

VMware launches Node.js, Rails and Spring PaaS - Smrchy
http://cloudfoundry.com/

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antirez
With support for MySql, MongoDB, and Redis on the DB side :)

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samstokes
Would it be a fair guess that CloudFoundry will support Redis Cluster too when
it is released?

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antirez
That's the idea, I'm taking this in mind while developing redis cluster, for
instance a must is the ability to create and manage clusters by using redis-
trib in scripts, so that it is possible to have one click provisioning of a
Redis cluster of N nodes automatically. You can see that in the unstable
branch there is already some initial version of redis-trib I'm developing in
this days to allow this kind of things.

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samstokes
Thanks for the reply - sounds like this will be a really useful combo for
operating large Redis deployments.

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rmoriz
Link to github repos <https://github.com/cloudfoundry>

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dabeeeenster
What do they mean by "Spring applications"? That's quite obscure. Do they mean
they handle .war J2EE applications? Or they only support Spring libraries?

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ezmobius
We can take any .war file that runs on Tomcat, even jruby apps. Not just
spring.

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dabeeeenster
I really think you should make this clear. We're a Java shop, but we use all
sorts of frameworks; play, spring, homegrown, but they all build to .war.

This is an interesting product to me, but from the marketing material it's not
obvious...

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ezmobius
I agree and I'm working with marketing folks to make this stuff more clear.
There are just so many details to get a release like this out the door that
some things didn't get as much attention as they deserved. But your point is
well taken and I'll try to get the message cleared up as it is pretty cool
IMHO.

Also look for some more technical deep dive blog posts on my blog by tomorrow
at <http://brainspl.at> where I will clarify a bunch of this stuff.(right
after I get some sleep;)

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MatthewPhillips
No price given. I'll keep using AppEngine until someone at least comes close
to matching their freemium model.

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thesethings
Preso just ended, small update: there will be both free + pay service. For
now, everything free. So we still don't have details, but we know the model
they are pursuing.

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wattersjames
If you are in the bay area on the 13th the Cloud Foundry team is hosting its
first meetup. Come ask the tough questions to engineering:

<http://www.meetup.com/cloudcomputing/events/17187485/>

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hasenj
Very interesting. I'm glad more Heroku-like services are sprining up,
specially with support for Node.js

This is a much needed service, and although some solutions already exist,
they're far from perfect, and there's certainly lots of space for competition.

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tga
Well, to make the license question easier, their invite request form is
utterly unusable on Android. I apparently need to 'scroll to the bottom' to
submit to a dubiously enforceable license before even being allowed to see
their beta, exciting action made anyway imposible by the broken design.

Node.js notwithstanding, this tastes from the start like a proper enterprise
service.

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lt
On the iOS you can scroll textareas and iframes using two fingers. I imagine
it should be possible on Android too.

~~~
tga
If only it were that easy.. For the record, the default Android browser seems
to (still) have an issue with the 'overflow' CSS property, causing
overflow:auto and overflow:scroll to show up as overflow:hidden.
<http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=2911>

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rmoriz
I was suprised no virtualisation is included in the solution (or I did not
find the parts in the github repos). Seriously, shared-hosting is so 1996 from
a security perspective.

So for me It will be "just" an "internal cloud" solution and maybe replace
capistrano. Still, puppet and chef will do the "physical"/"system"
provisioning for my customers and my projects.

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FooBarWidget
Virtualization isn't the only way to isolate apps. What happened to good old
Unix user accounts? It seems ridiculous to me to allocate entire kernels and
OS runtimes per user/app when they can just share all that stuff and have the
kernel isolate access and divide resources.

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justincormack
Because since then code has got more hostile. Arbitrary code execution attacks
and then local root exploits are not uncommon. You have to make some effort to
protect against these. Lxc as mentioned at least isolates processes, file
system and network access which helps a lot.

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tlrobinson
It definitely makes sense for VMware to build and open source this, since
their core business is selling the virtualization software this runs on top of
(I assume).

Though I wonder how much of it is really VMware specific, or if it would be
relatively easy to port to Xen, etc.

 _Edit: actually it appears it might be agnostic to the virtualization layer._

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EwanToo
It seems that VMware's long term view is that virtualisation itself is a
commodity (which it is, KVM and Xen are both "good enough" already), and it's
going to be the management of IT resources which is financially lucrative in
the future.

Their core business today is selling vSphere 4 management with ESXi as the
hypervisor, I think they see their core business in 10 years as being the
management layer for your entire IT infrastructure, wherever it runs.

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Andys
I hate it when this happens.

ESXi is excellent, I think one of the best x86 kernels in existence. The
management software is nowhere near on par with it; it is finicky Windows
software that doesn't match the hypervisor's speed or reliability. The long-
rumoured Linux version of the management platform still has not materialised.

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EwanToo
The Linux version of vCenter is part of vSphere 5. There's also a cross
platform version of the vSphere client, though it's written in Adobe Flex, so
who knows how good that'll be..

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justinksd
Was anybody else surprised that Ryan Dahl actually spoke at the CloudFoundry
Webinar? Seems like a conflict with Joyents no.de hosting solution.

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steilpass
I actually thought Joyent would play a bigger role.

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neeleshs
Any chance of getting Python/Django support in the near future?

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nateaune
It'll be interesting to see if/when Python/Django support emerges for
CloudFoundry. In the meantime, the DjangoZoom PaaS provides automated
deployments of your Django app in as little as 30 seconds. Sign up for the
private beta and mention that you saw this Hacker News thread to get priority
in the queue. <http://djangozoom.com>

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mcantelon
"the industry’s first open platform as a service".

First? How is this different from Heroku and other such folks?

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ctide
The stack is open source: <http://cloudfoundry.org/>

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mcantelon
Impressive! Now their string of open source acquisitions makes sense.

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acconrad
This seems fine for fun apps or testing, but I would be incredibly concerned
to agree with these terms of service if I was running production software or
charging for it.

From their terms of service:

b. Your Applications and Code. If You create online applications or program
code using the Service, You authorize Cloud Foundry to host, copy, transmit,
display and adapt such applications and program code, solely as necessary for
Cloud Foundry to provide the Service in accordance with this Agreement.
Subject to the above, Cloud Foundry acquires no right, title or interest from
You or Your licensors under this Agreement in or to such applications or
program code, including any intellectual property rights therein.

...and yet somehow you own exclusive rights to the data.

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mrkurt
That seems pretty reasonable, and maybe even necessary. If they're copying
your code around or distributing it to users, they may need those rights.

"..solely as necessary for Cloud Foundry to provide the Service..." is the key
point, there.

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acconrad
Just so I understand you correctly, does that imply that their intention is to
prevent being sued if they need to change your code in order for it to work on
the platform, in the event of say, an upgrade of their core infrastructure? If
so, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks.

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mrkurt
I think their intention is to not be sued if they need to _redistribute_ your
code in order to run the platform. This means they might need to copy it to
other instances, send copyrightable assets (javascript, css, images) to users
as is, etc.

But yes, it would also give them the right to change things as necessary to
run the service. It could cover installing additional plugins like Heroku
does, or munging config files, or even doing things like partially compiling
source to some target.

By default, they really don't have the legal right to do a bunch of those
things. Some of them are vague and arguable since hosting doesn't exactly fit
into copyright law all the time, so companies will sometimes put in clauses
like this that explicitly grant them rights that might otherwise seem like
common sense. It may be obvious to you and me, but it's now spelled out in an
agreement "just in case".

