I'm finding alternatives for Google App Engine for startup. The preconfigured service hosting include security, networking, scaling, database, backup, application, maturity and etc.. Because we have no experts on each parts. It's too hard operating whole service stack properly for only one application programmer.
What other services can I consider for this?
The term you want to search for is PaaS or Platform-as-a-Service. I do not claim to be an expert in this nacent field, however my basic understanding of the key players other than Google App Engine are:
Amazon AWS - My understanding is that Amazon's Web Services gives you bare-bones OS installs that you can completely own. While this allows for more configuration than App Engine, this also means you are on the hook for patching security holes and what not. (Right?)
Heroku - App Engine type functionality, except for Ruby
AppHarbor - App Engine type functionality, except for .NET
Microsoft Azure - Amazon AWS type functionality, except for Windows/The Microsoft stack.
The CloudCamp awards 2011 serves as a nice list of PaaS services
Related
I was able to create the basic 'hello world' program.
When I tried to understand the difference between a cloud and a server I learned that Cloud is where you have an access to virtual instance created exclusively for you and you are free to choose and install software of your choice.Why Google App Engine(GAE) is used widely where as tomcat is not used. What are major differences between GAE and Tomcat?
Cloud is Google Cloud Platform at this case. App Engine is just one of their services.
App Engine is a platform to build your apps on top of it. A Platform As A Service or PaaS. It simplifies the process of building a scalable application, and you should use it when you understand what you really need and understand principles of scalable application.
Tomcat is a Java web container, and there're many alternatives. Google App Engine is using Jetty. You could actually use it with Tomcat by using Flexible VM, though it doesn't make much sense.
App Engine is not about web server, it's a set of services that helps you to build a scalable app. It includes Memcache, Datastore, Task Queue, Images API, deployments tools and versioning, CDN for static files, and most important automatic scale.
Actually you aren't limited to App Engine on Google Cloud Platform. There is more traditional service, like own server in the cloud, called Compute Engine. There you can run your Tomcat or anything else.
I went over a number of questions in Stackoverflow & on the web , which were very very useful. I had few questions on what I've read so far with regards to IaaS , PaaS & SaaS. However I have a lot of questions which may be very naive as I haven't seen any of these in action.
1) Is PaaS equivalent of a development environment where a software is developed / customized as opposed to IaaS which is an execution environment to run the developed the software (could be any env test or production)?
2) In case of PaaS , I saw apprenda as an example. As part of Apprenda , I saw .net , Java , IIS & SQL Server listed as part of platform. Does this mean that instead of having to install all these on my local machine or development box , I get to have a sort of remote machine where all the development tools are installed and I just have to go and program whatever I want to?
3) If I have not subscribed to IaaS for instance , how can I run the software developed using the platform that is exposed as a service?
4) I also read that PaaS can either be public or private (within company's firewall). If it is private , will the provider of PaaS basically set of up the platform for development on my company's infrastructure?
5) Can any website that provides be a capability to login be termed as SaaS? Eg: GMAIL , Yahoo Mail , Facebook etc.
6) Can Google Drive , Apple iCloud etc be termed as SaaS?
PAAS : Platform as a Service
You don't care about the underlying hardware or OS.
You only care about your code, the platform takes care of the rest
Scaling is done for you
You have to adhere to some restrictions imposed by the platform
Pay for what you use (more traffick, storage used -> higher bill)
examples are Google AppEngine, Heroku, AWS Elastic Beanstalk
IAAS : Infrasctructure as a Service
You rent infrastructure where you choose the amount of memory, CPU, disk size, OS, ...
You setup the runtime environment will full choice from NodeJs, Redis or LAMP stack or any flavor you can think of.
You are responsible for configuring the rented infrastructure for high availability and scaling out
More freedom but more configuration (devops)
Pay for what you allocate (You setup your machines and choose your infrastructure beforehand)
examples are Google Compute Engine, Amazon EC2
But the world isn't that black and white. PaaS and IaaS grow towards each other. For example AppEngine managed VMS give you more freedom in choosing your underlying OS while still in a PaaS environment. And Google Autoscaler or Kubernetes brings managing your infrastructure to a more declarative level.
Finally SaaS products are oriented towards non-technical end users. So Apple iCloud, Google Drive, Gmail, Yahoo webmail are examples of SaaS.
I try to provide simpler answer and mapping with Azure deployment model
SaaS: Software as a service.
It's simplest, easiest, fastest method to host your web app/service into cloud.
Your web will be deployed automatically into some VMs and autoscale when needed.
