If you're involved in planning IT infrastructure as a network or system architect, system administrator, or developer, this book will help you adapt your skills to work with these highly scalable, highly redundant infrastructure services.

While analysts hotly debate the advantages and risks of cloud computing, IT staff and programmers are left to determine whether and how to put their applications into these virtualized services. Cloud Application Architectures provides answers -- and critical guidance -- on issues of cost, availability, performance, scaling, privacy, and security.

With Cloud Application Architectures, you will:

• Understand the differences between traditional deployment and cloud computing
• Determine whether moving existing applications to the cloud makes technical and business sense
• Analyze and compare the long-term costs of cloud services, traditional hosting, and owning dedicated servers
• Learn how to build a transactional web application for the cloud or migrate one to it
• Understand how the cloud helps you better prepare for disaster recovery
• Change your perspective on application scaling

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Cloud Application Architectures provides best practices that apply to every available cloud service. Learn how to make the transition to the cloud and prepare your web applications to succeed.

George Reese is the founder of two Minneapolis-based companies, enStratus Networks LLC (maker of high-end cloud infrastructure management tools) and Valtira LLC (maker of the Valtira Online Marketing Platform). Over the past 15 years, George has authored a number of technology books, including MySQL Pocket Reference, Database Programming with JDBC and Java, Java Database Best Practices, and the upcoming Web Architecture and Programming in the Cloud. Throughout the Internet era, George has spent his career building enterprise tools for developers and delivering solutions to the marketing domain. He was an influential force in the evolution of online gaming through the creation of a number of Open Source MUD libraries and he created the first JDBC driver in 1996-the Open Source mSQL-JDBC. Most recently, George has been involved in the development of systems to support the deployment of transactional web applications in the cloud. George holds a BA in Philosophy from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois. He currently lives in Minnesota with his wife Monique and his daughters Kyra and Lindsey.

Preface;
Audience for This Book;
Organization of the Material;
Conventions Used in This Book;
Using Code Examples;
Safari® Books Online;
We'd Like Your Feedback!;
Acknowledgments;
Chapter 1: Cloud Computing;
1.1 The Cloud;
1.2 Cloud Application Architectures;
1.3 The Value of Cloud Computing;
1.4 Cloud Infrastructure Models;
1.5 An Overview of Amazon Web Services;
Chapter 2: Amazon Cloud Computing;
2.1 Amazon S3;
2.2 Amazon EC2;
Chapter 3: Before the Move into the Cloud;
3.1 Know Your Software Licenses;
3.2 The Shift to a Cloud Cost Model;
3.3 Service Levels for Cloud Applications;
3.4 Security;
3.5 Disaster Recovery;
Chapter 4: Ready for the Cloud;
4.1 Web Application Design;
4.2 Machine Image Design;
4.3 Privacy Design;
4.4 Database Management;
Chapter 5: Security;
5.1 Data Security;
5.2 Network Security;
5.3 Host Security;
5.4 Compromise Response;
Chapter 6: Disaster Recovery;
6.1 Disaster Recovery Planning;
6.2 Disasters in the Cloud;
6.3 Disaster Management;
Chapter 7: Scaling a Cloud Infrastructure;
7.1 Capacity Planning;
7.2 Cloud Scale;
Amazon Web Services Reference;
Amazon EC2 Command-Line Reference;
Amazon EC2 Tips;
GoGrid;
Types of Clouds;
Cloudcenters in Detail;
Comparing Approaches;
What's Right for You?;
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Rackspace;
Rackspace's Cloud Services;
Fully Integrated, Backed by Fanatical Support;
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Colophon;