The GAE is more of a competition to Dreamhost, MediaTemple and zillions of similar casual hosters than to AWS. Adding support for PHP and Rails will be critical for GAE to tap into the casual/part-time developer market. Python is an amazing platform but has not seen huge following outside the geek echelons.
We are building a small app using PHP and considered using GAE. but given the project scope (small), it didn't make sense to use a platform that the dev team was not well versed in.
Keep us posted on how your experience with GAE turns out and if you find anything "evil" in the terms of service.
KeithCowing
· 1 year ago
I think another great thing is that Google can use App Engine to enhance its other offerings. AdSense will look better when it's rendered on a webpage served from the same infrastructure (better load times). Google image search will be faster when Google maintains the images it needs to search. Google would probably love to store websites on its own infrastructure because it gives tremendous access to the data used to handle search queries. This is positive for developers because Google has other value in providing their web services, so they don't have to monetize it as heavily. Amazon only offers AWS to make $, but Google can do it just to better its other services...so it'll probably be cheap and great. Over time, I think it'll become a hiiiiiighly used platform.
GordonJ
· 1 year ago
On first blush, there are some real drawbacks to GAE (Google App Engine) in relation to AWS (Amazon Web Services).
The biggest: it appears that users of an app hosted on GAE need to have google accounts. I haven't be able to verify this though as the initial 10,000 developer accounts have been snatched up :(
Python only: hopefully this will be expanded, post haste, to include PHP and Ruby.
Limited access: I like the AWS model of being able to customize a stack and run it -- many apps (including ours) are built on access to tiny parts of the stack (GD being one). Maybe GAE will be adding more parts as it builds out.
One thing I really like: competition in cloud computing. AWS vs GAE is a winning battle for the app developer.
@Hugh Lang: can you provide more details regarding your "scalability solution" -- we are eager to explore all cloud computing alternatives.
albert
· 1 year ago
Completely agree on competition being good for cloud computing and hope to see others (with differentiated offerings) joining the fray. There are a number of interesting other offerings already out there (e.g. salesforce) and others just launched or about to be launched.
aaronwhite
· 1 year ago
I think it really appeals to singular developers (or small teams) who have little to risk betting the farm. I think Amazon's approach is much more amenable for business use. I feel this leaves Amazon in a great place. Someone could roll an AWS instance that provides much of the same abstractions, but you could still tear it apart and/or host it elsewhere. This would let people roll off of GAE, but the reverse is not possible.
(edit: I realize GAE is new/raw, I'm just concerned about the trajectory it suggests. It's curious that Google would fear taking a more 'open' approach' with the same end result tech-stack)
Pearl United
· 1 year ago
from where I sit, it looks hugely proprietary - like a big roach motel, great for Google, crappy for startups hoping to monetize their own IP or services. At least I can leave Amazon...
albert
· 1 year ago
That's definitely an important concern -- also one of the reasons why google entering this arena with an interesting offering is just the beginning.
Hugh Lang
· 1 year ago
Albert,
I am eager to have a chat with you about my own scalability solution. It's not universal, but it's a beauty to behold. It's also live (sort of) at www.invite2.com.
albert
· 1 year ago
Always happy to learn more -- either post here or send me an email.
mattmcknight
· 1 year ago
It seems to be more along the lines of the Rails platform Heroku ( http://heroku.com/ ) on top of AWS. The addition of BigTable as a ready persistent store is to me very interesting, as that, SimpleDB and others are pointing away from traditional relational databases as the orthodox persistent standard. That's a huge change.
Remy Blaettler
· 1 year ago
Morph Exchange is building some type of Layer over AWS and I think they are trying to extend it to other cloud networks. This could be the missing layer that makes us more flexible. Personally, I like the idea of having a fixed stack with DB, Email, etc. ready for me. Takes a lot of work out of my hands. Currently I'm the Developer, DB Admin, Email Admin, Support and Sales. It's a bit much :-)
bernard lunn
· 1 year ago
Do you see this as suitable for transactional apps, with ACID transactional integrity? My reading was that Simple DB does not cut it for that, but that EC2 and S3 are fine. So Amazon loose coupling looks safer bet.
Jim
· 1 year ago
is anyone concerned that the gmen (and women) would be able to inspect and Python code that is uploaded to the gcloud?
Q dub
· 1 year ago
@Mayur: Absolute. GAE definitely competes with traditional hosting providers just as much as it competes with AWS. One day, we'll look at custom-make LAMP stacks like restaurants that grow their own food or bookstores who print their own texts... (though the also-analogous microbrewery is forever cool!)
Pete
· 1 year ago
Or maybe we will look at the users of App Engine like we look HTMl coders that use dreamweaver....
What happens when the company gets big? You are locked into GAE. You are locked into their data store. Google has access to all your data. GFS, for example, is a powerful file system, but it never throws anything away. It simply appends. There are ways to delete, but in the interest of optimizing speed, GFS was designed to make deleting and over writing difficult.
The goal of write it once, scale it forever is laudable, but hard to achieve. However, it should be possible. It should also be open source.
I work at a Cloud Computing company called Joyent. Our stack is totally open. There isn't even S3 style lock in. Use whatever DB you like. Use any language. While scaling isn't totally mindless, it is pretty easy. We have literally had people grow from a $45 dollar account all the way up to 1 Billion page views a month. You need to spend a little more that $45 to power those 1 Billion page views.
I should say that GAE is helping drive interest in our offering. Our revenues, which are already in the multiple millions are growing at over 550% a year, thanks in part to the marketing that both Amazon and Google are doing.
The thing about Joyent is that it follows a hybrid model. Our cloud has real storage, real load balancers and you can take your legacy stuff and deploy it now. GAE requires a rewrite. EC2/S3 requires some adjustments.
What do you think? Will the Hybrid Open Compute Cloud model win over closed proprietary solutions?
All Comments
The GAE is more of a competition to Dreamhost, MediaTemple and zillions of similar casual hosters than to AWS. Adding support for PHP and Rails will be critical for GAE to tap into the casual/part-time developer market. Python is an amazing platform but has not seen huge following outside the geek echelons.
We are building a small app using PHP and considered using GAE. but given the project scope (small), it didn't make sense to use a platform that the dev team was not well versed in.
Keep us posted on how your experience with GAE turns out and if you find anything "evil" in the terms of service.
The biggest: it appears that users of an app hosted on GAE need to have google accounts. I haven't be able to verify this though as the initial 10,000 developer accounts have been snatched up :(
Python only: hopefully this will be expanded, post haste, to include PHP and Ruby.
Limited access: I like the AWS model of being able to customize a stack and run it -- many apps (including ours) are built on access to tiny parts of the stack (GD being one). Maybe GAE will be adding more parts as it builds out.
One thing I really like: competition in cloud computing. AWS vs GAE is a winning battle for the app developer.
@Hugh Lang: can you provide more details regarding your "scalability solution" -- we are eager to explore all cloud computing alternatives.
My thoughts here: http://aaronwhite.tumblr.com/post/31133767
I agree the competition will rock for developers.
(edit: I realize GAE is new/raw, I'm just concerned about the trajectory it suggests. It's curious that Google would fear taking a more 'open' approach' with the same end result tech-stack)
I am eager to have a chat with you about my own scalability solution. It's not universal, but it's a beauty to behold. It's also live (sort of) at www.invite2.com.
Personally, I like the idea of having a fixed stack with DB, Email, etc. ready for me. Takes a lot of work out of my hands. Currently I'm the Developer, DB Admin, Email Admin, Support and Sales. It's a bit much :-)
I'll roll my own thanks
Pete
http://localhero.biz/
i work for the musical web site Jamendo. we used the Google App Engine to develop a musical game you can test here :
http://jamendogame.appspot.com/
can you tell me what you think about it?
What happens when the company gets big? You are locked into GAE. You are locked into their data store. Google has access to all your data. GFS, for example, is a powerful file system, but it never throws anything away. It simply appends. There are ways to delete, but in the interest of optimizing speed, GFS was designed to make deleting and over writing difficult.
The goal of write it once, scale it forever is laudable, but hard to achieve. However, it should be possible. It should also be open source.
I work at a Cloud Computing company called Joyent. Our stack is totally open. There isn't even S3 style lock in. Use whatever DB you like. Use any language. While scaling isn't totally mindless, it is pretty easy. We have literally had people grow from a $45 dollar account all the way up to 1 Billion page views a month. You need to spend a little more that $45 to power those 1 Billion page views.
I should say that GAE is helping drive interest in our offering. Our revenues, which are already in the multiple millions are growing at over 550% a year, thanks in part to the marketing that both Amazon and Google are doing.
The thing about Joyent is that it follows a hybrid model. Our cloud has real storage, real load balancers and you can take your legacy stuff and deploy it now. GAE requires a rewrite. EC2/S3 requires some adjustments.
What do you think? Will the Hybrid Open Compute Cloud model win over closed proprietary solutions?