Sudhir Kirloskar

Blessed with Baby Girl

2010-08-16T21:22:00.000-07:00

Cloud Computing Vendors (Azure - Part 5)

2009-12-04T04:58:00.000-08:00

As we have gained sufficient understanding of what cloud computing is, let’s take a look at who’s offering what in cloud computing platform.

Google App Engine:
Google App Engine is a platform provided by google, for developing and hosting your apps in google’s data centers. It is built closely around Google OS. Its good for those developers who are familiar with Google OS and related framework. It is still in beta stage.

Amazon Web Services.
Offered by Amazon, these are collection of remote computing services. You can even deploy and run Microsoft applications here. It offers all components of a basic cloud computing infrastructure like compute, storage, database management and queue. This available commercially for everyone.

Personally, I have not deployed any solutions on these two platforms, so I will prefer to speak less about it.

Microsoft Windows Azure:
This is my favorite. Microsoft provides ‘Windows Azure’ as a cloud computing platform. Azure, is a platform for executing windows applications on cloud. It also stores data on cloud. Azure is an operating system that runs on machines in Microsoft data centers. The most important element for going with Azure is its integration with .net and Visual Studio. It supports any .net language and provides a tight integration with Visual Studio .net. You will get ready-to-use templates in your Visual Studio that helps you to develop and deploy cloud solutions. It is still in beta stage and will be available officially around Jan 2010. We will start discussion Azure and its components, in more details in next posts.

Previous Post

Comparing ‘Cloud Computing’ to Rent-A-Car (Azure - Part 4)

2009-12-03T00:52:00.001-08:00

Following comparison might speed up, digesting ‘Cloud Computing’ concept.

Imagine, ‘Tata Motors’ has just launched a nation-wide ‘Car-Rental’ service. Assume that with that service, renting a car has become dirt cheap. And they are passing cost benefits, of their scale of operations, to consumers. Assume, it has become so cheap that people are giving second thought before buying a car.

The repercussions…?? Definitely, you will be more than happy. You are going to save money for every imaginable reason. You don’t have to buy the car. No worry of fixing accidental repairs. No more Parking Tickets. No worry of depreciation. No need to hire the driver. No need to spend money on maintenance of the car. No need to buy insurance. No worry of resale hassle, and its valuation. Pure joy of paying, by “per km”. How does it feel? No doubt. Comfortable. (Rather I’m feeling, that it is such a great idea, I should discuss it with Ratan, Anil or Mukesh) :-)

Fun apart. But if you just think aloud, ‘Cloud Computing’ might be beneficial in similar ways, in days to come. It will keep you away from the hassle of buying hardware and licenses before starting a new project. No more IT hardware / helpdesk-support personnel required. No more patch management. No more worries of hardware upgradation and license renewal with every passing year. No more depreciating assets. No more questions of what to do with the investment, once the project is over. No more worries of scaling up and out the infrastructure, after user increases. Just enjoying pure joy of ‘Pay per Transactions', while leaving all these worries to 'cloud vendor'.

Hope this comparison helps more, to understand ‘Cloud Computing’.

With these posts, I'm planning to wind-up discussing 'cloud computing' at a high level. And in next post we will try to reach more closer to this cloud.

Earlier Post: Part 3

Cloud Computing. Concept behind it. (Azure - Part 3)

2009-12-01T01:46:00.001-08:00

How many times you have deleted older files and folders, just to make space for new files and apps? What if you don’t have to do it from today onwards?

The concept of cloud computing is very simple. Imagine you are working with a very low end PC. For example, let’s say there’s no sufficient hard disk space. Even the processor, RAM and every other aspect of configuration is too basic. But you want to host your application that requires high memory, disk-space and bandwidth.

Here, the solution would be to connect your PC to internet. Connect to a super-computer, and host your application. Very simple. Isn’t it?

Taking it forward, this discussed, so called supercomputer, is nothing, but a vast network of machines, providing combined storage, memory and infrastructure. Lets see if this diagram will be able to explain it at high level.

It also takes its own backups at regular intervals and if one machine fails, another is swapped-in, without user knowing anything about it at all.

We’ll dive in more details in next post. Till that time watch dilbert on ‘Cloud Security’.

Links to related posts:
Link to Part 1
Link to Part 2
Next Part

Cloud : What’s in it for me? (Azure - Part 2)

2009-11-26T22:59:00.000-08:00

First let’s see how it works, and then we'll see how it helps you.

Cloud involves the large number of computer servers and other resources as a group. These are made available, in the form of their combined capacity. Cloud computing users are either Publishers (those who deploys the application on cloud) or Consumers (those who accesses these applications).

Now you know how it works, so let’s see if these benefits interest you…
1. No Maintenance: No client-side application deployment or maintenance.
2. No Capital Investments: Initial IT investments involved in traditional hosting server-based solutions, are avoided.
3. Reduced upgrade costs: Over time, as technology progresses, existing resources become obsolete. In traditional on-premise hosting, we always need to upgrade hardware. In cloud computing, what you worry is paying only usage fees.
4. Ready to use: We can cut down time spent in setting up the initial hardware and software installations.
5. Scalability: Applications can now quickly scale up or scale down their usage of services as per market demands, during peak hours of activity.
6. Reduced operating Costs : Operating costs are reduced drastically, almost 6 times less. (I will write a separate post for this)
7. More Focus on real work: People now can worry about their actual business and writing applications around it rather than how to build and maintain infrastructure to support those apps.

The list is long, but for a time being, lets stick to simplicity.

