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Cloud Application Architectures: Building Applications and Infrastructure in the Cloud
If you're involved in planning IT infrastructure as a network or system architect, system administrator, or developer, this book will help you adapt your skills to work with these highly scalable, highly redundant infrastructure services.
While analysts hotly debate the advantages and risks of cloud computing, IT staff and programmers are left to determine whether and how to put their applications into these virtualized services. Cloud Application Architectures provides answers -- and critical guidance -- on issues of cost, availability, performance, scaling, privacy, and security.
With Cloud Application Architectures , you will: To provide realistic examples of the book's principles in action, the author delves into some of the choices and operations available on Amazon Web Services, and includes high-level summaries of several of the other services available on the market today.
Cloud Application Architectures provides best practices that apply to every available cloud service. Learn how to make the transition to the cloud and prepare your web applications to succeed.
While analysts hotly debate the advantages and risks of cloud computing, IT staff and programmers are left to determine whether and how to put their applications into these virtualized services. Cloud Application Architectures provides answers -- and critical guidance -- on issues of cost, availability, performance, scaling, privacy, and security.
With Cloud Application Architectures , you will: To provide realistic examples of the book's principles in action, the author delves into some of the choices and operations available on Amazon Web Services, and includes high-level summaries of several of the other services available on the market today.
Cloud Application Architectures provides best practices that apply to every available cloud service. Learn how to make the transition to the cloud and prepare your web applications to succeed.
204 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
7 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 13, 2010
In Short: If you're looking for a book that explains how the AWS EC2 & S3 services can be used to implement transactional web applications on the IaaS model, while accommodating enterprise architectural needs, such as security, disaster recovery, and scalability, this is a good book for you.
This book provides a good introduction to cloud computing, but it focusses on a specific usage paradigm. As such the title is a little misleading; instead of providing a variety of cloud application architectural patterns, this book focusses on web application development using the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model. That is to say, the discussion covers a subset of IaaS; it neither covers other models (e.g. PaaS) or other uses of the IaaS model (workflow-based, sometimes called "scientific" or grid-based, applications).
The book also focusses on Amazon Web Services (AWS) as the implementation context. I think this is a practical approach, given the aforementioned usage focus as was just mentioned. The VAST majority of web application development using the IaaS model is implemented via AWS.
If you are a developer who knows that the usage pattern described above is applicable to your needs, this is a great book to get introduced to AWS prior to a design effort for a new project. It covers high-level (architectural) concerns such as reliability and security which should be considered at the outset of such a project. It is concise, and clearly written (assuming a technical audience).
If, however, you are looking for more of an overview, perhaps cataloguing all the various architectural options that fall within cloud computing, or if you are looking specifically for information on other cloud usage patterns (grid computing, Platform as a Service, or Software as a Service), you'll want a different book.
This book provides a good introduction to cloud computing, but it focusses on a specific usage paradigm. As such the title is a little misleading; instead of providing a variety of cloud application architectural patterns, this book focusses on web application development using the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model. That is to say, the discussion covers a subset of IaaS; it neither covers other models (e.g. PaaS) or other uses of the IaaS model (workflow-based, sometimes called "scientific" or grid-based, applications).
The book also focusses on Amazon Web Services (AWS) as the implementation context. I think this is a practical approach, given the aforementioned usage focus as was just mentioned. The VAST majority of web application development using the IaaS model is implemented via AWS.
If you are a developer who knows that the usage pattern described above is applicable to your needs, this is a great book to get introduced to AWS prior to a design effort for a new project. It covers high-level (architectural) concerns such as reliability and security which should be considered at the outset of such a project. It is concise, and clearly written (assuming a technical audience).
If, however, you are looking for more of an overview, perhaps cataloguing all the various architectural options that fall within cloud computing, or if you are looking specifically for information on other cloud usage patterns (grid computing, Platform as a Service, or Software as a Service), you'll want a different book.
January 17, 2012
I picked up this book really looking forward to the premise. Sadly the book was a let down on a number of fronts. Specifically:
The focus on Amazon AWS really detracted from general discussion of the cloud. Surely the edit could have rounded out the common refrain of you could do this with S3 but I'm not sure about anyone else.
There are a large number of missing diagrams in my print.
The author tends to lay out the flaws of traditional infrastructure followed by cloud issues with the same design problem. It makes you feel as though the cloud is only ready to be sold, not used in anger.
Repetition was common enough to be noticeable.
