Month: August 2021

MongoDB and DataStax recently released serverless versions of their cloud databases, a sign of the direction of database evolution

For many developers, serverless cloud compute in the shape of AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, to name but two, has become part of the furniture, providing on-demand infrastructure with minimal configuration, that scales as needed and is charged according to consumption.

Less well-known are serverless databases, which include DataStax AstraDB, which reached general availability in February, and MongoDB Atlas Serverless, which was released last month. Like serverless compute, they also promise infinite scalability and consumption-based pricing, in a way that may be particularly suited to cloud-native and event-driven workloads.

Serverless databases are designed to handle unpredictable, rapidly changing tasks. Are they really ‘server-less'? Well no, but then neither is Lambda et al. The servers are there, humming away in some data centre somewhere, but you don't need to worry about configuring them or their virtualised offspring. You just turn them on like a tap and turn them off again when you're done. That's the idea anyway. 'Serverless' is one of the industry's more deceptive terms, but to the annoyance of linguistic purists it's one that has stuck.

One person that's not convinced that serverless is an evolution is Percona product owner MongoDB, Akira Kurogane.

"Why serverless when it's server-ful?" he said, before conceding that for small cloud databases that are intermittently used, such as for data science experiments, it could be cheaper to run them that way than on a per-server basis. "It depends on how MongoDB prices them in the future."

Currently, MongoDB Atlas Serverless, which is still in preview mode, costs US $0.30 per million reads and $1.25 per million writes and storage at $0.25 per GB per month.

DataStax AstraDB, a serverless Cassandra service, comes in at a similar price tag, with rates varying slightly according to the choice of cloud provider. In EMEA, reads are $0.39, $0.26 and $0.26 on GCP, AWS and Azure, respectively, with writes priced between $1.16 and $1.33. Storage costs are $0.25 GB/month.

Nanna Einarsdóttir, VP engineering at Icelandic firm Ankeri, A customer of DataStax AstraDB, told Computing about the appeal of the model for the company, which provides real-time data to the commercial shipping sector.

First, she said, the company decided on NoSQL as a primary data store architecture because of the need to handle large volumes of fast moving data, eventually plumping for Apache Cassandra for its scalability. Her team then decided the serverless option would be a good fit owing to the lack of administrative overhead.

We only have to pay for the service that we use over time, rather than having to estimate capacity in advance and pay extra - Nanna Einarsdóttir, Ankeri

"We decided on serverless Cassandra as it meant that we could run this as a service and not have to worry about having to implement our own clusters or carrying out management tasks," Einarsdóttir said.

"Our developers can use APIs to interact with data, and the service takes care of all the management tasks".

She added: "We only have to pay for the service that we use over time, rather than having to estimate capacity in advance and pay extra."

So far the results have been in line with expectations, she explained, with serverless allowing the team to get up and running "very quickly, much faster than we would have been able to if we had to design and install our own clusters."

Einarsdóttir continued: "Going serverless around our applications and our data together has helped us develop our operations faster."

Inevitably, though, there has been a learning curve, although that seems more to do with Cassandra than with the serverless model.

"In our initial design, we planned to have a lot of columns within our database implementation in order to capture all the data that each ship provides, but this could impact performance whenever search operations would be carried out," she said, adding that DataStax engineers were on hand to help with a more compact and storage-efficient design.

As Atlas Serverless is still in preview, MongoDB were unable to offer a customer for interview, but the purported benefits will be much the same: cost control, scalability, rapid iteration for developers, and reduced administration. "With MongoDB Atlas serverless instances, you will get seamless deployment and scaling, a reliable backend infrastructure, and an intuitive pricing model," the company's website says.

DataStax and MongoDB are not the only database providers with serverless options. The big cloud companies have had their own offerings for a couple of years, including AWS Aurora Serverless, Azure SQL Serverless and Google Firebase, and ISVs like CockroachDB have also created serverless alternatives.

See also: Storage at scale: picking the right options for Kubernetes

Patrick McFadin, VP developer relations at DataStax, sees serverless databases that can run in multiple clouds as offering new flexible options for developers.

"It took some rethinking of the internal architecture, but it was ready for this type of deployment based on how it runs as a distributed database," he said of AstraDB, adding that the changes will flow into the community version of Cassandra.

"We'll be sharing those changes with the open source community, which is really the big shift in databases. What open source databases will run as serverless?"

With cloud infrastructure increasing ephemeral, having always-on database connectivity may be wasteful. In a cloud-native scenario - or one where applications make use of a lot of serverless functions - a database that you only connect to when you need and which can then scale automatically and almost instantly would seem to be a much better general fit. With other storage options also available to cloud-native developers, it's not surprising to see vendors moving in this direction. Serverless is also likely to find favour with small teams who lack the capacity for managing infrastructure.

Nevertheless, they are not suitable for every application. There is an inevitable delay as connectivity is established, and cold starts mean that latency will be increased. Teams may also find that time saved in setup is used up by the need to monitor resource usage and performance and to implement new security measures.

