Implementing AppFog: Getting to grips with the AppFog service is easily achieved with this hands-on guide, which walks you through creating and deploying applications to the cloud. You'll be developing your first application in minutes.
Create applications from scratch using the AppFog web console
Learn the knack of deploying applications to the Cloud using AppFog
Know the steps to avoid compatibility issues using the node module function of AppFog.
Description
AppFog is the leading platform-as-a-service provider of PHP, Ruby, Node.js, and Java solutions. It is used by developers worldwide to deploy tens of thousands of applications. AppFog delivers a reliable, scalable, and fast platform for deploying applications in the cloud.This book is a hands-on guide that will walk you through creating and deploying applications to the cloud using AppFog, which will allow you to get your application deployed without the hassle of setting up servers.This book demonstrates how to use the AppFog service to build an application and have it running in the Cloud. It will walk you through the initial AppFog setup process and explain how to create your first application in minutes.You will also discover how to use services such as databases to make your applications more powerful. You will also learn how to create applications from scratch.You will find out everything you need to know to get an application running in the cloud for the first time.
Who is this book for?
Implementing AppFog is for developers who want to be able to upload applications to the cloud, and for implementation specialists, who implement and deploy apps on the AppFog platform. It is best to have Ruby installed, but we will walk you through the installation process if you do not already have it. It would be ideal to have some knowledge of cloud computing and know about the basics of database and network deployment.
What you will learn
Set up an account on AppFog
Download your application from the cloud so that you can make updates
Upload new versions of your application
Modify your application to use a database hosted by AppFog
Use the AppFog command line tools including a reference guide to all the command line options
"Implementing AppFog" by Matthew Nohr and Isaac Rabinovitch is a really quick read that packs a lot of information in a small amount of space. The authors have done an excellent job of explaining AppFog and how one interacts with it to create and maintain cloud based applications.The book is a total of 86 pages (including front matter, appendix and index) so you can see that the authors don't have a lot of pages to cover things, but those few pages that they have is filled with the information one needs to get up to speed on this service.The authors obviously don't go into great depth about everything in this book, but then that's not the focus of the book. It's really about learning how to get an application set up, modified and published and how to use services such as a database with those applications. You are exposed to both using the web based interface and the command line to accomplish these tasks.If you're interested in using AppFog to host your applications, this book will get you going quickly and is highly recommended.
Amazon Verified review
Amazon CustomerJan 20, 2014
4
I enjoyed going through this introductory material.The material is well laid out, and will get you to a fully deployed ruby/sinatra app, backed by a MySQL database in no-time flat.This material is specifically aimed towards newcomers to the AppFog PaaS.
Amazon Verified review
W BoudvilleJan 28, 2014
4
AppFog hits on a real and prevalent problem with many code developments that are directed towards some type of web use. Often, you have to somehow embed your code in a web server and also connect the code or the server to a choice of back end database. Three areas of expertise - front end web pages, web server and database. An alternative is proferred by this book from Nohr and Rabinovitch. We see that a big merit is the possible range of input languages. Ruby, Python, java, PHP and Node.js. Perhaps over time that list could even expand if AppFog takes off.The allure is the ease of deployment. The text gives quick examples in Ruby that collectively are the equivalent of Hello World. Granted, there might be a cost, as the providers of AppFog expect to get paid. But this cost is nominal if you decide from the book that the savings in your time are real.Hooking up your application to a database server seems simple enough in the text's example. There is one slight issue that seems to have been deprecated. It refers to how you set up a database server with a password for the administrator. This is done via a console application that looks for an environment variable. The provided GUI is a simple way to set this variable. But what if you get everything running and eventually days later the machine reboots? Here I'm assuming that you intend for your web server application to run continuously. When the machine starts up, it has to somehow get a value for that environment variable. It has been several years since I did unix/linux sysadmin, but if I recall correctly, ultimately that value must reside somewhere on disk. Perhaps in plaintext form. A potential security risk.However, in defence of the book, if the machine essentially runs only your app and is mostly single user, then you'll be fine. It might be that in a heavy multiuser mode there is a potential risk.
Amazon Verified review
Isaac RabinovitchApr 09, 2021
1
Yes, I'm one of the authors. I'm moderately proud of this book, but the service it documents no longer exists.
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