The Cloud as a Platform for Platforms

Of the many things I love about AWS, I will mention three of my favorites in this blog post:

• AWS does not force developers to use any particular programming model, language, or operating system.
• AWS does not force developers to use the entire suite of services - they can use any of our infrastructure services individually or in any combination.
• AWS does not limit developers to a pre-set amount of storage, bandwidth, or computing resources they can consume - they can use as much or as little as they wish, and only pay for what they use.

Our customers love this flexibility. Today, a developer can run more experiments and achieve results much faster than before. If something does not work in a particular environment, the developer can drop that idea, click a few buttons, dispose all of his infrastructure and move on to the next experiment; starting with a fresh, new environment. Developers can try out several new ideas simultaneously by running multiple projects concurrently. Once the ideas are implemented, they can be further battle-tested using more resources in the AWS cloud until they become finished products. Developers love this because they are able to convert their concept/idea into a successful finished product quickly. As a result, we are seeing tremendous innovation happening at break-neck speed. The Cloud is becoming a platform for Innovation. 

The inherent flexibility of the AWS cloud enables customers to use it as a Platform in variety of different ways, including: 

• The AWS cloud as a Platform for Collaboration
• The AWS cloud as a Platform for Computation
• The AWS cloud as a Platform for Software and Data Delivery
• The AWS cloud as a Platform for Hot and Cold Storage
• The AWS cloud as a Platform for Research Development and Experimentation

Every day, I find customers in each of categories mentioned above. Some of them share their stories and architectures with us.

It does not stop there!

Its inspiring when I see the AWS cloud being used as a Platform for Platforms.

AWS is not only a rich platform to build solutions but also a platform for building specialized platforms. Customers can choose to either use the AWS cloud directly or take advantage of these value-added platforms. Customers can also mix and match platforms from this rich ecosystem.  

In this post, we look at some of the best examples of specialized platforms built on AWS:

Ruby Platforms
Heroku, as most of you may already know, is one of the early platforms built on top of Amazon Web Services. This "Instant Ruby Platform" enables any Ruby developer to take their existing Ruby code and move it to cloud. Customers of Heroku do not have to worry about scaling or managing their server farm, in case there is a success disaster. Heroku deploys a Ruby app in a single step without changing the app or the process. They recently launched commercially and offer a similar pay-as you-go pricing for enterprises and hobbyists. They also offer a free tier to try and test your prototypes.  By offering Deployment platform-as-a-Service on the top of reliable Amazon's platform, everybody wins.  The end-user gets all the things they need to build a modern web-scale application quickly while Heroku manages the "magic" (via “Slugs” and “Dynos”) of Ruby deployment without worrying about the complexity of maintaining and managing the underlying infrastructure.

Engine Yard offers a rich and open Ruby deployment platform on Amazon Web Services. Developers can take advantage of Engine Yard's pre-configured standardized stacks which makes it easy to deploy a Ruby on Rails application. Using Engine Yard's wizard-style web interface, developers can create the entire environment including different Unix packages and Ruby Gems to install, setting frequencies of database backups. They have a nice video on How to deploy your Ruby app on EC2 in 10 minutes. 

Language-agnostic Development Platform
I stumbled upon CodeRun – Online Development Platform on Amazon EC2 – few months ago and was tracking it closely. The interface looked just like Visual Studio but in-browser. End-user can code in PHP, AJAX, ASP.NET in an in-browser IDE which is fully hosted on multiple Amazon EC2 instances and then deploy the code (by clicking on “Debug” or “Run”) using several backend services that in-turn run on various other Amazon EC2 instances (all managed). Free accounts may share instances while premium accounts (which will be available in August) will run on stand-alone instances. Developers may deploy their code to Amazon EC2 more than once for testing, debugging and production purposes. Code snippets are shared on Amazon S3 and can be shared among developers (Check out AWS Code Samples). Amazon EBS is used to store users files and data while Amazon CloudFront is used distribute static files. Logs are stored on Amazon SimpleDB. They almost have a full house!

The platform includes a custom elasticity mechanism that monitors resource usage and performs automatic scaling based on dynamic set of predefined business rules. Developers can code in existing technologies (.NET/PHP/JS) and “outsource” scalability to CodeRun. With a single-click, you can deploy your app. CodeRun leverages AWS API to completely automate the deployment process. This includes allocating resources (instances, addresses and storage), copying files, synchronizing database structure and configuring the web servers. The entire platform is not fully baked yet but, I think, it has tremendous potential.

Voice Platform
Twilio is a voice platform built on the top of AWS. As Twilio’s website suggests, developer could build innovative voice apps like sales automation systems, order inquiry lines, CRM solutions, call routing apps, appointment reminders, custom voicemail apps. Platform developers at Twilio are focusing on building a powerful telephony platform on the top of Amazon Web Services. Twilio is drop-dead simple and easy to get started (“friction-free development”). With this simplicity, I think, it won’t be too long until a developer will be able to write a phone tree app that calls up all your friends from your social network about an upcoming party and get their RSVP over phone which can then be viewed on a website. Take a look at Twilio’s presentation (from the AWS Start-Up Tour in Seattle), and you will be convinced that they are AWS experts and they know what they are doing.

At VoiceCon, Siemens Enterprise Communications pre-announced that their Voice and Unified Communications product suite will be available as-a-Service on the AWS cloud. It will be interesting to see how this platform evolves.

Bottom line
Heroku, Engine Yard, Twilio, CodeRun are all different in nature and behavior. All of them are built using different technologies and methodologies. All are targeting different market segments. All share one thing in common. They are all built on AWS. All of them are built to scale and take advantage of flexibility. Innovation thrives in an environment that permits flexibility. AWS gives them the flexibility they need along with the scalability and elasticity their customers require.

This, to me, is very inspiring. What do you think ?

- Jinesh Varia (evangelists at amazon dot com)

Comments

[Andrew]

I couldn't agree more with the opinions expressed in this posting! As a researcher using EC2 through an Amazon in Education grant the aspects that I've learned to love the most are that I can configure each instance in precisely the way I want and, once I get it there, I can scale up instantly to run large calculations as required.

Compared to the traditional model of academic computing (being allocated time on a local cluster or gaining access to a national computing center) this is infinitely better - no more wasting time trying to find workarounds for the outdated software typically installed on these systems and no more waiting for someone else's jobs to finish running before I can start mine.

I'm totally converted to the cloud!

[Jeff Lawson]

Great post Jinesh. Interestingly enough, all of us building platforms on top of Amazon are able to pass on the flexible, variable cost structure to our own customers, who can pass it on to their customers, etc... changing the game all the way down the chain.

Very powerful.

[Michael Higgins]

Just wait until you see what we are putting on the AWS Cloud !!

The entire Oracle Fusion Middleware (SOA) suite 11g, Ebusiness Suite, Oracle Agile PLM and Oracle Beehive collaboration suite, Oracle BI Enterprise and Oracle Identity Management - all linked to a full Enterprise Edition 11g database with Enterprise Search.

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