On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 3:36 AM, Lester Caine <lester@...> wrote:

> **
>
>
> hrefofficemanager wrote:
> > Of course "cloud" is just a metaphor not a place.
> >
> > Not all public database servers run on virtual machines. Some are still
> physical machines and those often run database engines faster because there
> is no VMWare or VirtualBox overhead.
> >
> > Furthermore you can control the specification of a physical machine
> better than you can a virtual machine.
>
> While I can understand the theory behind some aspects of 'The Cloud', I
> don't
> see how it can work in the case of some of the 'real-time' applications
> that we
> use Firebird for? The data needs to be in one physical location with a
> physical
> processor talking to it? The idea that the raw data is floating around
> some
> 'virtual' storage mechanism just seems dangerous?
>
> My own view of how it could potentially work is one where there is a
> 'cloud' of
> data with a generic access method so I can ask the cloud who has
> information on
> me and create a local clone of how to access that data. That data can be
> located
> on a system anywhere, but surely there must be a static location that is
> storing
> it? Even in the case of simple static website pages which can be 'served'
> from
> virtual locations, there should be a physical static copy somewhere?
>
> --
> Lester Caine - G8HFL
> -----------------------------
> Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
> L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
> EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
> Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk
> Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk
>
>
>

Hi Lester,

We are running web applications that use Firebird as the database on
Amazon's EC2 cloud. Here is a handy article that goes into the hardware
and networking architecture behind their "cloud":
http://perfcap.blogspot.com/2011/03/understanding-and-using-amazon-ebs.html

I found it to be very helpful in understanding how best to get consistent
storage I/O.

But to answer your question on storage, Amazon lets you use what they call
Elastic Block Storage (EBS) which looks like a network mount that you can
use. This data is stored probably on a SAN somewhere, but you really don't
care -- it is persistent storage that only you have access to. The link
above goes into more detail on it if you are interested. Please note that
it may be out of date by now since Amazon now also offers high-speed
storage as well.

Of course, if you use Amazon for EC2 and EBS you are really using
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) which just gives you access to a set of
processing power and memory plus persistent storage -- you install your own
OS and application.

-steve

--
Steve Wiser
President
Specialized Business Software
6325 Cochran Road, Unit 1
Solon, OH 44139

www.specializedbusinesssoftware.com
www.docunym.com
(440) 542-9145 - fax (440) 542-9143
Toll Free: (866) 328-4936


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