Amazon Web Services (aka EC2, Amazon Cloud Computing, AWS) provide you with the ability to create virtual servers and only pay for them while they are in use. The virtual servers (known as Instances) can be various sizes ,in terms of CPU, RAM and temporary disk space. Disk space is temporary, once you shop an Instance, you lose all data stored on that Instance. For permanent storage, Elastic Block Store (EBS), Simple Storage Service (S3) or Simple DB are the solutions.

Instances refer to the virtual resourses of the virtual server. Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) refer to the Operating System running on your Instance. You can select from prebuilt AMIs providing Linux, Windows and Solaris Operating Systems. Many AMIs are supplied with preinstalled software such as Apache/PHP/MySQL. You can also build your own AMIs and save them for provisioning later.

For permanent storage EBS, S3 or SDB are the solutions. These can be attached to Instances and used with your software.

All services are pay as you go. You pay for the Instance in use by the hour, external bandwidth to and from the Instance (per GB) and the EBS, S3 or SDB storage (per GB).

Cost for Instances

United States

European Union

Reserved Instances

Reserved Instances give you the option to make a low, one-time payment for each instance you want to reserve and in turn receive a significant discount on the hourly usage charge for that instance. After the one-time payment for an instance, that instance is reserved for you, and you have no further obligation; you may choose to run that instance for the discounted usage rate for the duration of your term, or when you do not use the instance, you will not pay usage charges on it.

Contact Steve Nice on 01636 881200 to discuss how ForLinux can help you deploy your AWS solution.

Cost for US Instances

Data Transfer

Internet Data Transfer

The pricing below is based on data transferred “in” and “out” of Amazon EC2.

Data Transfer Out
First 10 TB per Month	$0.17 per GB
Next 40 TB per Month	$0.13 per GB
Next 100TB per Month	$0.11 per GB
Over 150 TB per Month	$0.10 per GB

Data transferred between two Amazon Web Services within the same region (i.e. between Amazon EC2 US and another AWS service in the US, or between Amazon EC2 Europe and another AWS service in Europe) is free of charge (i.e., $0.00 per GB). Data transferred between AWS services in different regions will be charged as Internet Data Transfer on both sides of the transfer.

Contact Steve Nice on 01636 881200 to discuss how ForLinux can help you deploy your AWS solution.

Storage

Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)

US based Storage

Amazon EBS Volumes

• $0.10 per GB-month of provisioned storage

• $0.10 per 1 million I/O requests

Amazon EBS Snapshots to Amazon S3 (priced the same as Amazon S3)

• $0.15 per GB-month of data stored

• $0.01 per 1,000 PUT requests (when saving a snapshot)

• $0.01 per 10,000 GET requests (when loading a snapshot)

EU Based Storage

Amazon EBS Volumes

• $0.11 per GB-month of provisioned storage

• $0.11 per 1 million I/O requests

Amazon EBS Snapshots to Amazon S3 (priced the same as Amazon S3)

• $0.18 per GB-month of data stored

• $0.012 per 1,000 PUT requests (when saving a snapshot)

• $0.012 per 10,000 GET requests (when loading a snapshot)

S3 Storage Costs

United States

Storage

• $0.150 per GB – first 50 TB / month of storage used

• $0.140 per GB – next 50 TB / month of storage used

• $0.130 per GB – next 400 TB /month of storage used

• $0.120 per GB – storage used / month over 500 TB

Data Transfer

• $0.170 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out

• $0.130 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out

• $0.110 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out

• $0.100 per GB – data transfer out / month over 150 TB

Requests

• $0.01 per 1,000 PUT, COPY, POST, or LIST requests

• $0.01 per 10,000 GET and all other requests*

* No charge for delete requests

Europe

Storage

• $0.180 per GB – first 50 TB / month of storage used

• $0.170 per GB – next 50 TB / month of storage used

• $0.160 per GB – next 400 TB / month of storage used

• $0.150 per GB – storage used / month over 500 TB

Data Transfer

• $0.170 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out

• $0.130 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out

• $0.110 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out

• $0.100 per GB – data transfer out / month over 150 TB

Requests

• $0.012 per 1,000 PUT, COPY, POST, or LIST requests

• $0.012 per 10,000 GET and all other requests*

No charge for delete requests

Elastic IP Addresses

No cost for Elastic IP addresses while in use

• $0.01 per non-attached Elastic IP address per complete hour

• $0.00 per Elastic IP address remap – first 100 remaps / month

• $0.10 per Elastic IP address remap – additional remap / month over 100

Contact Steve Nice on 01636 881200 to discuss how ForLinux can help you deploy your AWS solution.

Release date: 2nd June 2009.