In next post, we'll try to cover its risks as well. Till that time enjoy virtualization with dilbert. :-)

Link to Part 1

Link to Part 3

Easiest Job in India

2009-11-25T01:28:00.001-08:00

How much Rs.500/- can buy you these days? Sure, we all know, not even the grocery for a week. But surprisingly you can start a well-reputed business, with that.

Unbelievable. Isn't it?

Yes. Only with Rs.500/- and without any knowledge, you can become ‘AMFI Certified Mutual Fund Agent’. All you have to do is fill up a form with couple of photos and give a very simplistic exam (that too objective). The questions asked in this exam are ridiculously simple. Anybody who knows how to read/write English can pass it after going through its preparation book.
So now, you are all set to advise people, where and how to invest their hard earned money. On top of it you’ll receive very attractive commission. And the best part is, no liability or risk will be passed to you. Scary!!! Isn’t it? Doctor, Engineers, CAs almost everybody needs be graduated from relevant stream. But the people from most important stream, ‘financial management’, can advice anybody recklessly without any knowledge of the subject matter.

He will definitely hide from you:

How expensive is this fund?
What is the brokerage cost?
What is the expense ratio?

Try to ask him questions like:

What is the profile of the fund manager and what’s his track record?
What is the performance record of the fund?
Compare that with the equivalent overall market and sector’s performance.
What are the risks associated with this fund? How are they different from other funds?
What is the fund size?
What is the fund’s cash management strategy? (i.e. how much % of funds they hold in cash?)

And if you think he is taking you for ride, switch him off.

Personally, I prefer, to see fund ratings from http://www.valueresearchonline.com/ and then decide where to invest.

So, be careful, the next time you ask for any advice to your mutual fund agent. And till next post, "Happy Investing" with Dilbert :-)

Cloud what??? (Azure - Part 1)

2009-11-24T02:21:00.000-08:00

So, just now, you have mastered your preferred language, framework and technology. But before the dust settles down, you are hearing organization’s push towards ‘Cloud Computing’. Now what's this??? You must be wondering, whose need is it anyway? Is it just a new gimmick or simply another buzzword to nicely decorate your resume.
…
So, lets take couple of examples to understand why would somebody use cloud computing.
Scenario (1)
Lets say I'm launching a site that provides information, snaps and videos of ongoing 20-20 cricket matches. Now I have my web site up and ready. If I'm opting traditional hosting with some ISP, I have to provision for the hardware/software requirement considering the peak activity. This means when the matches are going on, around 50,000 user might be using the data for 24 hours, and it will also require very high in and out bandwidth. Suppose I invest, considering this peak activity, most of the time, this capacity will be unused. Especially, when there are no cricket matches or once the 20-20 series is over.

Scenario (2)
Take another example. Imagine, you are a developer, struck by an idea in the midnight, about a new wonderful application (ofcourse wonderful. Everything looks so, atleast in its inception phase). It is going to provide awsome facility to its users and you in return are going to reap good amount of profit. But the problem is how and how much would you invest in infrastructure. How much would it be sufficient? Are you going to buy server class machines on your own? What will you do with the infra later? Or what to do with all those machines if you don't get sufficient users?

So, imagine a cloud computing as a solution for this. Imagine there is somebody out there, in cloud, who is providing everything that you'll require, on rent. Now your application is able to handle the peak time activity. And on the other hand, you charged only for what you have use. just like the latest cellphone-plan's "1 paisa billing". Isn't that amazing? Taking everything on rent and paying only for what you require, dynamically. At this stage, we will see it is as means of "Paying only for the computing, storage, bandwidth that you have used".

We will cover it in more details in next post. Till that time evaluate cloud computing with Dilbert.

Link to Part 2

अंदमान ट्रिप च्या टिप्स

2009-11-23T23:33:00.000-08:00

तर सगळ्यात महत्वाचं म्हणजे तुमच्याकडे जर फिरायला 6 किंवा जास्त दिवस असतील तरच अंदमान ला जा

इतर टिप्स

अंदमान पर्यन्त आणी परतीचा प्रवास फक्त विमानानच करा
overnight travel झाला असला तर पूर्ण आराम करुन मगच site seeing साठी जा
डासांपासून जपा
local site seeing साठी अंदमान मधल्या tour agency ची मदत घ्या. आम्ही Paradise tour agency कडून site seeing केलं होतं.
अंदमान ला sunrise आणी sunset एक दिड तास लवकरच होतो, त्या प्रमाणे site seeing plan होतं।
हेव्लोक, नील, बारा टांग ही बेटं नक्की बघा. तिथे भरपूर आणी सुंदर beaches आहेत. त्यासाठी ह्या ठिकाणी राहीलात तर सर्व व्यवस्थीत पहाता येइल ।
बरेचसे doctors आणि hospitals ६ वाजेपर्यंतच उपलब्ध असतात .

Andaman

2009-11-23T22:21:00.000-08:00

This is my first blog। I spent long time thinking on which should be my first article. Azure, SDS, VS 2010, Migrations to SharePoint. But then I thought, lets start it with the most interesting topic of mine. Travelling ... :-)

Last month I travelled to Andaman on my Diwali Vacation. That's one of the most awesome place in India. Even today, I close my eyes and just imagine that I'm at that Neel island or elephant beach; far away from crowd, relaxing on the golden sand and taking a look the crystal clear water. Even those memories refreshes me entirely.
Andaman is one of the, "must see before you die" places. Will cover more on what to see and how to make best of your trip in next blog.