Sun solutions architect Alka Gupta has assembled a helpful guide to Sun's cloud computing portfolio in her blog entitled "A Sneak Peek at Sun's Cloud Computing Offerings." She leads off, citing MySQL, Coolstack from Sun, NetBeans, and the Sun xVM portfolio.

Gupta characterizes MySQL as being very nearly the "de facto database of choice powering the web-scale next-generation of database driven web applications in the cloud." She stresses the MySQL Enterprise for Amazon EC2 subscription, a comprehensive offering of database software and production support, as the user's route to cost effective delivery of "database drive web-scale computing in the cloud."

Coolstack from Sun, she writes, is an optimized open source software stack that users can deploy out of the box to deliver the best levels of performance with such binaries as Apache, PHP, and MySQL.

NetBeans, in Gupta's view, is the key to monitoring performance in the cloud. Its plug ins enable users to profile applications on Amazon EC2.

And the Sun xVM is the key to leveraging a heterogeneous, virtualized environment, says Gupta.

Other Sun solutions for the cloud that Gupta identifies are:

• Sun xVM Ops Center enables users to discover, provision, update and manage globally dispersed IT environments from a single console.

• xVM VirtualBox is Gupta's solution of choice for users wanting to build, test and run applications on one desktop or laptop for multiple OS platforms side by side.

• Sun xVM Server enables users to securely and reliably virtualize systems and services in a Windows, Solaris OS or Linux environment.

• Sun VDI Software enables users to securely access a virtual desktop from nearly any client on the network, Gupta notes.

And the list goes on, moving next to Solaris Containers, which Gupta describes as the combination of system resource controls and the boundary separation provided by zones. Zones act as isolated virtual servers within a single operating system instance, she writes. Zones enable administrators to provide all the protections of separate machines on a single machine, saving money and making it the perfect technology for cloud computing.

In addition to its product portfolio, Sun also offers services for cloud computing that include:

• Zembly, a service hosted on Network.com where users can create and host social applications of all sorts.

• Project Kenai is a tool for developers that enables them to host and share their open source projects and code while also connecting with others for collaborative efforts.

• Project SocialSite, another open source project, enables users to add social networking features to existing web sites.

• Project Caroline is a hosting platform for development and delivery of dynamically scalable internet-based services, according to Gupta, designed to serve the emerging market of small and medium sized software-as-a-service providers.

• Also available on Amazon EC2 is OpenSolaris, which comes with free tools such as ZFS and DTrace.

Finally, for an overview of Sun's current promotions around cloud computing, have a look at Startup Essentials. [...read more...]

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