Posts Tagged ‘amazon’

Using API Tools on Amazon AMIs

I did a fairly deep dive into some new cool things in EC2 this weekend and ran into something that caught me off guard. The default Amazon AMIs come with the EC2 tools pre-loaded and ready to go. Or so I read. But, when trying to run, I was greeted with a nice stack trace:

Unexpected error:
javax.net.ssl.SSLException: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unexpected error: java.security.InvalidAlgorithmParameterException: the trustAnchors parameter must be non-empty
at sun.security.ssl.Alerts.getSSLException(Alerts.java:208)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.fatal(SSLSocketImpl.java:1665)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.fatal(SSLSocketImpl.java:1628)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.handleException(SSLSocketImpl.java:1611)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.handleException(SSLSocketImpl.java:1537)
at sun.security.ssl.AppOutputStream.write(AppOutputStream.java:83)
(snipped)

Turns out it doesn’t quite have everything it needs. Even though it’s complaining about trustAnchors and such, all it really needs is a Java Runtime Environment..

yum install java-1.6.0-openjdk

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Filed under How-Tos / Tips : Comments (0) : Dec 13th, 2010

Ubuntu 9.10 Server to Focus on Cloud Computing

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of the Ubuntu foundation, announced today the plans for Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala”. The server version will focus on developments both in the Amazon EC2 cloud as well as allowing users to build their own elastic computing clouds utilizing the Eucalyptus platform.

Ubuntu started offering official AMI’s to run on EC2 just a short time ago and is planning on building out its list of images to allow users to deploy pre-installed packages of the OS and applications to run on EC2 and other clouds as well as building on the ubuntu-vmbuilder software as well. Ubuntu-vmbuilder is an application that lets users automate the creation of virtual machines for testing and development purposes as well as deployment of applications which is right on track with the elastic computing idea. Shuttleworth promises to make an easier way to interact with clouds: “Wouldn’t it be apt for Ubuntu to make the Amazon jungle as easy to navigate as, say, APT?”

The other thing they will be focusing on with the new release is integrating the Eucalyptus platform into the OS. Eucalyptus is an open source suite to build an elastic computing cloud similar to Amazon’s EC2 using your own hardware. It uses the Xen hypervisor just like EC2 and it meant to be able to interface with EC2′s web services as well as query interfaces. Plans for Ubuntu server are to allow the “cloud” resource pool to grow and shrink with the resource requirements of the cluster. In theory, all servers would run during peak hours and as resources are no longer required, the physical hosts would be suspended or shutdown all together to conserve energy.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Feb 21st, 2009

Ubuntu Offers “Official” AMI’s on EC2

Ubuntu is now offering images of its Ubuntu Server operating system to EC2 users. The program is still in beta, but allows EC2 users to launch “official” images of the operating system created by Canonical (the makers of Ubuntu)  running within minutes for use on Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing platform. Before, one was either on their own to create their Ubuntu AMIs or rely upon someone in the community to open their AMI’s to the public to be launched. Canonical has also said it will maintain security patches on the AMIs so a freshly launch image will be fully patched as well.

This move should reduce the barrier to entry into Ubuntu for those considering it because there’s very little that has to be invested in getting the OS ready to use. It’s free to sign up for Amazon AWS (of which EC2 is a part of) and for the Ubuntu beta program. The only thing that has a cost associated with it is to actually run an instance. If you are only wanting to try out Ubuntu Server, you can run a small instance for 10 cents an hour. You can run a pre-configured instance for just $2.40 a day. Of course, Amazon AWS is not just for the curious, but it can’t be beat on price for someone who wants to stand up a temporary environment to do some testing. I’ve seen a number of products like Virtualmin using EC2 AMIs to demo their software and it just makes sense. If I wanted to demo Ubuntu in the traditional way, for instance, I’d have to download the .iso, stand up a virtual machine or find a physical machine to install on. After all that work it may not be anything like what I wanted. Now, I just use my EC2 account and launch an AMI and in moments am up and running with whatever software I need. Like I said, it’s not just great for demoing software, but leveraging EC2 in that way just makes sense and is a great move for Ubuntu.

For more information check out the beta sign-up page and their Ubuntu on EC2 quick start guide.