That said, we expect to see more organisations investigating the serverless option from here on in.

In Europe, electric cars have 66–69 per cent lower emissions over their lifetime than a comparable petrol vehicle

A new study conducted by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has finally put an end to claims that electric vehicles are not much cleaner than combustion engine vehicles and produce almost similar amount of carbon during their life cycle.

The study, which is based on the data from Europe, the US, China and India, says that the battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have by far the lowest life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions among different types of vehicles.

Moreover, the emission savings are set to improve in coming years, with better access to clean, renewable energy sources.

The aim of the ICCT study [pdf] was to understand how the transportation sector across the world needs to align with efforts towards achieving the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global warming.

The study involved a life-cycle analysis of BEVs, hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and internal combustion vehicles.

It also took into account the present and estimated future GHG emissions attributable to different stages in the life cycles of both vehicles and fuels - from extracting raw material to making batteries for vehicles.

The researchers then compiled driving data for four different markets that currently account for nearly 70 per cent of the world's all vehicle purchases.

The study found that the life cycle emissions of a BEV in Europe today are 66-69 per cent lower than a comparable petrol-powered car. For other regions, the range is 60-68 per cent in the US, 37-45 per cent in China, and 19-34 per cent in India.

"We have a lot of lobby work from parts of the automotive industry saying that electric vehicles are not that much better if you take into account the electricity production and the battery production. We wanted to look into this and see whether these arguments are true," said ICCT researcher Georg Bieker.

He hopes the latest findings will help policymakers in making more informed decisions about the future of transportation.

Peter Mock, ICCT managing director for Europe, said that results highlight the importance of grid decarbonisation alongside vehicle electrification.

"The life-cycle GHG performance of electric cars will improve as grids decarbonise, and regulations that promote electrification are crucial to capturing the future benefits of renewable energy," he added.

The study findings come as the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) stated in its Electric Vehicle Charging Market Report last week that the government needs to increase the number of charging points across the UK tenfold to support the plan to ban combustion cars from 2030.

The CMA said the government must work on infrastructure to ensure that electric vehicle charging becomes "as simple as filling up with petrol or diesel".

The UK currently has about 25,000 charging points, and the regulator estimates that between 280,000 and 480,000 charging points will be needed by 2030.

Interested users can buy a plan if they want to try the service, says Microsoft

Just two days after announcing the general availability of its Windows 365 Cloud PC service, Microsoft has put a hold on its free trials due to 'unbelievable' demand.

The company says it has reached the capacity for Windows 365 trials and needs to pause the free trial programme until it provisions more capacity to support them.

In the meantime, people can buy a plan if they want to try the service. Interested parties are also being invited to sign up for the trial so that they can be notified when more capacity becomes available.

Following significant demand, we have reached capacity for Windows 365 trials. Sign up to receive a notification when trials resume or buy today, here: https://t.co/Jji5RbfTbT

— Microsoft 365 (@Microsoft365) August 3, 2021

Microsoft announced the general availability and pricing of Windows 365 service on 2 August.

"Windows 365 introduces a new way to experience Windows 10 or Windows 11 (when it's generally available later this calendar year) for all types of workers, from interns and contractors to software developers and industrial designers," Scott Manchester, director of programme management for Windows 365, said while announcing the general availability.

With Windows 365, a company doesn't need to provide a corporate-issued laptop to workers. Instead, employees can gain access to their company's software simply by logging into windows365.microsoft.com.

"Windows 365 only requires a device that includes the HTML5 browser and a DSL connection or a wireless internet connection capable of streaming a video," Microsoft says in a FAQ page.

Windows 365 offers a wide range of RAM, CPU, and storage options to users and provides a complete computing experience through a web browser or a native app on any device that has an active Internet connection. Users can use Windows 365 from a PC, Mac, iPad or any mobile device with a browser.

According to Microsoft, Cloud PC is specifically designed to fulfil the growing demands of hybrid work environments that enable employees to divide their time between the office and home.

Microsoft is currently offering Windows 365 to enterprises and organisations, and not individual customers. It comes in two editions: Business and Enterprise.

Business plans are capped at 300 users per organisation, while Enterprise subscribers can have unlimited users. Another difference between the two editions is that Business customers can access Windows 365 through the URL windows365.microsoft.com, while Enterprise customers will have it integrated with Microsoft Endpoint Manager.

The company is also offering a 'Windows Hybrid Benefit' which means that users with existing licences can apply for a discount.

The entry-level $20 per user per month Business prices provides a Cloud PC with a single virtual core, 2 GB of RAM, and 64 GB of storage and requires the Windows Hybrid Benefit. Those without an existing licence will pay $4 more per user per month.

A "Premium" plan with four virtual cores, 16 GB RAM, and 128 GB storage costs $66 per month with the $4 discount. The most expensive $158 per user per month ($162 without Hybrid Benefit) option provides a Cloud PC with 8 virtual cores, 32 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of storage.

Failings in access management uncovered.

For change management around its ERP program.