What is the point of Appendix A (a reference guide to the aws command line tools)? I'm trying to architect solutions not write operations manuals!
In fairness there is some good discussion about the approach to availability and some techniques for applying cloud solutions. However O'Reilly and the author could both do better than this rushed and flawed effort.�
The focus on Amazon AWS really detracted from general discussion of the cloud. Surely the edit could have rounded out the common refrain of you could do this with S3 but I'm not sure about anyone else.
There are a large number of missing diagrams in my print.
The author tends to lay out the flaws of traditional infrastructure followed by cloud issues with the same design problem. It makes you feel as though the cloud is only ready to be sold, not used in anger.
Repetition was common enough to be noticeable.
What is the point of Appendix A (a reference guide to the aws command line tools)? I'm trying to architect solutions not write operations manuals!
In fairness there is some good discussion about the approach to availability and some techniques for applying cloud solutions. However O'Reilly and the author could both do better than this rushed and flawed effort.�
March 15, 2011
Great book covering perhaps every aspect of IaaS part of cloud computing. Although it is now 2 years old (quite a long time in IT), it still has much to offer � economic aspect (which I'm missing in most books about cloud computing), security, design, scalability etc. I found this particular book the most informative and practice oriented from all books I read about cloud computing.
March 22, 2020
L’ho acquistato perchè volevo capirne di più su questa materia ma in realtà non è ciò che cercavo. È un libro dedicato agli addetti ai lavori o comunque a chi si appresta a convertire il proprio spazio di lavoro passando tutto nel cloud.
September 18, 2009
Mr Reese has taken on a loaded topic and in less 200 pages he succinctly gets his major points across on that most nebulous term; Cloud Computing.
Starting in the first chapter, Mr Reese begins with his definition of cloud:
1) it must be accessible from a web browser or web service api (non proprietary)
2) 0 capital expenditure to start
3) you pay for only what you use
These simple statements provide the baseline for the rest of the book.
From here he dives right into the meat of the matter. The majority of the book details the things you, and your organization, will need to keep in mind as you move, or contemplate the cloud. Some of this is very obvious; cost of ownership, security, disaster recovery, hardware costs, backup, scaling, etc but Mr Reese pulls out the threads that make the cloud different: both in good ways and bad.
For example, a new wrinkle for cloud is what happens when your cloud provider goes out of business or has a poorly worded injunction exposing all their data (including yours) to the federal government? This is not something you worry about when you own the servers. Mr Reese elegantly explains how you can make this something you don't need to worry about even in the cloud; as long as you use some type of encryption.
Another example of where the cloud provides a potentially huge win would be in disaster recovery. Here a cloud provider provides redundancy of location and with virtual machines you should be easily able to get your system up and running again fairly quickly as long as you've taken the proper precautions (snapshots and a sane backup strategy).
Throughout the entire book, he really drills in security in the cloud. In several of the chapters, not including the security chapter, he keeps coming back to how the little things you do in your design can have a huge impact on your overall security. This is a major worry point and a barrier of entry point for many and Mr Reese spends just the right amount of time explaining how you can truly mitigate the security risks.
Another thread that runs throughout the book is scaling your application. This, to me, is one of the bread and butter wins of cloud computing. Mr Reese talks to some designs that work, and some that don't, when it comes to scaling. While all scaling talk is high level, I believe he succeeds in getting you the reader, to know what questions to ask in your next architecture meeting.
The book is a great overview and it focuses you to ask the right questions when you are dealing with cloud computing. Especially on the Amazon system. Mr Reese takes great pains to point out that yes, he is biased in talking about Amazon since that what he knows. Two appendices do talk about GoGrid and RackSpace but those read more like slick marketing glossies. And that's one of the two failings of the book. The other minor quibble is that a few times Mr Reese tries to go into detail about how something is done on the Amazon cloud (especially EC2 and S3). This is a mistake given how high level this book is. The appendix on the EC2 instructions also seem a little out of place. However these are minor quibbles.
If you are looking for a great introduction to the cloud, what it is and how to think about it, then this is the book for you. If you are looking for something to help you program, interact and learn the API for say Amazon, this is not the book for you.
Starting in the first chapter, Mr Reese begins with his definition of cloud:
1) it must be accessible from a web browser or web service api (non proprietary)
2) 0 capital expenditure to start
3) you pay for only what you use
These simple statements provide the baseline for the rest of the book.