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Filed under News, Tech Trends : Comments (2) : Jan 21st, 2009

Beta: Greek for Better?

While perusing forums and blogs, I’ve noticed a trend that seems to be happening, though I can’t quite put a finger on it. We know from a lot of articles that have been written recently that a good chunk of Google’s products are still listed as being in beta. A piece of software that I particularly enjoy, Zimbra, has a number of new features coming down the pipe that are also in beta and have been for some time. Other companies such as Amazon have had products in place such as EC2 that they want others to rely upon, yet they are still marked as beta.

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There are two things that I take away from this phenomena. First, people are relying upon beta or otherwise unsupported software seemingly with their lives. This was especially apparent to me (I tend to follow more open source products than anything) with the Zimbra Desktop and the earlier releases of Firefox 3. People (IT admins sometimes!) don’t seem to understand that unsupported means unsupported. The second thing that stands out as a bit ridiculous given the first point is that some of these companies want their users to depend upon their software. For instance, Google released Chrome some time ago in beta form. It’s completely unsupported and definitely an immature release. Yet, at the same time, Gmail has been in beta for years with no end in sight that I’m aware of.

Having people want to depend upon software that hasn’t had a supported release yet doesn’t surprise me. People tend to do some dumb things. Now, it’s all fine and dandy to have the latest and greatest even if it’s still a bit buggy. In fact, I want to be running on the bleeding edge of technology and can sympathize. It’s fun and exciting. Unfortunately, they call it the bleeding edge for a reason. Sometimes even mature software fails or has new bugs that crop up, let alone a product that’s not even been deemed release-able by its maker! Most in the software development industry will have no sympathy for people who have lost data or had productivity crippled by relying on software that is released under the ‘beta’ badge, and for good reason. I’ve watched countless unfortunate souls in the Zimbra forums download their email to Zimbra Desktop via POP and then have no where to go with it (a remedy to come soon!). So why is this an issue?

Given the definition of beta software and the warnings above, I’d never use Gmail. Yet, here I am, using Gmail. Why? Unfortunately I have no answers, only questions and observations. We’ve come to rely upon applications like Gmail. Google Docs, and a whole host of other Google products. We have servers that run on Amazon’s EC2 platform that whole businesses are relying upon. It would seem that some of the largest computer and Internet companies in the world want no liability for anything that could possibly go wrong, yet in the same breath want us to depend upon their services. Google News (not a beta product) suffered from this same crossroad just a few months ago. We saw an article get published to Google News via an automated crawler get pushed to Wall Street and cause some real damage. Google wants us to rely upon them as a reliable source to get our news, yet it’s going to blindly add stories from years past? Granted all of the blame doesn’t fall on them, but where’s the line? Gmail is another prime example. During the past summer months, Gmail was plagued with downtime issues, yet here we are, dependent upon Gmail. Plus, Gmail is a great source of revenue with ads on the interface (I’ve clicked on a few myself!) for Google, yet for whatever reason they want to avoid responsibility and supporting it. I’m a fan of Google products myself, don’t get me wrong, but let’s get some consistency here.

Like I mentioned before, I have no solutions, only questions. I think, though, that there are some serious questions that need answering from some of the larger providers of Internet services. Or perhaps it’s a simple misuse of beta. Could be ‘beta’ be the next ‘cloud’? Could it be the most undefinable, yet attacked and loved idea? Okay, so maybe not. But, for real, which is it? Can we depend upon Gmail, EC2, etc. or not? If so, we need a new label.

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (1) : Oct 7th, 2008

Windows on EC2

Amazon has announced support for Windows Server and MS SQL Server running in EC2 coming this fall. The announcement came the same day that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the coming of Windows ‘Cloud’. This functionality was available before using a bit of a hack, but will be fully supported coming before the end of the year. There’s no solid word from Amazon on what the costs will be nor how the licensing will work, though they have said “of course the actual price will be higher than Linux-based instances, due to the cost of Windows licenses”. The more traditional licensing style from Microsoft would be a bit difficult given the elastic nature of EC2, but they apparently have worked out something with Microsoft even with the recent news of Windows ‘Cloud’ on its way (somehow related?). You can read the original announcement here.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Oct 6th, 2008

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