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Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

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Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#31

Post by _pdeschen »

chanri wrote: post #8
latch wrote: post #6

AWS never fit into my definition of a "cloud" solution. It's a VPS with a rich API and a lot of addons (load balancer, EBS, S3...). From what I'm reading, Beanstalk changes this and clearly puts AWS in the category they've long claimed to be in. Not that their service wasn't great/unique before. This just puts them that much further ahead. It's along the lines of what Heroku does with their routing mesh layer (as far…

Amazon's execution with EC2 over the past few years has been excellent. If Amazon makes a Rails version of Beanstalk, Heroku should be worried as Beanstalk could take some market share from Heroku.

According to press release

“We’re working with AWS to provide an Elastic Beanstalk Ruby on Rails container that leverages the optimized Engine Yard stack which has been battle-tested by thousands of high-growth companies.” John Dillon, CEO of Engine Yard

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110119005591/en/Amaz...

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#32

Post by brown9-2 »

fookyong wrote: post #22
rmc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

automatic scaling would be a good benchmark for the true definition of cloud. You can do this with EC2. You can set up monitors based on CPU usage over a time period and it'll start new nodes if required. S3 is 'autoscaling' for serving files. Just upload your files and pay for what you use.

you'll still have to build your application in such a way that supports these new nodes, though. Sessions, load balancing etc. a "true" cloud would just handle all that stuff transparently.

Is there a "cloud" environment in which designing your application like this isn't necessary?

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#33

Post by brown9-2 »

riffraff wrote: post #20
mmelin wrote: post #3

Wow. The benefits of Google App Engine without the limitations? Sure, an app on GAE is probably cheaper in terms of monthly expense, but factor in the development costs for a Java team unfamiliar with App Engine and Beanstalk is probably a far better investment.

no, with different limitations I believe, e.g. no cool google storage, but only SDB or RDB (which may be ok anyway)

If you can use JDBC or SQL in your Java app with these Amazon solutions and not have to learn a new datastore API that's a pretty huge advantage.

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#34

Post by mumrah »

riffraff wrote: post #20
mmelin wrote: post #3

Wow. The benefits of Google App Engine without the limitations? Sure, an app on GAE is probably cheaper in terms of monthly expense, but factor in the development costs for a Java team unfamiliar with App Engine and Beanstalk is probably a far better investment.

no, with different limitations I believe, e.g. no cool google storage, but only SDB or RDB (which may be ok anyway)

AWS is not without it's "cool" storage: SimpleDB, S3, RDS. Not to mention, being within AWS with full control of your machines, you can setup any database you'd like.

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#36

Post by jimbokun »

fookyong wrote: post #22
rmc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

automatic scaling would be a good benchmark for the true definition of cloud. You can do this with EC2. You can set up monitors based on CPU usage over a time period and it'll start new nodes if required. S3 is 'autoscaling' for serving files. Just upload your files and pay for what you use.

you'll still have to build your application in such a way that supports these new nodes, though. Sessions, load balancing etc. a "true" cloud would just handle all that stuff transparently.

"a "true" cloud would just handle all that stuff transparently."

Be wary of leaky abstractions.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.htm...

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#37

Post by jread »

This is cool, but not earth shattering. It is essentially a management stack/abstraction layer/deployment tool on top of existing AWS services: EC2, CloudWatch, load balancing, route 53, autoscaling, AMIs. It is a PaaS sort of... but single-tenant and not in the same sense as a multi-tenant, higher level PaaS like AppEngine or Heroku. Elastic Beanstalk gives you flexibility (full root access - do whatever you want), but with that comes more responsibility from a management perspective, and more opportunities to shoot yourself in the foot.

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#38

Post by ecaroth »

Cool new feature. Not too tough to see this coming though. One of the biggest barriers of entry to AWS has always been scaling/deployment. With companies like Cloudkick and Scalr helping to alleviate this, but being somewhat platform agnostic (Cloudkick supports aws, rackspace cloud, etc) Amazon would want to have an all-encompasing solution that has more of a vendor-lock in to their products. With solutions like Beanstalk and their free web tier, AWS is becoming easier to step right into each day. I predict that in a few years there will be no such thing as shared web hosting...

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#39

Post by rbranson »

riffraff wrote: post #20
mmelin wrote: post #3

Wow. The benefits of Google App Engine without the limitations? Sure, an app on GAE is probably cheaper in terms of monthly expense, but factor in the development costs for a Java team unfamiliar with App Engine and Beanstalk is probably a far better investment.

no, with different limitations I believe, e.g. no cool google storage, but only SDB or RDB (which may be ok anyway)

I agree. It's definitely meh without a useful and truly scalable database. That's the hard part. SimpleDB isn't particularly useful, and RDB isn't particularly scalable.

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#40

Post by evanjacobs »

chanri wrote: post #8
latch wrote: post #6

AWS never fit into my definition of a "cloud" solution. It's a VPS with a rich API and a lot of addons (load balancer, EBS, S3...). From what I'm reading, Beanstalk changes this and clearly puts AWS in the category they've long claimed to be in. Not that their service wasn't great/unique before. This just puts them that much further ahead. It's along the lines of what Heroku does with their routing mesh layer (as far…

Amazon's execution with EC2 over the past few years has been excellent. If Amazon makes a Rails version of Beanstalk, Heroku should be worried as Beanstalk could take some market share from Heroku.

I was curious why Amazon let Heroku be acquired by Salesforce late last year. Now I know it's because they were already working on Beanstalk.
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