You don't need to care about the VMs. Cloud provider will maintain them.
SaaS in Azure: Azure App Services (or Web App/Websites).
PaaS: Plafform as a service.
Cloud provider will create the pre-configured VMs which install all prerequisites (Ex: Windows Server 2012 with .Net 4.5 and IIS installed). These VMs will autoload your sites/apps when it's completely spin-off.
PaaS almost identical to SaaS except it allows you can remote desktop connect to the VMs, do some configuration tasks on there such as run custom startup scripts...
PaaS in Azure: Azure Cloud Services. Azure provides 2 kind of preconfigured VMs. They are Web Roles if you need host the website and Worker Roles if you need run background process.
IaaS: Infrastructure as a service.
Cloud provider will provide you dedicated VMs so you have full control to do any customization you want (you can customize the OS to the services and software...). It just like the VMs on-premises.
It's suitable if your app need to do a lot of customizations on the hosting environments to run.
IaaS in Azure: Azure Virtual Machines
The NIST definition of Cloud Services in general is a great place to start when looking for answers.
It gives the 5 characteristics of Cloud Services:
Broad Network Access
On-demand Self Service
Resource Pooling
Rapid Elasticity
Measured service
And then talks about service models, which are SaaS, PaaS and IaaS.
Simply running your app in the cloud is not sufficient to say it's SaaS. So, it's not just apps being targeted at non-technical users, it's apps that cover those characteristics. A sub-point to resource pooling above is providing some sort of multi-tenanted capability when delivering the solution to users.
1) Is PaaS equivalent of a development environment where a software is developed / customized as opposed to IaaS which is an execution environment to run the developed the software (could be any env test or production)?
A PaaS solution does not have to be a development environment. It can provide the resource for some software being developed, without the developer needing to provision all the underlying facilities to enable the delivery of that resource. Eg, SQL Azure is a PaaS that lets developers have access to a relational DB service. The developer can write and invoke queries against it, without having to stand up SQL Server instances themselves.
2) In case of PaaS , I saw apprenda as an example. As part of Apprenda , I saw .net , Java , IIS & SQL Server listed as part of platform. Does this mean that instead of having to install all these on my local machine or development box , I get to have a sort of remote machine where all the development tools are installed and I just have to go and program whatever I want to?
It should mean that you have access to the remote resources that your development tools can connect to and manage. The server (say SQL server) is not the same as the tool you use to access it, say SQL Server Management studio.
3) If I have not subscribed to IaaS for instance , how can I run the software developed using the platform that is exposed as a service?
You can't.
4) I also read that PaaS can either be public or private (within company's firewall). If it is private , will the provider of PaaS basically set of up the platform for development on my company's infrastructure?
A private PaaS means that a company has setup private infrastructure to allow developers to use a resources that are part of the architecture of a solution that do not need to be managed by the developers themselves.
5) Can any website that provides be a capability to login be termed as SaaS? Eg: GMAIL , Yahoo Mail , Facebook etc.
No, not according to the NIST definition. Providing user login is not the same as enabling multi-tenancy. Simply put, if the app enables companies/teams with groups of users to use it, it's moving towards SaaS. So, think solutions like Slack, Gitter & Freshbooks.
6) Can Google Drive , Apple iCloud etc be termed as SaaS?
Google Drive as part of Google Apps for Business, yes.
Until you start seeing, "iCloud for business", no.
I am pretty new to this whole idea of cloud and started of with Google app engine. I was able to create the basic 'hello world' program.
When i tried to understand the difference between a cloud and a server I learned that Cloud is where you have an access to virtual instance created exclusively for you and you are free to choose and install software of your choice.
But I don't see such an option with Google-cloud/app-engine. What if I have a tom-cat based application server which I would like to deploy on a cloud? Will Google app engine be of any help or should I try other cloud service providers such as Amazon EC2, hp cloud etc?
/DJ
The cloud type that you are referring to is called Infrastructure as a Service cloud.
OTOH, Google App Engine is Platform as a Service cloud.
The difference is that IaaS are a bunch of virtual machines that you need to setup yourself (OS + app stack), while PaaS typically comes with it's own API, where you write your app against the API and the rest (sw stack + scalability) is taken care of.
AppEngine comes with it's own servlet container (Tomcat is also a servlet container), so from this standpoint you could use your code on AppEngine. But the problem lies elsewhere: AppEngine imposes a set of limitation on the apps:
app must use GAE provided databases.
app can not write to filesystem
app can not have listening sockets
requests must finish in 60 seconds (e.g. no Comet or WebSockets -> no push)
You might want to review the FAQ.
