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http://twitter.com/simon
Link in his tweet

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http://twitter.com/lowk3y
RT @simon: A great book on SimpleDB for developers. Check it out! http://bit.ly/cm7rAo

http://twitter.com/greatebook4u
eBook: Amazon SimpleDB Developer Guide —> http://is.gd/dbArd

Packt Publishing featured my SimpleDB book as the book of the month in the July Newsletter.

Link to the newsletter

PDF of the Packt Newsletter

Chad Lung wrote the first in-depth review of my SimpleDB book I have seen.

http://giantflyingsaucer.com/blog/?p=1225

Here is a sample chapter from my SimpleDB book.

Click for chapter 3 SimpleDB versus RDBMS

Amazon SimpleDB Developer Guide

Details may be found at https://www.packtpub.com/amazon-simpledb-database-developer-guide/book

Amazon SimpleDB Developer Guide

Details may be found at https://www.packtpub.com/amazon-simpledb-database-developer-guide/book

The latest PHP sample code can be downloaded and test run from here. Visit http://webmasterinresidence.ca/simpledb/

Discussion and details on the book and PHP samples can be found at http://webmasterinresidence.ca/webmasterinresidence/?cat=39

PHP sample library for accessing SimpleDB in PHP. The samples include all SimpleDB calls as well as the new ConsistentRead = True and Conditional Put and Delete. The sample set also includes a basic SimpleDB backup/restore to S3 as well as a basic MP3 DB including uploading to the files to S3.

This is the sample set for my upcoming book from Packt Publishing Amazon SimpleDB Developer Guide by Prabhakar Chaganti and Rich Helms. http://www.packtpub.com/amazon-simpledb-database-developer-guide/

I have expanded Dan Myers SDB-PHP interface to provide all functionality of SimpleDB including the Feb 24, 2010 new ConsistentRead = True and Conditional Put and Delete. The expanded API also includes data normalization for numbers, dates, boolean and base64.

The samples can be run from this site with your SimpleDB key/secret key. You input the keys to PHP session variables. Also all source is displayed on the bottom of each program. The source package can be downloaded from the demo menu.

http://webmasterinresidence.ca/simpledb/

Please comment here with any issues. I am working on a faster restore version with multi-thread for restoring large databases.

While learning to use the Amazon SimpleDB services I looked for a sample PHP program. I could not get the one Amazon provides to work. Dan Myers’ wrote a SimpleDB PHP class but there was no sample code to use it.

This is a collection of small programs that use Dan Myers’ SimpleDB PHP class.

This is a very simple set of examples of working with the Amazon SimpleDB. It is written on top of Don Myers’ SimpleDB PHP class.

Download simpledbsamples.zip V1.0 July 28, 2009

Rich Helms rich@webmasterinresidence.ca

Uses Amazon SimpleDB PHP Class http://sourceforge.net/projects/php-sdb/ by heronblademastr

* listdomains [list all domains]
* createrecord (single) and domain tag [check if the "tag" domain exists and if not create, then create a record]
* getrecord (single) in domain tag [list that specific record]
* deleterecord (single) in domain tag [delete that specific record]
* createrecords and domain tag [bulk load records]
* listrecords in tag [list all records in tag domain]
* deletedomain tag [delete tag domain]

To install, configure config.inc.php with your awsAccessKey and awsSecretKey.
Copy to the host. Run index.php

Note: An important concept with SimpleDB is Eventually Consistent. This means when you update, add or delete a record you will not see it immediately. This is why the programs are broken into small programs, to give the system time to reflect the updates.

For details see:

• http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2008/12/eventually_consistent.html
  This is a detailed report
• http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonSimpleDB/latest/DeveloperGuide/index.html?EventualConsistencySummary.html
  Docs at Amazon on it

For the past few weeks, I have been exploring Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS consists of a suite of hosting services that you can purchase. The most basic is Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). This is storage that can be used to store data ranging from backups to online video. Access to the files is limited by a complex security scheme, or you can open up the files for all. An example of full access to read would be media for a website. I wrote a plugin for WordPress that lets me use a time-sensitive link to the video. This link is encoded to work for only so many minutes. This prevents people from using my video on their website. In my plugin, I also encode the file name so that stealing the video file would be difficult. Storage on S3 is $0.15 per gig per month.

But for me the real excitement is Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). This offers the ability to create virtual servers. Costs range from $0.10 per hour for a small machine and up. Servers can be brought online and terminated as needed. S3 was challenging to bring up the secure links, but EC2 has a steep learning curve. My goal is a Linux server with my campus WordPress work. I am not really a Linux person, so I have to depend on others to help me with configuring the machine. A big challenge is the Amazon cloud model metaphor. To create a machine, you launch an instance of an Amazon Machine Image (AMI). While the virtual machine has a file system, the data in it is around only until the machine is terminated or fails. If you want storage that persists between sessions, you need Amazon Elastic Block Storage (ABS). EBS is created and attached to an instance.

Once you create a machine from an AMI, you modify it to be the server you want. Now you create your own AMI for the next time.

Another aspect of the exercise is how to interface into the cloud as well as control it. Amazon created FireFox – a plugins called ‘S3 Organizer’ and ‘ElasticFox’ for controlling EC2 and EBS. Puddy and WinSCP applications are used to control the host.

I find the biggest challenge is gaining enough familiarity with the concepts that I can think in them. Like learning a new language, you can translate only so long. You have to learn to think in it.

A computer for me has always been hardware that sits in a physical location – somethig I can walk up to it and even touch. Addresses are static and when the machine is turned off, the disks hold the data. This old dog is learning new tricks.

Then I spent the weekend painting the living/dining rooms. I think cloud services are easier to understand.

http://aws.amazon.com/