Cloud computing for the enterprise: Part 2:WebSphere sMash and DB2 Express-C on theAmazon EC2 public cloud

Dustin Amrhein(damrhei@us.ibm.com), Staff Software Engineer, IBM

Summary:

Part 1of this article series discussed cloud computing in general, including cloud layersand the different cloud types, along with their beneﬁts and drawbacks, and explained why thismovement is important for enterprise developers. This article looks speciﬁcally at the public cloudand how you can use the IBM® WebSphere® sMash and IBM DB2® Express-C Amazon MachineImages (AMI) to deliver Web applications hosted on the EC2 public cloud infrastructure. This contentis part of theIBM WebSphere Developer Technical Journal.

Date:

20 May 2009

Level:

Intermediate

Activity:

392 views

Comments:

0 (Add comments)Average rating (based on 0 votes)IntroductionAmong the three cloud types -- public, private, and hybrid clouds -- the public cloud is probably themost well-known and mature in its offerings. Accessibility and affordability are two of the keycharacteristics that have led to the popularity of the public cloud. To these ends, the Amazon ElasticCompute Cloud (EC2) infrastructure provides a public cloud infrastructure that hosts AmazonMachine Image instances which deliver capability to users. To enable users to utilize EC2, IBMrecently released Amazon Machine Images (AMI) that package some of its popular software offeringsfor the EC2 platform; these AMIs are available under a development license at no charge. In addition,IBM also supports speciﬁc existing IBM software running within the EC2 infrastructure.This article provides an overview of the public cloud, and discusses the use of the IBM WebSpheresMash and IBM DB2 Express-C Amazon Machine Images to deliver Web applications hosted on theEC2 infrastructure.Enterprises and the public cloudTo understand how an enterprise can leverage public cloud computing solutions, consider two pointsof view:

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Enterprises consume applications provided in the public cloud.

This might be an applicationdesigned to process employee payroll data, or it might be a customer relationship managementsystem. By utilizing software delivered in this way, a company can remove the burden of installing and maintaining the application on private data centers. Companies might also beneﬁtfrom cost savings associated with license fees, since most cloud providers charge based onconsumption.

Enterprises utilize cloud-based hosting solutions to deliver applications to users.

By doingso, companies are freed from the maintenance and upkeep of production systems since thecloud provider is responsible for providing infrastructure resources to meet the demands usersplace on the application. This model also provides for an increase in the ubiquity of acompany's services, since solutions delivered by way of a public cloud can be accessed at anytime from any machine with a viable network connection.Regardless of the scenario, a common theme is the bottom line value to a business. Public clouds veryclearly can help an organization reduce costs associated with owning software and data centerinfrastructure components. Less directly, public cloud usage can deliver value by enabling a companyto respond quickly to changes in demand for their services, enabling the services to reach new marketsand enabling valuable human resources to concentrate on delivering business innovation, rather thansimply deliver the technological infrastructure that supports the business.IBM and the public cloudIBM is an active contributor in the public cloud, offering solutions that enables a company to obtainapplications from the cloud and deliver their own end-user applications by utilizing a public cloud.From an application provider perspective, IBM offers IBM Lotus® Live, IBM Lotus Sametime®Unyte®, and software development tools hosted in a public cloud. This suite of tools lets users meet,discuss, collaborate, and innovate all by leveraging cloud-provided services. In addition to providingthese services, IBM's Global Business Services division helps organizations implement solutions thatleverage public cloud offerings in order to deliver the sought after cloud value.The remainder of this article focuses on how IBM enables you to deliver effective applications byutilizing a public cloud infrastructure. As mentioned earlier, IBM packages several of its enterpriseproduct offerings as Amazon Machine Images, thus enabling the use of the software on the popularAmazon EC2 infrastructure. IBM AMIs include:IBM WebSphere PortalIBM Lotus Web Content Management Standard EditionIBM WebSphere sMashIBM Informix® Dynamic Server Developer Edition 11.5IBM DB2 Express-C 9.5By making this software available under free development licenses through the Amazon EC2infrastructure, IBM is able to reach out to an ecosystem that serves over 400,000 users and attractsaround 80% of all developers utilizing cloud computing development services.For more information on IBM's outlook for developers and cloud computing, visit the

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developerWorks spacesCloud Computingsite. This article focuses on the Platform as a Service(PaaS) and Data as a Service (DaaS) capabilities of the WebSphere sMash and DB2 Express-C AMIsrespectively.WebSphere sMash and DB2 Express-CIndividually, WebSphere sMash and DB2 Express-C are powerful tools for developers. UsingWebSphere sMash, you can create Web 2.0 style applications using well-known technologies andpatterns like DOJO, PHP, Groovy, and REST services. DB2 Express-C provides efﬁcient, responsive,and reliable storage of enterprise data and includes pure XML handling capabilities. However, an evenhigher level of value can be realized when these technologies are combined to deliver rich,responsive, data-oriented Web applications.The sample applicationincluded with this articledemonstrates a restaurant seating application thatprovides a glimpse of the capabilities provided with the WebSphere sMash Zero Resource Model(ZRM) and a DB2 Express-C database. The patterns for this application can be easily extended to dealwith the most complex of data and data relationships. The Zero Resource Model integrated with DB2Express-C is utilized to provide a rich front end experience fueled by a lightweight yet efﬁcient andresponsive back end.The IBM AMIs are offered with a development license free of charge, but remember to terminate theinstances upon completion. Otherwise, you will continue to be charged Amazon's normal hourly ratefor instance hosting.

Set up the AMIs

To use the IBM AMIs, you must perform these steps, the first of which is a prerequisite:Set up your ownAmazon Web Services (AWS) account. This account is used to manageyour EC2 usage.a.Retrieve and configure theWebSphere sMash AMIand theDB2 Express-C AMI. When you configure the DB2 Express-C instance, use the default user names for the purpose of this demonstration. Do not create a database yet; those details are described in the nextsection.b.Deploy the AMIs to your AWS account by way of the supplied instructions.c.1.

Create and activate the database

After deploying both the DB2 Express-C and WebSphere sMash AMIs to EC2, conﬁgure thedatabase of your running DB2 Express-C instance. This database contains the tables utilized byyour application.Use SSH to log into and authenticate your DB2 AMI instance. After you log in, switch tothe db2inst1 user using the

su - db2inst1

command.a.Create the database for the application using the createDatabase command. From the/home/db2inst1/bin directory, enter the

./createDatabase RSTDB

command.b.2.