Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#51

Post by nir » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 8:44 PM UTC

saurik wrote: post #28

riffraff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To me, the limitations of App Engine are things like having to use a crippled version of the programming environment (as you don't get your own computer, so they've neutered things down to something "safe") and a bunch of limitations on CPU time, request length, and background processing. (edit: I had somehow read what you said to mean, "no, but with these new limitations", so arguably I should just delete my respons…

On the pro side, GAE gives you a pretty big free quota - http://therealurl.appspot.com handles >1m requests/day for about $4 a week.

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#52

Post by wmf » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 9:01 PM UTC

kumarshantanu wrote: post #11

Questions: What does Elastic BeanStalk mean for me? 1. Can my database auto-scale? 2. Can my JVM heap auto-scale beyond 2 GB without GC pauses?

It's built on EC2, so no and no.

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#53

Post by hallmark » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 9:43 PM UTC

It's easy to find holes in this announcement: Beanstalk doesn't have X, or they compare unfavorably to AppEngine and Heroku in certain areas. The bigger news here is that Amazon has staked a flag in the ground and decidedly shown their intention to enter the PaaS arena.

What has AWS done in the past? They've introduced a new product, then over time:

1) Made it easier to manage 2) Made it more automated 3) Added additional bits of functionality

Why would we not expect them to do the same with Beanstalk?

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#54

Post by technomancy » Wed, Jan 19, 2011, 11:16 PM UTC

Charuru wrote: post #27

chanri wrote: post #5

Just to be clear, this is only for Java apps right? This does not include PHP or Python?

This is just the first step, according to techcrunch ruby is next. http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/19/amazon-web-services-introdu...

Ruby already works, actually: http://blog.headius.com/2011/01/jruby-on-rails-on-amazon-ela...

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#55

Post by taylorbuley » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 12:47 AM UTC

ekiara wrote: post #29

Sounds like a great idea, though the naming is a bit unfortunate, there might be some confusion between the Git hosting and collaboration application: beanstalkapp.com.

An Amazon marketer might say that's Beanstalkapp's problem now

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#56

Post by jburwell » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 3:12 AM UTC

vladmars wrote: post #48

There's still plenty of room for competition. Beanstalk is limited in its ability to innovate because it is simply a management layer on top of AWS, which will restrict its potential feature offerings. I think smaller developers stand to reap huge productivity benefits from easier to use and more feature-rich platforms such as Heroku.

Why is being a "simple" management layer atop AWS limiting? Bear in mind that Heroku is, in your terms, simply a management layer atop AWS. Using it as a technical yardstick and considering Amazon's strong financial position and commitment, it stands to reason that there is a long runway for Beanstalk's innovation.

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#57

Post by mongodb » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 5:40 AM UTC

rbranson wrote: post #39

riffraff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Use MongoDB. It's web-scale.

Re: Introducing AWS Elastic Beanstalk

#58

Post by rmc » Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 12:41 PM UTC

riffraff wrote: post #21

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.

but storage cannot be scaled like this, you have to design your own mechanic to handle it.

Not necessarily. If you have a popular website you can put all your images and big content on S3 and just include the URLs in your HTML. It'll magically automatically scale then.