To add to Peter's excellent answer, note that Google also has an IaaS service called Google Compute Engine.
Regarding other cloud query-
Before you start with cloud you might once try other options. Currently deploying application in almost all services are very easy.
few of them are-
Jelastic , Heroku , rackspace , nimbus , openshift etc.
Difference between cloud and server is very well explained already.
Since you mentioned about tomcat based application , I have worked with Jelastic for the same and found very easy to implement.
http://jelastic.com/docs/tomcat
http://jelastic.com/tomcat-hosting
Try all possible option , it will help you more .
Google created the V8 JavaScript engine: V8 compiles JavaScript source code directly into machine code when it is first executed.
Node.js is built on V8 - why is Google not offering any Node.js servers like Microsoft Azure?
Google App Engine would be a natural place to put Node.js.
Do you know why Google is not doing just that?
Node.js is maintained by Joyent, who is in a way a competitor of Google.
Node.js has no link what so ever with Google but is in fact built on top of an open source project started by Google.
Google might jumped into this business just like Azure did, but there are already so many PaaS doing it, it might not be worth it. I have never used GAE, but my understanding is that it is quite different that other PaaS and you have to use GAE libraries to make your code run.
Which, this is my personal feeling, is not really what the Node.js community is looking for.
Node.js is used to quickly make a fast lightweight app, a big share for APIs for Phone apps for example.
Nevertheless if you are looking for a PaaS for Node.js, the are quite a few out there:
Joyent (nodejitsu)
dotCloud which has WebSockets support.
Windows Azure
Nodester (bought by App Fog recently)
Any Cloud Foundry host should support Node.js too.
and many more...
Those are just some names off the top of my head. There quite a few but those are the major ones.
Oh there is Heroku too, but they don't have support for WebSocket which is a bummer for any Socket.IO based app.
As of June 2014, Google had a limited preview for custom languages on Google App Engine (which is different from Google Compute Engine).
Watch Building Node.js applications with App Engine and Custom Runtimes and check out https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/managed-vms/:
App Engine now offers a second hosting option: Managed VMs. The Managed VM hosting environment lets you run App Engine applications on configurable Compute Engine Virtual Machines (VMs).
You can also use Managed VMs to deploy user-configurable custom runtimes, such as for Node.js and other runtimes.
The procedure to get into the beta is:
Sign up and create a Managed VM project
Managed VMs are in Limited Preview, you must sign up for access to this feature, create a billing-enabled project, and tell us about your project so we can whitelist it to run in a Managed VM. Follow these steps:
Sign up for access to Managed VMs.
Join the app-engine-managed-vms Google Group to participate in discussions about Managed VMs.
Projects (or apps - they are the same thing) must be in a U.S. data center. If you're planning to use an existing project, skip to the next step. Otherwise, create a new app in a U.S. data center. Navigate to https://preview.appengine.google.com and create a new app.
Enable billing for the project. Visit the page https://cloud.google.com/console/project/apps~, where is the ID of your project. Click on Settings in the left menu and then enable billing. If your app is billed under a Premier account, email us at app-engine-managed-vm-tt-id#google.com to have your new Cloud project billed under the same account.
Send an email to app-engine-managed-vm-tt-id#google.com with the application ID in the subject line.
When we receive your email, we’ll configure some resources behind the scenes and notify you via email when your project is ready to go. The email includes final instructions for setup. If you encounter an error while following these instructions, contact us at app-engine-managed-vm-tt-id#google.com.
You can easily install node on Google Compute Engine (which basically is a virtual computer). Here is a link:
https://developers.google.com/datastore/docs/getstarted/start_nodejs/
Regards
Lars
after years of experiences in google appengine, i switch to other cloud services now.
i think google appengine is actually an old fashion service in cloud computing industry. which is slow to new technology, difficult to deploy, time wasting to learn the apis and lacking of a lot of features you need in languages you use.
regardless of google's large community, i would not suggest anyone to use google appengine.
[newer paas]
i strongly recommend you to use openshift, appfog, heroku .etc's new paas cloud computing technologies, which are far more extensible, less change needing, more migrable from one platform to another, more freely coding in the beauty of the natural lanuage and its standard libraries without ugly platform specific apis.
[iaas]
if you want more control over the running os environment, you may give linode, digital ocean, amazon, google cloud engine, microsoft azure etc. iaas providers a try.
