Whitepaper compares cloud messaging platforms, Amazon SQS and Linxter
September 18, 2009
By Jason Milgram
Cloud-based computing promises to revolutionize distributed applications, capitalizing on the ubiquity of the internet and allowing corporate IT departments to provision a wide variety of information services without having to assume responsibility for every piece of the puzzle.
This is how Libertas Technologies, one of our partners, begins their recent whitepaper in which Linxter and Amazon’s Simple Queue Service (SQS) are compared. Comparing Cloud Messaging Platforms, an eight page no-nonsense report, does a great job stepping through a series of benchmark tests and highlighting key differences between Linxter and Amazon SQS. The differences primarily came down to ease of use and performance.
| Platform | Messages Sent Per Second | Messages Received Per Second | Number of Data Packets | Number of Bytes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linxter | 18.6 | 6.7 | 578 | 337 kB |
| SQS | 1.9 | 0.9 | 4,442 | 2,336 kB |
What their chart says:
- Linxter was almost 10x faster than SQS for messages sent per second and 6x faster for messages received
- SQS sends 7.7x more data packets and transmits 6.9x more bytes than Linxter when sending the same number of small messages – the difference is much greater when the messages are larger than 8KBs
What you won’t find in the chart, but you’ll find in the report:
- Linxter is much easier to use with far less coding
- Linxter’s fees are simpler and more straightforward (with SQS you are charged for each request and it can take between 4 and 7 requests to send a single message from point-to-point)
- Linxter provides these additional features which are not available with SQS
- asynchronous – both message sending and receiving are non-blocking to your program and run in the background
- message polling – no need to write your own message polling code
- local transactional queues for sending – messages are not taken off of local queues until it is verified they are received, even when a program instance is shutdown and restarted
- communication channel management – back-end management of communication channels and ability for program instances to self-manage their own channels
- automatically created individual cloud queues for message retrieval – no need to parse messages in a shared queue to determine who they are for
- self-managed cloud queue awareness – no need to write code for updating your program instances on what queues to use, this is all self-managed and dynamic
Additional features that Linxter provides:
- built-in Internet connection retries
- automatic message sending and receiving retries
- dynamic endpoint reconfiguration
- tags for messages
- message non-repudiation
- file attachments for messages
- file chunking
In conclusion, Libertas suggests that both cloud messaging services are great in that they are both solid offerings that eliminate the need to “roll your own” communication foundation to connect disparate apps or integrate disparate systems. However, because Linxter and Amazon SQS differ significantly in implementation, price model and performance, Libertas suggests thoroughly evaluating both solutions before implementing. Lucky for you, we’ve even made evaluation a snap! You can run your own benchmark tests using our open source Performance Tester.
KickStartz Weekend this week June 18-20, 2009
June 16, 2009
KickStartz Weekend 2009 is this week and we are getting geared up for everything. For those of you that can’t be there, you can check out the live streaming video here. We will also be recording the event and will publish it on our YouTube channel here.
UM’s Launchpad participating in Global Entrepreneurship Week
June 3, 2009
During Global Entrepreneurship Week November 16 - 22, 2009, millions of people around the world will join a growing movement of innovative thinkers to promote entrepreneurial activities around the world. Administered globally by the Public Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., the mission of Global Entrepreneurship Week is to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity.
In 2008, The Launch Pad at the University of Miami was recognized as Global Entrepreneurship Week’s top national partner out of 1,174 colleges and universities for the quality and quantity of entrepreneurial programming on campus during the week. The Launch Pad hosted 46 events with eight of the University’s eleven schools and colleges participating. Over 1,000 students, alumni and members of the South Florida community attended events ranging from intimate 30-person programs on how to take an idea and create an enterprise to large 250-person workshops open to the greater community on the importance of networking.
Building upon last year’s success, The Launch Pad is pleased to participate in Global Entrepreneurship Week again this year. To capitalize on the momentum of our year-long programming, The Launch Pad will host several themed days of events focused on specific initiatives – Social Entrepreneurship, Women in Entrepreneurship, and Entrepreneurship in the Arts and Entertainment and in Science and Technology –and introduce interactive programming to include an elevator pitch competition and an Entrepreneurial Fair, a “Science Fair for Entrepreneurs,” to showcase emerging businesses and nonprofits.
