Google App Engine vs. AWS

Is the Google App Engine a viable competitor to the current generation AWS?


To first approximation, I would argue no. As a Python (for the time being) web application platform, Google App Engine provides a highly scalable sandboxed environment that reduces what a developer can do with the underlying platform. In addition, the Google App Engine is a single Software as a Service (SaaS) platform.  Developers and businesses cannot reuse distinct services for deploying OS images, storing data, creating complex business processes.

AWS on the other hand, is a low-level middleware infrastructure for developing new platforms. It provides primitive services for storage (S3), databases (SimpleDB), queuing (SQS), and computation (EC2) that enable high resilience and scalability. Consider Morph eXchange which offers Rails app hosting as a SaaS in a very similar fashion to the Google App Engine. And guess what, it actually runs on AWS! Unlike Google App Engine, however, Morph appears to allow businesses a free-er hand in their development decisions, permitting a full Ruby and Rails environment, together with managed access to S3.

The clear separation of duty in AWS is what gives it the edge over Google App Engine. EC2 allows businesses to deploy complete OS images from S3 to produce novel environments such as Morph. It gives business more control on how to put together business processes which currently isn't possible with the Google App Engine.

Google App Engine is still in closed beta so it's early days. It's possible it will pick up and enable business to do things not possible in AWS. Then we would have competition and even more innovation at our finger tips.

Post a comment Tags: saas, aws, scalability, google app engine

First encounter with the Google App Engine

Google have taken a first step by exposing part of their infrastructure capability through their new [invitation-only] Google App Engine. It's a Python-based infrastructure that provides access to many core services using by Google - more information here.


While I haven't been lucky enough to get to the head of the waiting list, I have played around with the SDK released by Google, which offers a complete development environment, including a development server. I haven't utilised all interfaces yet, just looking at what Google offers in terms of interfaces for remote connections to other WWW services.

Google have been quite sensible in creating a sandbox for running potentially hazardous third-party developer code, removing access to many core Python modules that use C interfaces. This is OK, until you want to do something exciting like HTTPS GET - urlfetch will perform the GET, but has no way of validating the server. That's not too bad, but it's not clear if urlfetch even provides the ability to access the TLS session and for the developer to validate the certificate themself - seems like a valid alternative.

It would be nice if Google at least loosen the rope a little more to provide full TLS functionality. Of course, what I really want to do is TLS with mutual auth - that should be good fun. In the mean time, I'll see what I can do with other TLS toolkits that run in pure Python.

Post a comment Tags: python, rest, google app engine

Emigrating to Hong Kong

Some exciting news - I'm emigrating to Hong Kong! Not sure what to expect, but I think it should be good fun. All I need to do now is find a job, sell my house, sell my car, cancel lots of other stuff - very scary!

Post a comment Tags: hong kong, emigrating

11/08/07

How would you like your internet printed? This one appears to be broken

11/08/07
11/08/07

Post a comment Tags: mobile

Graduation 2007

Well, I graduated today! Although the sun didn't come out, it was a fantastic day - it was really great to see other fellow PhD students that I've known over the years getting their degree as well - well done to you all!


The weather was awful - the rain left most of the morning to the odd bit of drizzle, but by mid afternoon the motorways were awash and it was pissing it down.

I bought my hat - I'll probably upload some pictures later, but it was very cool to wear. It's a pity that the cost for full academic dress is so high - Wippells charge ~ £550 for the gown, hood and hat! I suppose it's alright if you wear it once a year...

Post a comment Tags: phd, graduation

Recompiling Mono for Olive (WCF/Silverlight)

Unfortunately, Mono 1.2.4 cannot cope with the some of the newer syntax used by its Olive - Mono implementation of Microsoft's Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). This means its back to some good old compilation from SVN!


Checking out the latest code from SVN is simple enough, you just need to get mono and mcs code as described in Compiling Mono - Mono.

Unfortunately, the Mono folk neglected to provide adequate build instructions for Mac OS X. Running autogen.sh throws a wobbly when performing configure with the a syntax error:

/configure: line 22332: syntax error near unexpected token `BASE_DEPENDENCIES,'
./configure: line 22332: `  PKG_CHECK_MODULES(BASE_DEPENDENCIES, glib-2.0 >= $GLIB_REQUIRED_VERSION)'

After some searching it appears that the following line is at fault:

PKG_CHECK_MODULES(BASE_DEPENDENCIES, glib-2.0 >= $GLIB_REQUIRED_VERSION)

Simply commenting this out solves the problem and Mono will compile without a hitch. Whether this check is really important on OS X is entirely academic given that none of my Olive ServiceModel examples have fallen over yet....


Post a comment Tags: mono, olive, wcf

SecPAL running on Mono

Just for a laugh, I decided to try running the latest research release of SecPAL using Mono, built in Xcode. The result - the example code provided by Microsoft worked!


I suppose it just goes to show the amount of work that has gone into Mono (Mono 1.2.4, CSharpXcodePlugin-0.3.1, OSX 10.4.10) so it is able to load third-part assemblies. The only thing I haven't been able to do is use the GAC registered assembly in my code - I expect it's the C# XCode plugin being pants. Placing the SecPAL assembly in the build directory of my test harness works fine.

Next stage is to create a Cocoa# version of the sample SecPAL QueryEditor....

Post a comment Tags: mono, xcode, c#, secpal

Dr Bloke

Well,  can finally call myself a dr, which is nice. Graduation is near the end of July, so I need to brush myself up and look pretty for the cameras!

Post a comment Tags: phd, graduation

Bound Thesis submitted

Well, I've finally printed out and bound three copies of my thesis for submission. Faculty regulations require two hard bound copies for the university library and a soft bound copy for the British Library.

I wouldn't mind it but hard bound binding is bloody expensive ~ £26 per copy with a six day turn around. Just as well I didn't need them bound in 24 hours - that would be more than £50 per copy :-(

Good news is that now that all the paperwork is out of the way, the examination board will confirm my degree on 29.06.2007!

Those who are interested can find my thesis here:

Watkins, E. R. (2007) Trusted Collaboration in Distributed Software Development, PhD, Electronics & Computer Science, University of Southampton.

Post a comment Tags: phd

Work Complete!

At long last, I've finished my thesis corrections and will soon have my PhD! About bloody time ;-)

Last week I got word from the external that my corrections were adequate, prompting me to get off my arse and print my thesis three times and take it to the binders. Once all that is done, I can give it to my department and graduate in July.

Took long enough.

Post a comment Tags: phd

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