Because App Engine is a platform-as-a-service, and in order to add a new language/stack to GAE, Google need to create mid-level libraries that interface with the plethora of App Engine's services.
Moreover, all App Engine apps is sandboxed and has several functionalities restricted from inside their sandbox environment. This means that beside the need to create service libraries, Google also need to create a secured sandbox environment for any language/stack that they try to introduce into GAE.
I personally think the second reason is why Google does not introduce support for new language/stack as aggressive as Azure did. App Engine is, in a way, more 'managed' than Azure, and has a larger initial development cost for new language/stack.
It has been released as of March 2016.
https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/03/Node.js-on-Google-App-Engine-goes-beta.html
Node.js has recently enabled support for Google Cloud users. The main document pages are:
Node.js on Google Cloud Platform
Google Cloud Datastore — Google Developers
It seems to require at the moment a Compute Engine instance.
Background: App Engine Standard vs App Engine Flexible
There seems to be some confusion on this topic because there are two versions of App Engine: Standard and Flexible. NodeJS is supported on App Engine Flexible but NOT on App Engine Standard. (See here for a more complete explanation of the differences).
App Engine Standard scales in seconds (as opposed to minutes for the Flexible environment), and has a free tier, so you can develop and demo without spending a dime. These benefits come at the cost of flexibility. App Engine Standard only supports certain languages and libraries, doesn't allow writing to disk nor SSH. In other words, the environment is standardized.
Answer: NodeJS Support on App Engine Standard
If you are interested in NodeJS support on App Engine Standard, please star this issue: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/67711509.
Google addresses features that get attention from the community (see here). The best way to give your attention to this feature, is to star it on the Google Issue tracker linked to above.
Google announced on March, 21st 2016 that Node.js on Google App Engine was going beta: https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/03/Node.js-on-Google-App-Engine-goes-beta.html?m=1
This was expected as Google also joined the Node.js Foundation and Google develops the V8 JavaScript engine which powers Chrome and Node.js: https://nodejs.org/en/blog/announcements/welcome-google/
Google announced a partnership with NodeSource at the same time.
Google has just announced support for Node.js on App Engine.
See: https://cloud.google.com/nodejs/
Here's an example of how to deploy Node.js app on App Engine.
Google is a software-conservative company. Programming a backend in JavaScript would be absolutely unimaginable for Google's managers. Creating infrastructure Google itself won't be using is not a good investment. Reference: Notes from the Mystery Machine Bus
(Jun 2021) This question is almost a decade old, and many things have changed since the OP. TL;DR: JavaScript and/or Node.js are supported in 6 different serverless compute platforms from Google: 4 on GCP and one each from Google Workspace and Firebase plus release dates:
Google App Engine - Standard (Jun 2018) - announcement, docs (Node.js 10, 12, 14; 8 is deprecated)
Google App Engine - Flexible (Mar 2016) - announcement (general release), docs (Most Node.js versions)
Google Cloud Functions (Mar 2017) - announcement (general release), docs (Node.js 10, 12, 14; 8 is deprecated)
Cloud Functions for Firebase (Mar 2017) - announcement, docs (same versions as Google Cloud Functions)
Google Cloud Run (Apr 2019) - announcement (general release), docs (Any Node.js version you can put in a container)
Google Apps Script (Aug 2009) - announcement, docs (JS-only, not Node; Rhino ES3/ES5 + extensions originally; now v8 & ES6+ [Mar 2020])
Also see Google Cloud's overall support of/for Node.js.
I was using GAE with Gapps on my domain, however it seems that ghs.google.com is unavailable in China.
How can I use GAE on my domain without Gapps?
Edit: A solution I'm considering is using something like a proxy. This way the firewall doesnt see google. By the way, my site is not banned because of its content, it can be acessed normally using appspot. The problem comes from google apps redirections.
Any ideas how I can setup something like this?
According to this answer you cannot.
Petition your government for redress of grievance? Yes, I know that's not such a hot idea in 中華人民共和國.
Google is quote interested in access to their services generally, but isn't (yet) in a position to tell governments what to do directly.
AppScale is an open-source implementation of the Google App Engine cloud computing interface. It is being developed by researchers in the UC Santa Barbara RACELab.
AppScale enables execution of Google App Engine (GAE) applications on virtualized cluster systems. In particular, AppScale enables users to execute GAE applications using their own clusters with greater scalability and reliability than the GAE SDK provides.
Moreover, AppScale executes automatically and transparently over cloud infrastructures such as the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Eucalyptus, the open-source implementation of the AWS interfaces.