Taken from http://thelaunchpad.org/global-entrepreneurship-week-2009
KickStartz Weekend 2009
As promised, you knew I would have to mention my own entrepreneurship event here in South Florida.
The event is called KickStartz Entrepreneurship Weekend. The event will be held at DeVry University in Miramar on June 18-20, 2009. We will have lots of food, a number of industry experts speaking, and will have lots of great prize giveaways. Now the first question I always get is, isn’t this like Startup Weekend? My answer to this is no it is not. Although the format is similar (multi-day event) it has many differences. First and foremost we are a not for profit that selects a charity to sponsor for each event. Additionally, we employ the concept of Open Space Technology to administer the event. We are focused on putting Florida’s startup community on the map. The event at DeVry will be our first but we expect a good turnout. I will blog more about the event as more information comes out as well as how it went.
A little about the new Florida Startup Blog
Hello,
My name is Marc Asselin and I am the new blogger dude for Florida Startup Blog. So a bit of info about me; I am a passionate family man, entrepreneur, and lover of food. My IT career spans more than 20 years. I’ve acquired quite a few bumps and bruises along the way so hopefully my past experiences can help someone out there. I currently am CEO of MKA Ventures which is a technology and startup venture company. I also run KickStartz Entrepreneurship Weekend. The goal with KickStartz was to get Florida’s startup scene noticed. When I was approached by SpringStage, I jumped at the chance to further my cause. My focus will be to blog on as many Florida startups, events, and activities as humanly possible. I hope you join me in getting Florida to the top of the list for startups.
Marc
Andy, Howard and Jason on a Sunday Morning
September 28, 2008
This is a bit of a weird “kick-off post” for a startup blog, as I have yet to introduce myself, or let you know what this is all about. But still, it seemed appropriate. This repost is from the Defrag blog - a technology conference that I run. Thoughts, ideas, rants, questions - please leave a comment, or email me directly (enorlin AT mac.com).
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To say this past week has been “tumultuous” would be an understatement. Late Friday afternoon, I found myself having conversations with local bankers about the worst case scenarios, while bartenders stood there saying, “man, maybe I won’t deposit my check - maybe I’ll stick that in my pocket.” Well, we awake this morning to what is apparently a new world, as it seems that the “bailout compromise” is going to get done.
Simultaneously, I’m finding Jason Calacanis’ email send (entitled, “(The) Startup Depression”) in my inbox (sorry, no link yet), and finding Howard’s great blog post that references Andy’s amazing article from last week. Without getting into the whole mess of agreeing or dis-agreeing with the bailout (I’ve done both in the last week - hasn’t everyone?), let me just say that A) I do side with Andy in thinking this might be one of the greatest “trades” the U.S. could ever make, and B) I couldn’t agree more with Howard — it just isn’t profitable to “bet against the U.S.”
All of it has me looking out over a cloudy Gulf, remembering the 2001-2003 timeframe, and thinking about how momentous this event really is. So, you guessed, I’m resorting to the bullet list:
1. Anyone that underestimates how important this bailout will be is a fool. Howard mentions “new trends” - and I agree. This thing will REMAKE the financial landscape as we know it. It’s akin to “the new deal” in terms of societal impact, and is easily as important as Smoot-Hawley or Glass-Steagall.
Jason’s email send has lots of pretty typical “tactical advice for entrepreneurs” in it, but the one thing that really bothered me was his prognostication that “things are gonna get really bad.” It is simply IMPOSSIBLE to know that right now. This bailout could very easily put a floor under mortgages, save the banks, open the credit markets back up, strengthen the dollar (very weirdly - see andy), help the deficit AND make the U.S. “gubmint” a whole bucketload of money to play with. In short, I’m nowhere NEAR willing to think that we should all be “hunkering down” for 2-3 years of startup nuclear winter. It very well could be that after things sort out (and we may get a rate cut in here still, don’t kid yourselves), this market — and the accompanying economy absolutely lights on fire. Could be. Maybe. No one knows.
