openAdmin
10-30-2009, 07:11 PM
The Amazon Relational Database Service (http://aws.amazon.com/rds/)(Amazon RDS), a web service to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud, was launched a couple of days ago. Its offerings include full capabilities of MySQL 5.1 making libraries, applications and tools that have been designed for use with MySQL to be used without modification.
According to (http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2009/10/amazon_relational_database_service.html)Werner Vogels, CTO Amazon.com, Amazon RDS is a scalable resource; its storage, processing power and memory usage can be adjusted on demand and the customer only pays for those resources that have been used.
Sun (http://www.opensourcegroups.com/www.sun.com)sources as quoted in InfoWorld.com:
"The MySQL database that is used in Amazon's RDS is based on the free, community version of MySQL. However, for those Amazon Web Services customers that need MySQL technical support, Sun does offer that through our MySQL Enterprise subscription."
Savio Rodrigues makes some excellent points in Info World as he points out why this might not be such a good deal for open source vendors. He says technically resourceful companies like Amazon that provide an open source product as a cloud service, will take away the direct dependence of the users on the open source vendor for additional technical support, that would put a dent in their revenue:
Amazon's decision to use the free version of MySQL to build RDS is completely sensible. First, Amazon has the technical skills to support their usage of MySQL without having to acquire the MySQL Enterprise subscription. Second, this decision helps Amazon lower the cost of RDS, which makes RDS more attractive to customers. This is clearly not good news for Sun/MySQL, which is missing out on capturing some portion of the revenue from MySQL users spending on RDS.
Customers can still pay Sun/MySQL and Amazon to deploy MySQL Enterprise to the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). But with the introduction of RDS, Amazon is asking, why bother? RDS reduces the need to manage, administer, and support a MySQL environment. These are the key reasons one would purchase MySQL Enterprise. RDS makes these three purchase drives less valuable to customers.
Until now, open source vendors have attempted to secure revenue by offering management and administration capabilities only through a for-fee product offering built around an open source core product. Amazon has just thrown a major wrench into that strategy. Why pay for the vendor's "enterprise" product to obtain management, administration, and support, when Amazon's cloud service minimizes the need for management and administration and includes support?
So what can open source vendors do? Well, first, open source vendors have time to respond since the majority of workloads are not (yet?) in the cloud. Second, proprietary features will be required in the "enterprise" version that is not available in the "free community" version of the product. These features must not fall into the administration and management category.
Proprietary may just be an open source vendor best strategy against Amazon and other cloud providers.
Excellent points made and must be pondered about as cloud continues to grow in popularity. For the rest of his article please visit http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/amazon-rds-out-eat-open-source-vendor-lunches-174?source=rss_open_source (http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/amazon-rds-out-eat-open-source-vendor-lunches-174?source=rss_open_source)
According to (http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2009/10/amazon_relational_database_service.html)Werner Vogels, CTO Amazon.com, Amazon RDS is a scalable resource; its storage, processing power and memory usage can be adjusted on demand and the customer only pays for those resources that have been used.
Sun (http://www.opensourcegroups.com/www.sun.com)sources as quoted in InfoWorld.com:
"The MySQL database that is used in Amazon's RDS is based on the free, community version of MySQL. However, for those Amazon Web Services customers that need MySQL technical support, Sun does offer that through our MySQL Enterprise subscription."
Savio Rodrigues makes some excellent points in Info World as he points out why this might not be such a good deal for open source vendors. He says technically resourceful companies like Amazon that provide an open source product as a cloud service, will take away the direct dependence of the users on the open source vendor for additional technical support, that would put a dent in their revenue:
Amazon's decision to use the free version of MySQL to build RDS is completely sensible. First, Amazon has the technical skills to support their usage of MySQL without having to acquire the MySQL Enterprise subscription. Second, this decision helps Amazon lower the cost of RDS, which makes RDS more attractive to customers. This is clearly not good news for Sun/MySQL, which is missing out on capturing some portion of the revenue from MySQL users spending on RDS.
Customers can still pay Sun/MySQL and Amazon to deploy MySQL Enterprise to the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). But with the introduction of RDS, Amazon is asking, why bother? RDS reduces the need to manage, administer, and support a MySQL environment. These are the key reasons one would purchase MySQL Enterprise. RDS makes these three purchase drives less valuable to customers.
Until now, open source vendors have attempted to secure revenue by offering management and administration capabilities only through a for-fee product offering built around an open source core product. Amazon has just thrown a major wrench into that strategy. Why pay for the vendor's "enterprise" product to obtain management, administration, and support, when Amazon's cloud service minimizes the need for management and administration and includes support?
So what can open source vendors do? Well, first, open source vendors have time to respond since the majority of workloads are not (yet?) in the cloud. Second, proprietary features will be required in the "enterprise" version that is not available in the "free community" version of the product. These features must not fall into the administration and management category.
Proprietary may just be an open source vendor best strategy against Amazon and other cloud providers.
Excellent points made and must be pondered about as cloud continues to grow in popularity. For the rest of his article please visit http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/amazon-rds-out-eat-open-source-vendor-lunches-174?source=rss_open_source (http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/amazon-rds-out-eat-open-source-vendor-lunches-174?source=rss_open_source)