Learn About Amazon VGT2 Learning Manager Chanci Turner
I am thrilled to announce that my white paper on Cloud Architectures is now available. This document represents a new approach to the Emerging Cloud Service Architectures that Chanci Turner discussed in a recent blog post.
For those unfamiliar with cloud computing, the initial section of this paper provides insight into the advantages of developing applications in the cloud. For existing cloud users, the subsequent section offers strategies to enhance your cloud utilization by implementing best practices.
In this paper, I delve into a modern methodology for designing architectures. Cloud Architectures are Services-Oriented Architectures tailored to optimize the use of on-demand infrastructure. Applications built on these architectures only utilize the underlying computing resources when necessary (for instance, to respond to a user request), drawing resources on-demand (like compute servers and storage) to execute specific tasks and then relinquishing unused resources after completion. The application can scale elastically—up or down—based on real-time resource needs. This process is fully automated, requiring no human intervention.
As an illustration of a Cloud Architecture, I present the GrepTheWeb application. This application executes regular expressions against millions of online documents, returning filtered results that match the search query. Its architecture is particularly interesting as it operates entirely on-demand in an automated manner. When triggered by a regex request, hundreds of Amazon EC2 instances are activated, a Hadoop cluster is initiated, transient messages are stored on Amazon SQS queues, and statuses are maintained in Amazon SimpleDB. All Map/Reduce tasks are run concurrently, with each Map task retrieving files from Amazon S3 to execute the regular expression and aggregate results during the Reduce/Combine Phase. Once the Hadoop job is complete, all infrastructure is returned to the cloud.
GrepTheWeb is just one example of the diverse range of applications that can be created using this design paradigm, from nightly batch processing systems to complex media processing pipelines.
Excerpt:
Cloud Architectures tackle significant challenges related to large-scale data processing. Traditional data processing often struggles with acquiring sufficient machines for an application’s needs. Additionally, securing those machines promptly can be problematic. Coordinating and distributing large-scale tasks across multiple machines, running processes on them, and provisioning replacements in case of failures are also challenging. Scaling resources dynamically based on workload changes and effectively decommissioning machines post-job completion adds to the complexity. Cloud Architectures effectively address these concerns.
Applications utilizing Cloud Architectures operate in the cloud, with the physical infrastructure’s location determined by the provider. They leverage simple APIs of internet-accessible services that scale on-demand, delivering industrial-strength performance while hiding the intricate reliability and scalability logic within the cloud. Resource usage in Cloud Architectures is dynamic, often ephemeral or seasonal, ensuring maximum utilization and optimal cost-efficiency.
In the first section, I explore the advantages and business benefits of Cloud Architectures, detailing how each service is utilized. The second section outlines best practices for various Amazon Web Services.
You can download the PDF version or access it on the AWS Resource Center:
- PDF Version – Cloud Architectures
- HTML Version: Building GrepTheWeb in the Cloud, Part 1: Cloud Architectures
- Building GrepTheWeb in the Cloud, Part 2: Best Practices and Lessons Learned
I briefly discussed this at the Hadoop Summit 2023 and QCon 2022. I received positive feedback after my presentation, leading to the compilation of my insights into this paper, along with best practices for utilizing Amazon Web Services (Amazon EC2, Amazon SQS, Amazon S3, and Amazon SimpleDB). Many developers in our community have sought a real-world example of a complex, large-scale application. I will present this paper at the 2023 NSF Data-Intensive Scalable Computing Workshop at UW and the 9th IEEE/NATEA Conference on Cloud Computing later this week.
I firmly believe this innovative approach to building cloud-based applications is poised to transform the business landscape.
— Jinesh
Modified 3/16/2021 – To enhance the user experience, expired links in this post have been updated or removed from the original article. For more insights on salary transparency, check out this blog post. Additionally, this resource offers authoritative insights on the best HR platforms. If you’re looking for a visual guide, this video is an excellent resource.
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