Nottingham, UK, June 1. ForLinux announced today that it will begin offering Cloud Computing services to its customers, using the Enomaly Elastic Computing Platform (ECP), Service Provider Edition. This will be one of the first ECP Cloud Computing service based in UK.

ForLinux will host the ECP cloud computing platform within its UK based datacenter, enabling ForLinux’s customer to access computing capacity on demand. ForLinux’s Cloud Computing service is expected to be available to customers on 1st August 2009. ForLinux’s Enomaly ECP-based Cloud Computing service can be used to host web sites, to power internal business applications, and to provide burst capacity to meet peak loads for existing systems. ForLinux’s ECP Cloud Computing platform enables customers to access and manage any number of virtual servers, running on any Open Source operating system. Customers access and manage their virtual servers through a web-based dashboard. Customers can also automatically scale up and down their use of cloud servers through a robust web-based API.

“We are delighted to have ForLinux among the select group of Charter Customers for the rollout of the Service Provider Edition of our Elastic Computing Platform”, stated Dr. Richard Reiner, CEO of Enomaly. “We believe customers in the UK will benefit tremendously from having a Cloud Computing service available locally, without trans-border regulatory concerns, and the delays of long-distance Internet access.”

“Customers today demand the power and flexibility of Cloud Computing,” added Steve Nice, Technical Director of ForLinux. “We are delighted to offer this Cloud Computing service, based on Enomaly’s platform, as part of our ongoing commitment to meet our customer’s highest expectations”.

About ForLinux:
ForLinux are leading experts in providing and supporting hosted Open Source applications, delivering first class solutions that are individually tailored for each client.
ForLinux specialise in providing bespoke managed hosting solutions to server and support business critical applications. By expanding the ForLinux portfolio to include the Enomaly’s ECP , the company will be able to offer it’s customers the increased flexibility and power required from a Cloud solution whilst firmly focusing on server security.

About Enomaly, Inc.:
Enomaly is a leading vendor of Cloud Computing platform software. Enomaly’s Elastic Computing Platform (ECP) is the answer for carriers, hosting providers, and enterprises that want to benefit from the power, flexibility, and compelling economics of cloud computing. Organizations around the world use ECP today to deliver Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to their customers and internal users, to seamlessly bridge computing tasks between their datacenters and public cloud providers, and to experience the increased business agility of cloud computing. Enomaly is based in Toronto, Canada, and has operations in Vancouver, Canada, South Korea, and Ukraine. www.enomaly.com

Source: ForLinux Limited, Innovation House, Beacon Hill Office Park, Cafferata Way, Newark, Notts.

Release date: 2nd June 2009

Enomaly, a pioneer in cloud computing, today announced the launch of 10 new global cloud computing service providers who have standardized on and are powered by Enomaly’s Elastic Computing Platform (ECP), Service Provider Edition. The service providers are leveraging Enomaly’s next generation solution, designed for carriers and hosting providers looking to build a line of business offering Infrastructure-on-Demand or Infrastructure as-a-Service (IaaS) to customers.

Enomaly ECP Service Provider Edition extends the company’s open source ECP Community Edition platform, used by more than 15,000 organizations around the world. The new offering makes it possible for service providers to rapidly monetize cloud computing. ECP Service Provider Edition can host Microsoft Windows, Linux, or any other operating system and can be used to host Web sites, power internal business applications, and provide burst capacity. The platform enables users to access and manage virtual servers in whatever quantity they need, on-demand, through a self-service dashboard and a Web-based API.

“We developed the Service Provider Edition of our popular ECP based on partner and customer response,” said Dr. Richard Reiner, CEO of Enomaly. “We have seen tremendous response and adoption of the solution from its earliest stages and look forward to rolling out an extensive feature set in the coming months. As always, our focus at Enomaly is customer service and innovation. We are pleased to be able to deliver this next step in the evolution of cloud computing.”

Enomaly has been working closely with a global group of cloud computing service providers that have helped define the product direction and the future roadmap. Due to strong demand, the launch program was oversubscribed, and a phase-1 customer group was selected including: 1-800-Hosting (US), CentriLogic (US and Canada), CiberConceito (Portugal), eVirtualCloud (Pakistan and Middle East), Family Hosting (US), ForLinux (UK), MediaWeb / Netsentia (Singapore), Next Wave Network (US), RazorServers (US).  Global technology companies including Nomura RI (Japan), RedHat China, a large global telco, and a number of national hosting providers are also working with Enomaly and will be announcing their cloud computing initiatives at a future date.

“We continually strive to adopt new technology with the goal of satisfying the business needs of our customers,” said Robert Offley, President & CEO, Centrilogic. “To that end, we were delighted to be selected as a charter customer and work directly with Enomaly to shape the ECP Service Provider feature set. We look forward to working closely with the team to build out our solution and deliver it to customers of Centrilogic.”

