Opera Unite

Opera 10 introduces a technology called Opera Unite, that extends your browser to become a Web server. The idea is to enable non-technical people to serve and share content and services from their local computer, such as file sharing, chat rooms, Web hosting, remote access to music files, etc.

In a way, Opera Unite is an opposite trend to Cloud Computing where content is distributed and services are provided from large-scale data centers under the administrative domain of single providers, such as Amazon or Google. Instead, Opera Unite is a technology that borrows from ideas known in P2P and Grid Computing where hybrid user/provider models are common.

I have been a big Opera fan ever since due to the browser’s incredible speed (much faster and less resource-hungry than Firefox, at least on my system). Opera Unite could be the game changer that Opera needs to compete with IE and Firefox. However, it is only a matter of time until Google integrates GTalk, Picasa, etc. with Chrome and Microsoft integrates Office Live with IE in a way that is similarly user-friendly. Back to the Clouds?

Opera has taken a lead in browser-based file sharing that could pay off very soon. In previous versions, Opera already offered a neat built-in Bittorrent client. Now, with Opera Unite, there are much more file-sharing features: easy access control (public, groups, private), easy file system integration, etc. Great job!

Other services make less sense to me, like Web hosting. Only few people are always online (if so, I don’t want to see the electricity bill…) and therefore cannot provide even moderate availability.

Zotero plus JungleDisk helps you manage your research sources

Today I tried out Zotero 2.0 beta in combination with JungleDisk@S3. Zotero comes as a Firefox plug-in that allows you to gather and organize information sources, such as research papers and blog posts. You can also sync local files, e.g. PDF documents, to a WebDAV server. First I looked into free solutions, such as GMX Media Center or setting up a local WebDAV FTP server. However, I came to the conclusion that using JungleDisk and Amazon S3 would be much easier and pricing is also not too expensive ($2/month for a JungleDisk subscription plus Amazon’s prices for S3). Set-up cost me 10 minutes on my private Ubuntu laptop and another 10 minutes on my Vista work Desktop. Now I have everything accessible from anywhere + highly reliable back-up in Amazon’s infrastructure.

Will the Cloud become a Common Good?

The Common Good

In economics the term “common good” refers to a good that is rivalrous but not excludable. Fish is an example for a common good that (assuming there is no fishing regulation) is not excludable because anyone with a boat can go fishing. However, it is rivalrous since there is a limited number of fish in the oceans – and in fact overfishing is a problem in many regions of the world.

The Internet as a Common Good

I stumpled upon a EU document claiming the Internet was as a common good and therefore it would be necessary to reform Internet governance (PDF). The author argues that the market alone was not capable of controlling a global public-private infrastructure of communication, that the Internet is largely based on non-proprietary and open technologies and that the preservation of freedom rights would demand a reform of current Internet governance.

Although I do not agree with the author and au contraire believe that self-regulation and market mechanisms (together with standards bodies, such as W3C) have worked quite well in the past and will work in the future (as long as net neutrality is preserved), the discussion about private common goods / global public goods has drawn my attention.

In fact, the Internet seems to fit the common good attributes, as it is rivalrous (net neutrality discussion), yet not-excludable.

The Cloud as a Common Good

Now, thinking about Cloud infrastructure in lieu of the Internet, i.e. Amazon Web Services, Google AppEngine, Microsoft Azure, etc. Currently these services does not fit the non-excludability propery and therefore would rather be categorized as private goods. However, initiatives such as the OpenCirrus Testbed point to a different direction. If the Internet is considered a common good, the Cloud might become a common good as well.

In fact, I believe the Internet (primarily being a communication infrastructure) and Cloud services might blur and melt together into a combined communication and middleware infrastructure that will be much more powerful than what we have seen so far. Just think what kinds of applications you could build if you could rely on processing power, storage, messaging and so on like you do with basic communication (TCP/IP, HTTP, etc.). People who think this is just hype, well, they will miss a big opportunity :p

From Push to Pull

I recently came across a fascinating working paper by John Hagel: From Push to Pull (2005). Hagel’s work focuses on emerging approaches for mobilizing resources. He states that we are living in a “push” world, whereas new business opportunities and technology innovation arise from “pull” models.

Push

Push resources to areas of highest anticipated need, e.g.

• in education: standardized curricula
• in business: highly automated plants and service platforms to deliver resources to the right place at pre-determined times
• in technology: massive enterprise applications to deliver IT resources and services at pre-determined times
• in media: traditional broadcast TV

Pull

On the contrary, pulling resources allows people to mobilize resources when they need them, e.g.

• in education: e-learning, virtual classrooms
• in the production industry: Toyota (lean production, JIT, etc.)
• in technology: community-driven OSS development
• in media: Blogs, collaborative media creation, VoD, etc.

Cloud Computing, i.e. on-demand, self-service IT technology (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, etc.), is the newest member in this concert of promising “pull” approaches. Similar to the other “pull” examples, Cloud Computing is a disruptive technology shift, driven by growing uncertainty, intense competition and the inability of “push” models to fulfill customized wishes in a timely manner.

OpenSpan – Workflow automization on the presentation layer

Today was the first day of CloudSlam. There have been a few nice presentations, but one of them really kicked it off: OpenSpan. Francis Carden showed a very cool demo of how to do application and workflow integration on the presentation layer. With a few mouse clicks he created an application that integrates a legacy Windows app with the FedEx Website; then he showed how to build an application that leverages the Salesforce API in combination with a legacy “MiniCRM”. Francis explained that OpenSpan is not just screen scraping but an intelligent combination of reverse-engineered operating system functions and usage of openly available APIs. Thereby, OpenSpan allows to integrate applications that otherwise would be costly to glue together. It reminded me a bit of Yahoo! Pipes, except that it is much cooler because it provides way better capabilities of creating and accessing external APIs / system processes. Have a look for yourself!

Cazoodle Dives into the Deep Web

Cazoodle, a spin-off from University of Illinois (famous for technology innovation such as Mosaic, Netscape, PayPal and YouTube), is dedicated to exploring both the surface Web and the depths of the Deep Web. Using technology developed in the research group of Prof. Kevin Chang at UIUC, Cazoodle provides vertical search services, i.e. domain-specific search engines (Apartment Search, Event Search, Shopping Search).

Similar to companies such as hakia, PowerSet or ontoprise (a spin-off from Karlsruhe University), Cazoodle leverages the large and growing amount of structured data within specific knowledge domains. With Semantic search accross multiple Web sources, Cazoodle’s search engines enable vast coverage of available information. In combination with deep information integration these large data volumes can be explored through a clear user interface. In fact, Cazoodle provides search results that are valuable because they can be compared in a consistent manner. Thumbs up.

CloudDebug – Distributed Logging with log4j and Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)

Debugging in the Cloud

Debugging and logging is a crucial part in the successful development, roll-out and operation of IT systems. Systems that run in a distributed environment pose additional obstacles to application engineers who need to identify and fix system misbehavior in a timely manner. In such an environment, intelligent logging is indispensable.

In a short tutorial I demonstrate how to debug a distributed application with state-of-the-art technology as well as with a novel approach using Amazon Simple Queue Service, respectively. In a cost analysis I show that this approach is not only a fun technology challenge, but also a cheap way to implement logging for distributed applications.

Here is the prliminary document:

CloudDebug Version 0.1

(Updated versions will appear in the Pages section in the upper right corner of this Website)

Android Market Europe

Apparently, Android Market will be available for consumers and developers in Europe, soon. Just got this E-Mail.

Hello,

I’m writing to let you know that priced apps are now available to users in Germany and Austria. You can target your priced apps to these users by selecting the “Germany,” “Austria,” or “All Current and Future Countries with Payment” location options in the publisher website at http://market.android.com/publish. If you select “All Current and Future Countries with Payment,” then your priced apps will automatically appear to users in all countries where priced apps are available.

Also, I am pleased to let you know that free applications will become available in Italy over the next few weeks. Italy will join the other countries where users currently can download free applications: US, UK, Germany, France, Austria, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Poland, Australia, and Singapore. You can make your free apps available to Italian users by selecting “All Current and Future Locations”. We will add the option to target these countries individually when we add the ability to add French and Italian application descriptions in the publisher website, which we expect to be complete in the coming weeks.

Finally, I want to let you know that we are hard at work to enable developers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, and Spain to offer priced applications in the coming weeks. Once merchant support for priced apps are live in these countries, we will announce our plans for launching support for developers in additional geographies.

Thanks for your support, and we look forward to continue working with you on Android Market.

Eric Chu,
Android Market

Google, Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA  94043

Control the Cloud: Licensing LongJump

License to Kill Build Enterprise Apps

Last week I had a talk with LongJump’s CEO Pankaj Malviya about the company’s most recent innovation: Enabling third-parties to license LongJump Business Application Platform.

Target Groups: Enterprise and ISV

The offering targets two different types of customers: the LongJump platform can be licensed for use within an enterprise’s data center or licensed by independent software vendors to build and host their own high performance, scalable, multi-tenant Software as a Service (SaaS) applications.

Now, enterprises can install the LongJump platform in own datacenters to build applications in the cloud, while avoiding risks to expose critical data to outsiders. In highly regulated industries such as healthcare or finance, information security and compliance are paramount and keeping local control of their information is an absolute necessity.

ISVs and service providers, on the other hand, can create end-user applications running on the LongJump platform without the risk of being hooked on a third-party platform (with respect to pricing, service levels, and so on).

Cloud Computing for Control Freaks

Enterprise and ISVs now have control and have a choice to take a proven application platform and install it internally, within their corporate firewall or private cloud, without worrying about compliance, security, or confidentially issues.

• Control of Delivery Options

Companies have broad flexibility to decide how to deploy their licensed LongJump platform; they could opt to deploy a private, behind-the-firewall instance, or use a virtualized hosting provider like Amazon EC2. Companies can choose to outsource infrastructure or use existing internal infrastructure.

• Control of Multi-Tenancy

LongJump provides several multi-tenancy configuration options: Multi-Tenant/Single Database, Multi-Tenant/Multiple Database, and Mixed-Tenancy, supporting both models simultaneously.

• Control of Application Portability

Move business applications from one cloud to another cloud or infrastructure.

• Control of Release Management

Develop, test and release in the Cloud: the LongJump platform enables companies to create development, staging and production instances, and assign different development roles to each instance.

During my talk with Pankaj I had a few difficulties understanding what’s so novel about LongJump platform and how the new offering is different from known platforms, such as Force.com, Zoho and Bunge Connect. Well, now I can see it: Cloud + Control.

Eucalyptus+AppScale=AWS+AppEngine

The UCSB EC2-cloud-clone-architecture Eucalyptus has given birth to additional overlay layer: AppScale. Like Eucalyptus simulates EC2 interfaces and functionality, AppScale simulates Google’s App Engine. Now it is possible to build an infrastructure that integrates well with both Amazon Web Services and App Engine. Nice…