Using cloud services without the need to learn APIs for each of them & building web applications that use multiple providers become much easier.

libcloud currently supports ~8 cloud hosting providers including Amazon EC2, Slicehost & Rackspace.

It would be lovely to see similar libraries built for other scripting languages which will make the lives of developer easier.

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Cloud hosting, storage & content delivery networks (CDNs)

An application hosted in the cloud will:

• easily scale (with instantly deployable & API controlled instances, unlimited diskspaces, etc..)
• serve files faster with content delivery network (CDN) support
• have a better availability (with strong SLAs)

With the increasing number of providers & tools created, cloud hosting is getting simpler & simpler everyday.

Getting in the cloud, in most cases, will save so much time & resources when running a growing web application. You won't need to think of the hardware, better react to the system resources & bandwidth usage fluctuations, pay exactly for what you use & much more.

Here is a collection of popular options & tools that can help you in hosting your applications in the cloud:

Cloud Hosting & Storage Options

Rackspace Cloud

Cloud Servers – (hosting)

The service provides instantly deployable servers with a choice of popular Linux distributions (no Windows). Currently, there is no API support but it is on the way.

Cloud Files – (storage)

A redundant data storage service which replicates the data in 3 seperate locations.

Files can be managed from a web-based interface or an API. The system is integrated with LimeLight content delivery network & files can be selected to be served faster via this network.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) – (hosting)

Amazon EC2 is a web service that provides you the environment to instantly launch (or remove) new servers (instances) with the OS & configuration you need which makes scaling of a web application much easier.

This functionality can be controlled via the web service APIs or tools to be mentioned in this post.

You are charged with the resources consumed like hours your servers (instances) work or the bandwidth used.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) (storage)

Amazon S3 is the cloud storage option of AWS where unlimited number of files can be stored & retrieved.

It can be used with the API provided or various tools (mentioned in this post).

Pricing of the service is calculated with the number of requests made, amount of data stored & bandwidth used (transfers between EC2 & S3 are free)

AWS also offers other services that power (or powered by) EC2 & S3:

• Amazon CloudFront: content delivery network which enables faster delivery of files hosted on S3 to end users by distributing the files to various locations.
• Amazon CloudWatch: monitoring for EC2 resources like CPU, RAM, disk read/writes & more.
• Amazon SimpleDB: a simple web based database which provides basic db functions.

GoGrid

Hosting

Like S3, GoGrid also comes with ready to deploy server images with various configurations (Linux & Windows).

The system can be controlled via a web-based GUI or an API.

It also offers a service named Cloud Connect which combines the elasticity of cloud computing with the customization of dedicated servers in one unified solution.

Storage

GoGrid Cloud Storage can be reached by mounting the drive to any server (protocols supported are: SCP, FTP, SAMBA/CIFS, and RSYNC). An API for this service is not yet available but on the way.

Google App Engine (hosting)

Google enables developers to host their applications inside its own infrastructure. And besides many other cloud hosting systems, Google doesn't provide you root access but gives the possibility of unlimited resource usage.

The platform supports 2 languages: Python & Java. But there are tricks to run other languages in the engine (Run PHP on the Google App Engine).

The service comes with a free quota where a basic application can be easily hosted for free. For over-quota, the pricing is applied.

CloudLayer

CloudLayer Computing – (hosting)

On-demand computing instances with several OS options can be ran in a very short time like 5 minutes.

Created instances can be standalone or integrated with other SoftLayer dedicated servers, virtual servers, automated services, and additional CloudLayer Services which makes the usage highly flexible.

Instances can be reached via KVM over IP & managed via an API or the web-based control panel.

CloudLayer Storage – (storage)

The cloud storage of SoftLayer can be reached via API, a native Windows client, WebDav, or mobile devices. The system also integrates with CloudLayer CDN which offers fast delivery of content from 21 locations around the world.

NewServers (hosting)

NewServers is a cloud hosting provider which offers controlling the system via a web app. or an API.

Currently no cloud storage or CDN is offered.

Cloud Hosting & Storage Tools

CloudBerry S3 Explorer – (free)

This is a free Amazon S3 file browser application that enables creating-deleting-updating buckets, folders & files.

It supports:

• multiple S3 accounts
• setting up file access permissions
• generating external URLs & more..