Availability, Pricing and Support

The Enomaly ECP Service Provider Edition is available for purchase. Companies interested in partnering with Enomaly and offering cloud services should contact Dr. Richard Reiner, rr (at) enomaly.com. For more information, visit www.enomaly.com or email sales (at) enomaly.com.

Enomaly also offers professional services including cloud computing readiness assessment and enterprise cloud computing strategy and planning. For more information please visit  www.enomaly.com or email sales (at) enomaly.com.

About Enomaly

Enomaly is a leading vendor of Cloud Computing platform software.  The company’s  Elastic Computing Platform (ECP) provides carriers, hosting providers, and enterprises with the power, flexibility, and compelling economics of cloud computing. Organizations around the world use ECP to deliver Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for customers, employees and partners; to seamlessly bridge computing tasks between datacenters and public cloud providers; and to experience the increased business agility of cloud computing.  Enomaly is based in Toronto, Canada, and has operations in Vancouver, Canada, South Korea, and Ukraine.  www.enomaly.com

Release date: 12th May 2009

If you’ve never done any computer programming you may not understand what the term Open Source means. Coding is the term used when writing a computer program with the resulting program consisting of lines of ‘source code’. Source code are the underlining instructions that make the computer do what you want it to do.

Generally, source code is closely guarded because it allows your competitors to see how your program works. This is ‘Closed Source’.

Open Source is the complete opposite. The fundamental philosophy of Open Source is that the more people see the code the better, as it can be improved and released back to the users. Originally Open Source code was written by an active community of programmers who are passionate about writing efficient and secure code.

Open Source is now a multi billion pound business model, involving some of the best programmers, engineers and companies in the World giving their time for free. Google are the number one contributor to Open Source software.

How can Open Source Software help my business?

Open Source software can assist your business in many ways. The primary reasons for evaluating Open Source software are reduced costs, improved quality, independence and choice.
Reduced Costs
Licences for the use of open source software are generally free of charge. You can download the software, install and use it. Costs may also be reduced from a support perspective as open source software has fewer bugs and less security faults. Older PC hardware can also be utilised for desktops, removing the need to upgrade the hardware.
Improved Quality
In a recent survey conducted by Forrester, 92pc of respondents said that their quality expectations of open source had been met or exceeded.
Independence
Proprietary software vendors generally tie you down to their upgrade paths, their support structure and sometime their hardware.
Choice
There is a vast amount of Open Source software available for all aspect of your business. Sometimes too much.

Where can I use Open Source Software in my business?

Open Source software can be categorised in to two areas Desktop and Server.

Open Source desktop software is available for use with Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac and Linux. One of the biggest Open Source projects is Linux. Linux is an Operating System (OS) which can run on your PC or on the server.

There are also direct replacements for all the popular desktop applications:

Word processing / spreadsheet:

• Open Office
• AbiWord

Web browsing:

• Firefox
• Opera
• Chrome

Reading email:

• Thunderbird
• Evolution

Image manipulation:

• GIMP

Media playing:

• Mplayer
• VLC

If you want a true Open Source desktop solution then you may want to consider using Linux on your PC. Linux distributions provide a rich graphical interface with hundreds of applications all free of cost. You can use Linux without removing Windows and you can still access your Word/Excel documents using Open Office.

The main area where Open Source software excels is for server software. Without Open Source Software the Internet would look very different. Open Source software translates your website name into the numbers (IP Addresses) that computers understand. Open Source is used by all major websites including Google, Facebook and Twitter. Without Open Source these websites may not exist in the format that they are in today.

There is a vast amount of Open Source software that can help you run your business.

Here are just a few of the main ones:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM):

• SugarCRM
• Vtiger
• Concourse

Messaging/Groupware:

• eXo
• OpenXchange
• Zimbra

Business Intelligence (BI):

• Jaspersoft
• BIRT
• Pentaho
• Talend

Business Process Management (BPM):

• ProcessMaker
• Intalio
• Mule
• Bonita

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP):

• Compiere
• OpenBravo
• Xtuple
• ERP5

Human Resources:

• OrangeHRM

Content Management Systems (CMS):

• Alfresco
• eZPublish
• Plone
• Joomla

Web / Network Monitoring:

• Apache
• Samba
• OpenLDAP
• Zabbix
• Nagios

So what is the catch?

When implementing server software, knowledge of Linux is a must. This can often seem alien to many Microsoft users but with a little training most savvy users can get the software installed.

When considering implementing a Linux desktop solution, the cultural obstacles will probably be the largest barrier. Unfamiliarity with a Linux desktop may initially hamper productivity but with training this can be overcome.

