A possible answer, according to Murty, comes in the form of Amazon's infrastructure web services. In his book, Programming Amazon Web Services: S3, EC2, SQS, FPS, and SimpleDB (O'Reilly, US $49.99), Murty explains how you can take advantage of Amazon's massive computing infrastructure to build your own applications. Amazon Web Services lets businesses and individuals "rent" computing power, data storage, and bandwidth on this vast network, and, best of all, you only pay for what you use.
"We're witnessing the beginning of a new era in computing, in which the main empowering features of software--cheapness, accessibility, and flexibility--are being extended to the infrastructure level," say Murty. "Amazon Web Services are the first of many systems that will make it easier for small companies and individuals to build web-scale applications that scale massively and can compete with established players, without the need for massive up-front investment."
Murty provides all the background and technical details you need to understand Amazon Web Services, including code samples that reveal how to use the APIs, and example applications. The book explains how to use the five web services in Amazon's Web Services offering:
- Simple Storage Service (S3) to store and retrieve any amount of data using application servers, unlimited data storage, and bandwidth
- Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) to buy computing time, so you can requisition machines, load them with an application environment, manage access permissions, and run your image using as many or as few systems as needed
- Simple Queue Service (SQS), Amazon's web-scale messaging infrastructure, to store messages as they travel between computers
- Flexible Payments Service (FPS) to structure payment instructions and allow the movement of money between any two entities, humans, or computers
- SimpleDB to create and store multiple data sets, query your data easily, and return the results
For a review copy or more information please email kathrynb@oreilly.com. Please include your delivery address and contact information.
James Murty is a software developer with extensive experience creating web-based applications and architectures using Java. With a working background spanning a research institute, a small software house and various corporations he has a broad perspective on both the promise and the difficulties inherent in networked applications.
Additional Resources:
For more information about this book, including table of contents, index, author bios, and cover graphic, see the catalog page for Programming Amazon Web Services
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