CloudBerry S3 Explorer is a must-have for Amazon S3 users.

ElasticFox – (free)

This is an amazing Firefox extension for managing Amazon EC2. Using ElasticFox, it is possible to create & delete instances, volumes, IPs, get the root passwords & much more..

S3Fox Organizer – (free)

A FTP-like Firefox addon which enable anyone to reach S3 buckets for uploading & downloading files.

It supports managing CloudFront, changing access policies & syncronizing S3 with the local system.

JungleDisk – (paid)

JungleDisk is an application which can work with Amazon S3 & Mosso Cloud Files to create an online storage.

Besides the backup capabilities, it offers a great feature which is mounting the cloud drive as a local drive. This way, anyone can use cloud storage without the need of coding with API.

JetS3t – (free)

It is an open-source Java toolkit and application suite for the Amazon S3 and Amazon CloudFront content delivery network.

The toolkit contains 5 applications for reaching, syncronizing & creating an authorization service to mediate to S3 accounts.

GridGain – (free)

An open source cloud platform, built with Java, that enables developers to develop and run applications on private or public clouds.

The application is simply focused on providing the best Java software middleware to develop and run grid applications on the cloud infrastructure in a simple and productive way.

abiCloud – (free)

abiCloud is an open source software for creating & managing public or private clouds.

The tool mainly offers users the capacity for scaling, management, automatic and immediate provision of servers, storage, networks, virtual network devices as well as applications.

Tarzan – (free)

For any developer who wants to use Amazon Web Services, Tarzan offers an unique experience for an easier integration.

Besides being a high-performance development framework, it can:

• manage Amazon S3 with added functionality like moving, renaming, copying entire buckets, and storing remote files.
• integrates with SimpleDB
• manage EC2 & more..

You should also check:

• S3tools – various open source tools for reaching Amazon S3.
• Appscale – an open source implementation of Google App Engine cloud computing interface.
• Windows PowerShell Snap-In for GoGrid
• CDNTools: A Wordpress plugin that integrates your blog with Mosso Cloud Files for serving the images from their CDN.

These are definitely not the all options & resources on cloud hosting & there can be more great ones not listed here. If you know them, please share in the comments.

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Info: Every user / developer has different experiences. Any more tips that you share in the comments will be appreciated.

"Why is my website slow?" is a popular question. And it is a vital problem for a website.

Faster the website, happier & more the visitors. That’s a well-known fact.

There are several factors that may slow a website. In general, all of them can be solved. This just depends on how much effort you can spend on it.

How much time do you have?

You may not have enough time to spend on speeding up your website. Depending on your free time, you may choose the steps to apply like mentioned below:

• I have very limited time: Apply step-1, step-2, step-4 & step-5 (only the compression parts) and step-6.
• I have some time: Apply all of them except step-3 & step-8.
• I rule the time: Go with them all.

Most of the tips are the ones that you probably know. So, you can use the list as a checklist (which it normally is in my "customer notes sheet" : ) ).

Here are the tips:

1. Get A Fast & Less-Loaded Web Server

This is a must. Whatever you do to make your website faster, if it is served slow, there’s nothing to do.

Make sure that the server your website is hosted has low ping values & it is not over-loaded. Specially if you’ve a database and/or using dynamic files (like asp, asp.net, php, ruby..) server over-load can kill the performance.

If you’ve a simple website with few visitors then shared hosting is ok. For a website getting popular, think of a VPS with guaranteed RAM & CPU usage. If the website is already popular, a dedicated server will be the best performing one.

2. Know When To Use GIF, JPG & PNG Files. 

Playing with the quality of images will dramatically lower the sizes of them while they will still be looking good.

GIF is suitable for images with few colors like logos, text & line art. When saving a GIF file, make sure you use a small color pallette (learn more).

JPG is good for images with lots of colors & details like photographs. Decrease the quality of a JPG image before saving. It will still look good for a web image (learn more).

PNG, a format specially for websites, has great quality – both transparent & non-transparent – is specially functional when you’re in need of quality transparent images. Don’t forget that IE6 has problems in displaying them (learn more).

3. Use XHTML – No Tables

This is easy to tell but may be harder to implement for anyone that has few experience with XHTML.

The thing is, tables are rendered slower than DIVs by browsers. You can do more with less code & no need to say it is much better to be compatible with any browser (including mobile browsers), in means of SEO, etc..

