In the previous posts, we created a MapReduce application and successfully deployed it to CF using Iron Foundry. This time, we will try to push it to the original Cloud Foundry using a buildpack based on Mono, an open-source framework that helps to create cross-platform .NET applications.
Most customers prefer to validate a concept before investing into a production system. In our case, an ultimate solution should allow for long-running computations, have a web interface for setting tasks, and support MapReduce or other data processing methods. So, an ideal prototype would be a platform that provides a simple method for deploying, scaling, and monitoring apps. That is what Iron Foundry does.
In this post, I’ll describe how to create a prototype with Iron Foundry on Cloud Foundry. My test application will use MapReduce to find the most popular words in a text. The picture below demonstrates the data processing workflow.
As you can see, text is transferred from a client to a web component for processing. At this stage, the job is divided between available Mappers. Mappers send the results to a Reducer, which performs final computations and returns the output back to the client via a Notifier. Below, I will describe how to create each of the components, establish communication between them, and deploy an application with Iron Foundry.
PaaS has revolutionized the way applications are developed and deployed. With reduced delivery cycles and full automation, PaaS users can reach the market faster, significantly improving ROI and time-to-revenue. Cloud Foundry is one of the most popular open-source solutions for enterprises.
Until recently, .NET developers—who constitute a large part of software delivery folks—had rather limited access to Cloud Foundry’s services. The Iron Foundry project has corrected this imbalance by providing support for .NET on Cloud Foundry. It is not merely an extension, but an entire collection of tools and services .NET developers are used to working with, e.g. MS SQL and Message Bus-as-a-Service. Services can be bound to applications, so you do not have to worry about infrastructure and maintenance.
This post starts a series that will explore the capabilities of Iron Foundry. To show you how this platform works and try its services in action, I am going to create a validation prototype using a mixture of .NET and Node.js. I will rely on the Cloud-First approach in my investigation on how application interaction, management, and deployment are implemented in this platform. By the end of the series, you will have learned everything you need to know about creating .NET apps on Iron Foundry.
Ever wondered how Hadoop distros differ from each other? In a recent article for NetworkWorld, I overview how Hadoop became what it is today and explore the differences between the standard edition vs. Hortonworks, Cloudera, and MapR. I also provided insights into 5 major trends that are shaping their evolution—in terms of features, ecosystem, enterprise adoption, etc.
Read the article to learn about:
– The top 5 trends currently affecting the evolution of Hadoop distributions
– Why enterprises need Hadoop distros and how they differ
– How YARN has solved the issues present in Hadoop 1.0
– What will become of Hadoop in the foreseeable future
Continue to the article at NetworkWorld: “Comparing the Top Hadoop Distributions.”
The amazing session, “Diego: Re-envisioning the Elastic Runtime,” was one of the highlights at this year’s CF Summit. Onsi Fakhouri, Engineering Manager at Pivotal, shared some technical details on Project Diego, including why it is important for Cloud Foundry developers and how it will evolve in the future.
Diego, a large-scale project on which Pivotal is working right now, will introduce a number of significant changes to the Cloud Foundry architecture. Read on to learn about the reasons for this kind of revision, why we should care about Diego, and what impact it will have on Cloud Foundry and PaaS.
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Continuous integration (CI) allows for pushing regular enhancements and bug fixes to your application in an easy, fast, and safe way. When using this practice, every time a developer commits a change, the software has to pass a number of tests. This guarantees that every new release is safe and bug-free. Ultimately, continuous integration can help to automate the entire software delivery process.
In this blog post, I will explain in detail how to set up continuous delivery for your Ruby on Rails application running on the Cloud Foundry PaaS with Jenkins CI, a popular continuous integration tool.
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Mobile-backend-as-a-service frameworks appeared to speed up app development by providing/automating such things as user and data management, billing, etc. Thanks to MBaaS, developers can finally concentrate on implementing the features they envisioned, instead of worrying about infrastructure. Dozens of solutions exist today. Paid ones generally offer more advanced features, but there are also some decent open source options.
Helios MBaaS is one of them. It is an extensible open source mobile backend framework that provides essential services. In fact, it is a Ruby Gem that can be used to build an independent Rack application. It can also be implemented with Sinatra or RoR. Out-of-the-box features include synchronization, push notification, in-app purchases, logging, analytics, and more. In addition, along with LoopBack, it is one of MBaaS frameworks that can be deployed to PaaS systems, such as Heroku or Cloud Foundry.
So, in this tutorial, I will walk you through the steps for deploying Helios with your application to Cloud Foundry.
Things you need to know
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The momentum behind the Cloud Foundry Foundation signals the arrival of an application-defined infrastructure, where an app can define the underlying infrastructure through an industry-standard API call. As a corporate sponsor of the Cloud Foundry Foundation, Altoros will continue contributing resources and code to help the Foundation fulfill its mission.
Recently I wrote a post describing what this announcement [of the Cloud Foundry Foundation] means for enterprise IT customers, why forming the Foundation was necessary, and what it means for IT vendors. You can find it here: “The Cloud Foundry Foundation: a PaaS Revolution?”
I would like to congratulate my colleagues at Altoros with becoming a corporate sponsor and a Silver Member of the Cloud Foundry Foundation and congratulate our fellow Foundation members, as well. I also want to describe how Altoros has helped the project so far and how we will help the Cloud Foundry Foundation to move forward.
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For a while, I was involved into development of a document workflow management-as-a-service system. The client app was created using AngularJS and I was to decide on the best option for its internalization (i18n) and localization (l10n). However, the service had a rather complex UI with plenty of messages to be translated and transferred between the server and the client. Therefore, I was concerned about the impact of client-side translation on performance.
In this post, I explore this in detail and suggest an approach that accelerates performance of AngularJS internationalization.
Congrats to our Hadoop team! Altoros has been recognized as a proven market leader in Hadoop and big data consulting, according to a recent study by SourcingLine (a Washington, DC-based research company). Their Leaders Matrix leverages proprietary research and methodology to identify top services firms and map their capabilities. Companies are plotted on the matrix based on their proven ability to deliver and focus on a service type.
The analysis based on verified customer interviews gave Altoros a high ranking on two lists: Top Big Data & BI Consulting Companies and Top Hadoop Consulting Companies. (Bubble size indicates relative size of the firms.)
“All of the selected companies focus primarily on Big Data analytics or Hadoop and have proven they can provide tangible value to data driven enterprises,” says Tim Clarke, Senior Business Analyst at SourcingLine. “However, it is often challenging for prospective buyers to devise a short-list of leading firms. Our research aims to expedite the procurement process and help connect buyers with qualified service providers.”
Take a look at Altoros’s customer ratings or view the results of these two reports:
