• cloud

    Hosting Web Sites in Amazon Web Services

    Amazon S3 now allows administrators to host simple web sites. Previously, you could host images, videos and other files using S3 buckets, but now you can host full sites. To do so you will need only configure a webroot and some error documents. To get started: Log into the Amazon S3 Management Console Right-click on an Amazon S3 bucket Open the Properties panel Configure your webroot Click on the Website tab Configure error documents in the Website tab Click Save Pretty easy, right? But what if you need to configure the php.ini file or add MIME types, etc. Notice that at the start of this I said “simple.” I’m sure more…

  • Network Infrastructure

    NAS, Clouds & Backup

    NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices are a popular alternative to providing centralized file services to smaller environments. This includes devices such as the Seagate BlackArmor, the DroboShare NAS and the Netgear ReadyNAS Pro. These are inexpensive as compared to an actual server, they require less management and they often come with some pretty compelling features. But one of the primary reasons to buy a NAS can end up being a potential pain point as well: they require less management than a server because they can’t do as much as a server can. For example, the option to replicate between two of them. Most have NAS to NAS replication built in. However, that…

  • Mac OS X,  MobileMe

    Flow: Amazon S3, iDisk

    Flow is a nice little FTP client. But it also supports WebDAV and SFTP as well as Amazon’s S3 and mounting an iDisk from a Mobile Me account. Unlike JungleDisk it doesn’t seem to mount S3 as an actual disk in Mac OS X, but it can be used to take files from iDisk to S3, which is fairly interesting. Flow also supports discovering all of the local services over Bonjour, which can be pretty helpful. Overall, it’s a nice little application that’s pretty sleek and I look forward to seeing where they go with it.

  • Business,  Consulting,  VMware

    Looking at Amazon's Cloud

    There is a lot of talk about “the cloud” in the IT trade magazines and in general at IT shops around the globe. I’ve used Amazon S3 in production for some web, offsite virtual tape libraries (just a mounted location on S3) and a few other storage uses. I’m not going to say I love it for every use I’ve seen it used for, but it can definitely get the job done when used properly. I’m also not going to say that I love the speeds of S3 compared to local storage, but that’s kindof a given now isn’t it… One of the more niche uses has been to integrate…

  • Final Cut Server

    Final Cut Server: Using Amazon S3 for Archival

    Final Cut Server allows you to archive the primary representation (or the original file) for assets that are cataloged.  When you do so, the proxy clips (low resolution versions) of your assets still live on the Final Cut Server.  However, the primary representation, once moved to your archive device can then be archived off to another form of media. There are a variety of strategies to manage archived media. The one I will describe here is using the Amazon S3 storage service at a cost of approximately $.12 to $.15 per gigabyte. As a conduit to and from Amazon S3 we will use the Jungle Disk application, which uses the…