./install.sfx.3763: not found

Since I'm not the one who ordered the cloud server I wasn't sure if it was 32- or 64-bit, but given the modest amount of RAM we're allocating I was guessing it was 32-bit.

Turns out I was wrong. I decided to try the 64-bit Java installer and it worked fine.

So if you get the mysterious install.sfx error when installing Java you're probably using the installer for the wrong architecture. Grab the "other" installer for your situation and it'll likely solve the problem.

I guess you could also ask the person who ordered the server whether it's 32- or 64-bit, but where's the adventure in that?

Then he told me it was running on Open BlueDragon for Google App Engine (GAE). VERY cool. You can read a bit more about it on Peter's blog. I could be wrong, but I think this may be the first production site running on OpenBD on GAE. (If there are others out there, I'd love some links!)

The interest in running CFML apps on GAE has really been picking up lately, and with good reason. It's a dead simple way to deploy CFML applications to Google's cloud, and unless the site is going to get a huge amount of traffic it's completely free.

Free CFML engine, free hosting, easy deployment right from Eclipse ... there's a lot to love here. No more hunting around for cheap shared hosting accounts that are so restrictive they're barely usable, no more spending money on a VPS if you don't need one (though I highly recommend them!), you just build your app and deploy right to GAE.

Since a lot of people I've been talking with recently aren't all that familiar with GAE, I'd like to point out that it's a bit of a different paradigm than many other cloud computing services. Unlike Amazon EC2, where you're dealing with things at the server level, GAE is application-oriented. So you don't have a server with an operating system on which you install a servlet container and OpenBD, instead you're simply deploying individual applications to Google's Java infrastructure. It's a really nice way to do things since the server-level stuff is all handled for you.

Be aware that there are some restrictions on what you can do on GAE vs. deploying on your own server, but really these are just differences rather than any huge impediments:

• Unless you use the Virtual File System (VFS) that Vince Bonfanti has been building, you can't write to the file system. Note that you can use the VFS on all Java projects on GAE; it isn't specific to OpenBD.
• The limit on the length of a single request is 30 seconds. (Not a problem unless you're generating reports or something.)
• You can't ...
• open a socket or direct connection to another host. You can use GAE's URL Fetch Service to call other hosts on ports 80 and 443.
• spawn new threads
• make system calls
• There are some limitations on request/response sizes, maximum file sizes, etc. but all are quite reasonable.
  

There has also been some work done on making a file-based RDBMS like H2 work with the VFS, and although it works apparently the performance is pretty slow at the moment. When the issues around that get resolved that will be another nice option, since a database could be deployed to GAE right along with your application code.

Personally I'm really excited about the opportunities this offers CFML developers. It could not be simpler to build a site and deploy it on Google App Engine, and the benefits of being on the Google infrastructure are pretty amazing. If your application doesn't get a huge amount of traffic it's completely free, and if your application starts to grow, the underlying infrastructure will scale up automatically as needed. That's one of the many benefits of cloud computing.

If you're interested in getting started with OpenBD on GAE, make sure and join the OpenBD Google Group, check out the GAE section of the wiki, and there are some great blog posts by members of the OpenBD community as well:

• CFML on GAE with OpenBD (Paul Kukiel)
  
• OpenBD GAE and CFCs (Paul Kukiel)
• CFML on GAE with OpenBD (Aaron Lynch)
• Google App Engine's Virtual File System with OpenBD (Aaron Lynch)
• A Better Way to Serve Files from the GAE VFS (Aaron Lynch)
• SES URLs on OpenBD GAE (Peter Farrell)
  

Nirvanix is similar to Amazon S3, which OpenBD also supports, but Nirvanix offers the ability to create child accounts that can be limited by storage capacity and bandwidth. Nirvanix also has fantastic functionality form media files such as audio, video, and photos, allowing you to convert file formats, resize, crop, etc. all from Nirvanix.

Cloud computing is seriously powerful stuff, and we're making all this power available across multiple cloud services right from within OpenBD.

One of the more interesting developments in application deployment recently is the concept of cloud computing. I'm sure everyone reading this blog will be well aware of what that means and entails, but if you want or need a bit of background, wikipedia is always a great start.

To me the really interesting thing about cloud computing is not only its on-demand nature, but all the things you no longer have to worry about. Infrastructure is someone else's problem. Redundancy and scaling are available at the simple push of a button, or even completely automated. And the cost is ridiculously low for what you get in return.