Some may be concerned about support for open source applications. Because of the community nature of Open Source there are vast resources and help for all issues on the internet. Additionally, a majority of the producers of the software offer a paid support service and there are independent companies that offer support for Open Source applications such as Linux. Most of these have enterprise versions which provide support at a cost.

UK Government backs Open Source Software

Tom Watson MP, minister for digital engagement, said open source software would be on a level playing field with proprietary software such as Windows. The government has said that Open Source Software will be adopted “when it delivers best value for money”, In terms of usage, the UK lags behind most of Europe in adoption of Open Source Software.

Hopefully this announcement will give business confidence in using Open Source Software.

By Steve Nice
Technical Director, ForLinux Limited

Gavin Phillips, Owner, Everybodysmile

www.everybodysmile.co.uk (EBS) is a large photographic website that require large amounts of disk space for storing its photography client base.  ForLinux engineered a solution that spans 5 servers giving EBS a solution that has room to grow and can scale in line with their business. When EBS first came to ForLinux their solution was reaching capacity and they needed a solution that would provide additional growth.

The solution comprises a load balancer, 3 web servers, MemCache server and a NFS file server.  ForLinux implemented a NAS (Network Attached Server) running NFS (Network File System) and recommended changes to their application to make use of MemCache.

Mortons is a thriving, independent and award-winning printing and
publishing company with a worldwide customer base and a long, proud
history of embracing the latest technical innovations to maintain the highest
quality standards.

Jason Williams, E-business Manager, Mortons Print Ltd:

“We have been with ForLinux since around January 2005 and we first came
to them because of a recommendation – from one of their main competitors!
And in fact one of our servers died rather dramatically at the outgoing
company and ForLinux played a key role in helping us to recover the data
and to get another server straight away.”

INTUITIVE UNDERSTANDING

“Almost from day one, ForLinux had an understanding of how our
business ran and what we needed.
They don’t do anything badly. We came to them originally because we
wanted better software support. After a year or so they said ‘We can also do
the hosting’, and now we use their consultancy services too.
I have recommended them several times. Once we’d found them, we felt
we’d found the people we needed, and that’s the job done!”

Building Rich Internet Applications With PHP 5 & AJAX
This course ensures a lot of practical application-building exercises to ensure that you don’t just understand the theory, but fully understand the functionalities behind building rich web applications powered by PHP, Ajax and Web Services.
Some topics include:

• Proper HTML(X) Programming
• Web service creation and management
• REST
• XML-RPC and SOAP
• JavaScript Primer
• Asynchronous operations
• Debugging
• Using JSON for data transfers
• Managing events with JavaScript
• Security.

By the end of this course, you will have mastered the process of building rich web applications powered by PHP, AJAX and Web Services. There is also time built into the course schedule to cover topics / queries specifically relevant to the students attending.

PHP Zend Certification Training and Exam

28th-30th April 2009, Duration 3 Days, £995 per delegate

The Zend Certification Exam is the industry standard for PHP Professionals and this intense training course will fully prepare you for your examination. The course is full of numerous, hands-on exercises and examples built in line with the exam objectives aimed at honing in your PHP skills to maximise your successful completion of the course.

As ForLinux is a Pearson Vue Authorised Test Centre, we can offer on site testing straight after your PHP Zend Certification course meaning you can now complete your training and take your exam in 3 Days! Alternatively, if you would prefer to have some time to put in to practice all you have learnt, we will issue you a exam voucher which can used either at ForLinux at a later date or any other Pearson Vue centre in the UK.

Topics include:

• PHP basics
• String & Patterns
• Arrays
• Functions
• Security
• Web Features
• Databases & SQL
• PHP 4/5
• Object Oriented Programming
• XML and Web Services
• Design and Theory
• Streams & Network Programming

By the end of this course you will be fully prepared on each exam topic and on your way towards becoming a Zend Certified Engineer!

• LPI 101/102 training is targeted towards junior to mid-level Linux system administrators. The course covers two areas: Linux Fundamentals/Linux System and Network Administration.
• LPI 201/202 training is an intermediate-level course. The course demonstrates how to administer Linux-only and Linux-mixed networks.

Generally, the training courses are delivered in Newark over a 5-day period.

Dates for LPI 201 / 202 training courses will be announced shortly.

We also offer PHP Public Training Courses in association with Ibuildings. There are two courses currently scheduled for April both aimed at significantly increasing your PHP knowledge and validating your existing skill set.

• PHP Zend Certification 28th April Duration 3 days, £995 (more details)




• Building Rich Internet Applications with PHP5 & AJAX 21st April Duration 3 days, £900 (more details)

Unlike RedHat support services, ForLinux will support the application (but not limited to)  MySQL, Apache, PHP and Tomcat.

If you require a UK based managed support contract, with certified engineers please call us on 01636 881200 or complete the contact form on the right.