Am I planning for “happy times?” Of course not. I’m planning as I always do — to be a long distance runner not a sprinter. Survival is key, but mapping out survival for most people should only take about 5 minutes. After that, you have to consider both A) disaster and B) complete upside surprises - the key here is to give at least equal weighting to both, while knowing that in all likelihood, the upside to disaster ratio is probably preternaturally disposed to at least 60/40 (the universe worked that out long ago).
2. Will lots of startups fail? Yep, undoubtedly. But lots of startups will stay alive too. And they’ll slowly spend money. And they’ll come to conferences. And they’ll get focused and tough and lean. Startups always fail - that’s the name of the game, but startups also always find a way to stay alive. Bottom line: people can talk all day about the benefits of being in silicon valley, but one of the huge downfalls of it is that when times are good, EVERYBODY gets funding. This whole market phenomenon will scare and hurt the “valley” startup scene way more than it will Boulder, Pittsburgh, Austin, the Twin Cities, Atlanta, Research Triangle, or good ole Florida.
3. What should you do? Everyone I know that’s been around the block agrees on this one - START A BUSINESS. What am I doing? Launching a new conference (more on that later). Why? Because I remember January 2002. I remember meeting Andre Durand for lunch in downtown Denver and watching his eyes light up talking about “digital identity.” At the time, I was making ends meet in the web design/copy writing business, and it was just refreshing to see anyone excited about technology — after all, at that point, the entire software industry only had like 25 people still working (HA!). In any case, I didn’t get Andre’s idea. It sounded so…..boring. Three days later, I woke up in a cold sweat with my head filled with ideas about digital identity. I couldn’t read about anything in tech land without seeing how identity was the solution. I had become completely myopic.
I called Andre back and told him that I wanted to be involved “no matter what” - it wasn’t about money, and it wasn’t about startup greatness; the world NEEDED this dammit - and we were just the guys to bring it to life (or so we thought). Within days, I’d met Phil Becker (who has since become my absolute #1 business mentor - and a true, close friend) and the whole thing was off and running. Ping Identity (software company) came to life, and Digital ID World (tech conference) came to life.
People thought we were absolutely nuts, by the way, for starting a tech conference. Comdex had just announced bankruptcy. There were barely any tech conferences around, much less new ones launching. And “digital identity” was kind of a joke (remember Microsoft’s Passport? yea). Well, we muscled through - and made just enough money the first year to allow us to do it all again (which is to say none of us made a dime on the conference in year 1). Needless to say, it all worked. Digital ID World grew (and was sold in 2005). Ping got funding (when it was impossible to get funding). It all came together. There were times when Andre would call and tell me that Ping would be outta money in two weeks if he didn’t raise cash, but it did all come together. Bottom line: start a business.
At the end of the day, every thing’s changed, but every thing is also still the same. The markets will sort this out. Good companies will make it. Defrag will be here in 2009 (so you have that to look forward to). The sun will still rise. And, if I was a betting man (oh wait - I am), I’d bet on U.S. innovation to win out in the end - again.
Smile. Think abundance, not scarcity. Get optimistic. To quote U2, “it’s a beautiful day.”
P.S. Don’t think there isn’t a certain irony/indicator in the fact that the conference that really kicked off this whole last cycle (Web 2.0) has people like Lance Armstrong and Al Gore speaking. That just wouldn’t have happened in 2002. Ever. And here we are again. It’s really not a matter of “never learning” - it’s human nature, market cycles and rhythm. Just keep focused on dancing, and give up on “dancing with the stars.”
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Welcome to the Florida Startup Blog
September 3, 2008
SpringStage is a new startup founded by David Cohen, Alexander Muse and Micah Baldwin. Our objective is to build a network of online, offline and media properties in an effort to promote entrepreneurship. Our focus is on local community development and in an effort to generate local content we are looking for a writer who is connected to the regional startup scene to blog about startups, entrepreneurs, venture capital and interesting people in your area. If this sounds interesting apply online below: http://www.texasstartupblog.com/startups/startup-blog-network/