From here he dives right into the meat of the matter. The majority of the book details the things you, and your organization, will need to keep in mind as you move, or contemplate the cloud. Some of this is very obvious; cost of ownership, security, disaster recovery, hardware costs, backup, scaling, etc but Mr Reese pulls out the threads that make the cloud different: both in good ways and bad.
For example, a new wrinkle for cloud is what happens when your cloud provider goes out of business or has a poorly worded injunction exposing all their data (including yours) to the federal government? This is not something you worry about when you own the servers. Mr Reese elegantly explains how you can make this something you don't need to worry about even in the cloud; as long as you use some type of encryption.
Another example of where the cloud provides a potentially huge win would be in disaster recovery. Here a cloud provider provides redundancy of location and with virtual machines you should be easily able to get your system up and running again fairly quickly as long as you've taken the proper precautions (snapshots and a sane backup strategy).
Throughout the entire book, he really drills in security in the cloud. In several of the chapters, not including the security chapter, he keeps coming back to how the little things you do in your design can have a huge impact on your overall security. This is a major worry point and a barrier of entry point for many and Mr Reese spends just the right amount of time explaining how you can truly mitigate the security risks.
Another thread that runs throughout the book is scaling your application. This, to me, is one of the bread and butter wins of cloud computing. Mr Reese talks to some designs that work, and some that don't, when it comes to scaling. While all scaling talk is high level, I believe he succeeds in getting you the reader, to know what questions to ask in your next architecture meeting.
The book is a great overview and it focuses you to ask the right questions when you are dealing with cloud computing. Especially on the Amazon system. Mr Reese takes great pains to point out that yes, he is biased in talking about Amazon since that what he knows. Two appendices do talk about GoGrid and RackSpace but those read more like slick marketing glossies. And that's one of the two failings of the book. The other minor quibble is that a few times Mr Reese tries to go into detail about how something is done on the Amazon cloud (especially EC2 and S3). This is a mistake given how high level this book is. The appendix on the EC2 instructions also seem a little out of place. However these are minor quibbles.
If you are looking for a great introduction to the cloud, what it is and how to think about it, then this is the book for you. If you are looking for something to help you program, interact and learn the API for say Amazon, this is not the book for you.
February 26, 2017
Unfortunatelly, this book has lost it's value over time. I was hoping to read about architectures in the cloud, but the author focuses on low-level implementations. The book limits itself by using Amazon Cloud technologies.
Wouldn't recommend to anyone.
Wouldn't recommend to anyone.
March 2, 2011
This book is more of an Amazon EC2 and S3 user manual than covering Cloud Application Architecture in general.
Having said that I did find that it still did have some good content although in many areas it was very high level. Some diagrams were also missing from my copy.
There was a good Cloud Computing and Amazon Web Services overview. Cloud ROI, Monitoring & Management, and reiteration that Laws need to be considered were also covered, as were development implications, and in particular multiple-server transaction management.
If you want an overview of Amazon Web Services, EC2 and S3 then this book may be right for you.
Having said that I did find that it still did have some good content although in many areas it was very high level. Some diagrams were also missing from my copy.
There was a good Cloud Computing and Amazon Web Services overview. Cloud ROI, Monitoring & Management, and reiteration that Laws need to be considered were also covered, as were development implications, and in particular multiple-server transaction management.
If you want an overview of Amazon Web Services, EC2 and S3 then this book may be right for you.
November 10, 2013
A lot of information and useful tips on why and how to move to AWS, how to deploy there while dealing with security and compliance and how to prepare and handle disaster scenarios. Somewhat of an eye opener, even though you can't compare aws deployment to one without ec2/s3/etc, this latter still requires a lot of work/trial and error and sometimes has the same (if not bigger) risk.
July 6, 2010
Good overview of Amazon EC2 and related services, but no more. Text isn't hard to read - author constantly switching from low-level detail to high-level philosophy of cloud, and back. This book could be easily replaced with several blog posts on common cloud architecture + amazon's documentation.
August 23, 2010
Useful book to learn about Amazon EC2 and Cloud computing, but then, parts of it is already outdated in this ever changing world.
Read
February 7, 2016Good introduction to cloud and especially Amazon solutions. Practical examples and good chapters about security and disaster recovery.
Read
June 16, 2016Location: ND6 IRC
Accession No: DL028197
Accession No: DL028197
April 15, 2014
Very helpful - a information-packed (yet still accessible) short introduction to cloud computing.
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