Update: There may be cases when using tables are much more logical like "tabular data". You may have to code a lot for creating the look of a simple 5 columned table. Don’t do that & use tables when needed.

What is tried to be mentioned here is, use XHTML rather than tables in general. But don’t try to draw images with XHTML.

4. Use CSS Smartly & Compressed

• Mention every style in CSS files.
• Find the common properties in objects, define them once & try not to repeat them.
• If using a significant amount of totally different properties for a specific page, define them in another CSS file & only include on that page. So users viewing other pages won’t need to download those properties.
• Compress your CSS file (you may try this, this or this).

5. Merge & Compress JavaScript Files

Try merging JavaScript files prevent multiple includes (see step 6).

If a JavaScript file will be used only in few pages, try to include them inside those pages only (like CSS in step 4).

Compress JavaScript files. It lowers the size seriously & doesn’t have any bad effects on your side. This & this are some of the popular compressors.

6. Manage Included Files Better

There may be several files included in webpages like CSS files, JavaScript files and other JavaScript files for statistic services, social bookmarking sites, widgets & more.

Try to decrease the number of these files:

• If using digg-reddit-like voting widgets, don’t use them in stories that won’t hit the frontpage & remove the ones that were submitted few days ago as they won’t have any help after sometime.
• Use only 1 statistic service if possible. Every web-based service requires new files to be installed & they are called each time a page is loaded.
• Host files on your side & don’t use web addresses as file paths.
  • If you’re using any JS frameworks like jQuery or MooTools, don’t call the .js files from their websites but download & upload them to your website.
  • Don’t try to call any file from a web address like "http://.." as this always requires dns queries to be done & will work slower.
• PHP Speedy (WRD post)is a very effective solution that does all the combining & compressing automatically. You may want to try it.

7. Use HTTP Compression

HTTP compression is one of the most effective step with a little effort.

Today, almost every browser & web server supports HTTP compression. Using it, your files are sent to the visitor compressed & un-compressed on their side & you can have up to 90% success for the text based files (like HTML).

You have 2 popular choices with this:

• HTTP compression: a feature of the web server (can be enabled on the server side)
• Gzip: can be enabled at the site level. Here are more details.
• Further readings:
  • HTTP Compression at Wikipedia
  • Speed Web Delivery With HTTP Compression – By IBM DeveloperWorks
    

8. Better Coding

This is for websites which does not use any ready-to-use systems like Wordpress, Drupal, ExpressionEngine or similar (if you’re using these then you’re lucky as they are already well-coded).

Besides the better XHTML & CSS coding, the dynamic coding of the website directly effects the performance.

As you can guess, this is a huge subject. But there are some major things like:

• Seperate the static & dynamic content. This will help writing less-code.
• Create smart & effective functions. For ex: if you’re going to use a user’s name & birthdate at the same page, don’t run 2 queries or functions, your function must call 2 of them. Simply, try to do everything once.
• Connect to the database as few as you can & once connected, call only the data you need.
• Try to keep database sizes small. If you’ve a large database, sometimes seperating it into several databases perform better, specially for the data which is reached not so often. From the server’s point of view: 4-250mbs of dbs perform better than 1-1gb of db.

9. Cache Webpages

Caching is a superb way of decreasing the stress on the server by running more static files & less queries. It simply saves a static, HTML version of the page to be displayed & displays that file rather than the dynamic one.

For CMS applications like Wordpress, there are already ready-to-use caching plugins (like WP-Cache). For PHP, here is a great article from SitePoint.

A small note, caching can also be done at the web server level. But if you’re on a shared hosting account, you better be lucky to have it on.

What Do You Suggest?

Besides the tips mentioned above, what are your tips to make websites faster?

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DNSPinger is free web-based service that checks the domain name provided every 3 minutes for 24 hours and notifies the user via e-mail when the DNS update is activated.

The story

Few days ago, I updated the DNS addresses of a domain name and it took more than 12 hours to activate and I spent some time with pinging it to see if the hosting switch was successful. Rather than checking for it anymore, I created a .vbs file that would check the update status and notify me.

Hoping to help other users having the same problem, here is DNSPinger, an easy to use DNS update notifier.

If you’re dealing frequently with domain names, bookmark DNSPinger and it’ll save your time.

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