand or utility computing, the evolutionary progeny of computer timesharing, high-performance networks and grid computing. The computer timesharing industry that emerged four decades ago pioneered the model for on-demand computing and pay-per-use resource sharing of storage and applications. More recently Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman advanced the concept of the grid to make large-scale computing networks accessible via a service model. Like computer timesharing and the grid, cloud computing often requires persistent storage so open source projects and commercial companies have responded with data store and database solutions.

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Comments

Kernel-based Virtual Machine hits Linux

Many congratulations to my good friend Moshe Bar and his team over at (stealth-mode startup) Qumranet . Techworld reports that the KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) project has been accepted into the 2.6.20 version of the Linux kernel distribution. KVM is an Open Source kernel driver that basically allows a Linux kernel to host virtual machines, as plain old Linux processes, that can run Linux or Windows (or other x86-based operating systems). It runs only on hardware that support Intel's VT instruction set (which is fine) and will soon support the AMD-V instruction set as well. This is cool for a number of reasons. It's Open Source, released under the GPL. It basically turns the Linux that we all know and love into a "hypervisor". Linux-as-hypervisor makes sense because Linux already knows how to manage devices, memory, processes, multi-cores, etc. VMware ESX is, essentially, a "hypervisor" - a small kernel, built on Linux as it turns out, that

Bill Coleman Joins 3tera Advisory Board

I think this move surprised a number of people, since Bill recently wrapped up Cassatt Corproation, getting the technology and people acquired by Computer Associates . However, I was not surprised at all. The announcement, via 3tera Welcomes Bill Coleman : You may or may not have seen the recent press realease. Bill Coleman, IT/Silicon Valley luminary, Founder and CEO of BEA Systems, has joined 3Tera’s Advisory Board. Yes, this alone is a great testimonial to what we have accomplished in our field. Getting dignitaries such as Bill does not come easy. But here’s the best part - this has a lot more than just marquee value and I doubt that Bill would have joined us if that was the case. Bill, especially since his most recent stint as Founder and CEO of Cassatt Systems, is an extremely knowledgeable visionary in the area of utility and Cloud Computing; and, data center automation. So, Bill will be extremely valuable, reviewing and tweaking both our business plans and techno

Big In Japan Open Sources Their Ruby On Rails Tools

The kind folks over at Big In Japan have graciously decided to Open Source the code they used to build their demo web sites . It's all Ruby on Rails code, and it's being released with a GPL license. The code trees being made available include: elfURL ~ URL Shortner FeedVault ~ OPML file storage FrankenFeed ~ RSS feed merger InstantFeed ~ RSS feeds via email QwikPing ~ Ping Server SocialMail ~ RSS via email Very cool. I just love the Open Source community . I have actually been writing some code of late, and it's great to have some reference code to check out. Not sure if I'm going to go with Ruby on Rails yet, however. And, for the record. I have no idea if this is big in Japan. Tags: Open Source , GPL , Ruby On Rails , Big In Japan , Brian Berliner , brianberliner

Brian Berliner's Brain

Search This Blog