Yes, as with everything there are trade-offs, and even though to us this is all abstracted, we have to remember that somewhere all of this is being powered by physical hardware as opposed to some sort of magic. That being said, between cloud computing and the virtualization that's becoming the norm inside the data centers of most companies, particularly with the increasing budgetary constraints and green initiatives, we are starting to do things quite differently than we did even 5 years ago.

The cloud service that is most familiar to people, and certainly seems to garner the most attention in the CFML world, is Amazon's various web services, collectively known as AWS. This includes their Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), SimpleDB, Simple Storage Service (S3), CloudFront, and Simple Queue Service (SQS).

Things like EC2, SimpleDB, and S3 are compelling enough, but with the addition of things like CloudFront and SQS to their offerings, Amazon is becoming a one-stop shop for cloud computing, and as I mentioned above, the cost is ridiculously low for the power and flexibility you get.

Amazon is certainly not the only company in this space, however, and depending on what your needs are they might not even be the best option. Companies that may not be as well known as Amazon, at least in the US, include FlexiScale, GoGrid, and AppNexus, which offer very similar services with varying subtleties and costs.

And if all you want to do is deploy some code you've written, services like Google AppEngine let you deploy your applications to Google's servers without you having to worry about the server-level piece of the puzzle at all. Currently Google AppEngine only supports Python and their own proprietary BigTable data storage mechanism, but it has proven a popular option for deploying Python applications.

Google also seems keen on supporting more languages, the first of which will be Java, so if you're not a Python developer but you're interested in Google AppEngine, you'll want to keep an eye out to see when your favorite language is supported. As with the more full-service cloud offerings outlined above there are pros and cons to this sort of application deployment service, so make sure you go into whatever choice you make with your eyes wide open.

Cloud services also have a burgeoning ecosystem surrounding them, and some of these offerings make life in the cloud even easier. CohesiveFT's ElasticServer is one such service, allowing you to easily create machine images from a web-based interface that contain the only specific features you need. Create your perfect machine image and it can then be deployed or downloaded in various image formats such as Xen, VMWare, Parallels, PXE, and Amazon EC2, with more image types coming soon. You can also create your own machine images and upload them to ElasticServer to share with others.

This is all fantastic stuff, but what does it mean for CFML developers? Let's put some pieces together.

This week we released Open BlueDragon 1.0, which is the first official, versioned release of a product that has a heck of a lot more proven history behind it than the 1.0 version number implies.

Since OpenBD is, as the name indicates, open source, you don't have to pay anyone a license fee to use it. Use as many copies as you want on as many servers as you want, and it doesn't cost you a dime in license fees.

Seems to fit in perfectly with the new on-demand and virtualized world we're living in. Need another CFML server? Need 10 more? Push a button and all you have to worry about is the usage fees of your cloud provider, not any license fees for the software itself.

Hot on the heels of the 1.0 release, we also announced that OpenBD is available on ElasticServer, so you can go to ElasticServer, create a free account, and build your own OpenBD machine image with your choice of J2EE container and database. Fill out a form, click a button, and you're ready to deploy or download a CFML server. Couldn't be simpler.

To coin a very overparaphrased advertisement, "Cost to you? $0. Easily running CFML in the cloud? Priceless."

If you've stuck with me so far you'll be glad you did, because there's more. Getting back to Amazon Web Services, in addition to being able to deploy an OpenBD server on EC2, OpenBD 1.0 includes numerous features and language enhancements specifically designed to allow you to interact with S3 and SimpleDB.

SimpleDB support is built right into <cfquery> and is supported by a new set of CFML functions, so you can leverage SimpleDB in your CFML applications and take advantage of caching in OpenBD to save on transaction costs. S3 support is also built in, meaning you can easily interact with S3 from within your CFML applications using OpenBD.

The bottom line is if you have your head in the clouds these days, and you're a CFML developer, you really owe it to yourself to check out OpenBD. It's geared for the cloud from both a feature perspective as well as a licensing one, and as we move forward from the 1.0 release we'll continue to make the lives of CFML developers easier both in the clouds as well as on the ground.

As always if you have specific features you'd like to see in future versions of OpenBD, head over to the mailing list and let us know.

Comments

Just one of the very cool examples of what you can do with FOSS--Peter Amiri has put together an Amazon AMI with Cent 5, Jetty, and Open BlueDragon. There are some pre-built VMs in the work as well!