So, I created my own backup tool to do just that. I call it B7 for “Backup with 7-Zip”. You can run this tool via command line only to automate the process. If you do not specify any command parameters, the Windows GUI will display. In the GUI mode, you can see all of your Amazon S3 buckets (folders) and their contents. You can do simple management of these buckets and bucket items.

B7 is still work in progress and I may make changes and improvements as time goes on and if I have time available to do so. I hope you find this tool useful. It surely helped me with managing some simple backups.

Download B7 here.

To get started with Amazon S3 storage, click here.

B7 Tool

IMPORTANT:
==========
Make sure you update B7.ini with your access and private keys from Amazon S3 before using B7.

Usage
=====
To run B7 via command line parameters, do this:

B7 bucketName folderAndFilePattern [outputFile]

bucketName = the name of the Amazon S3 bucket where the backup file should be uploaded to
folderAndFilePattern = the full path e.g.: C:\APPFOLDER\DATA\*.*
[outputFile] = the compressed output file (optional). If you do not specify an output file, a unique backup file is created for you. It looks similar to this: 2012_01_25_11_38_F00684EE-6C03-4462-885F-4A6B2E95DE48.7z
The output file can be opened with 7-Zip or any other tool that supports the 7-Zip compression.

Steve Jobs - RIP

Steve Jobs was and always will be an important part of my inspiration of creating the best software possible. The best software that people really love to use. Not just love, but, happy to use because it will make them happy to use and get their jobs done. Steve Jobs was a unique genius. I have learned so much from him. So much to be thankful about. He understood that it is about the people, about the users, that is so important to know them, really know them. Steve Jobs had passion for his creations. Steve Jobs was a passionist for the details of perfecting masterpieces of the 21st century technology era. I will miss him; but, his inspirations will live on in his creations, his motivational lectures and lessons, he will never be forgotten. It has been a rough 2 days.

First, let me explain my background in cloud computing. I started to explore cloud computing capabilities back in 2006 when Amazon first announced their set of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Later on, companies such as Google and Microsoft followed. The first time I heard about Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3), I was so excited about the possibilities. I was also excited about the cost. It is extremely inexpensive to start developing powerful cloud services and solutions.

As time went by, I explored most of Amazon’s AWS services with amazement as they were updated and new ones were released. I also briefly dabbled with Microsoft’s Azure and Google’s services; but, to this day, it is my strong believe that Amazon is the clear leader in providing the best cloud services and infrastructure in the market today. In fact, I go as far as to say that Amazon is much further ahead of Microsoft and Google combined. Amazon is the clear leader if you develop on a Microsoft stack or LAMP stack. Either way, I will try to explain a little more by what I mean in the following posts.

So, what is Cloud Computing then? From an architecture point of view, I would sum up cloud computing this way:

1. A cloud computing solution is partitioned logically end-to-end
2. A cloud computing solution offers an infinite storage capacity
3. A cloud computing solution offers an infinite computing capacity
4. A cloud computing solution can handle an infinite number of users at the same time
5. A cloud computing solution is always available 24/7
6. A cloud computing solution is available anywhere in the world with low latency
7. And yes, a cloud computing solution offers certain tasks to be completed when connections are down
8. A cloud computing solution offers multiple ways to access the information such as different devices and user interfaces (platform independent on the consuming side)
9. A cloud computing solution expands and contracts with resources as demand increases or decreases
10. A cloud computing solution offers very fast and native execution times on the user interfaces to provide the best user experience
11. A cloud computing solution offers automatic backup and recovery options for consumers

These points above should be available in a modern cloud computing solution. Consider the points above the goals of a great cloud computing solution. The planning and designing of a cloud computing architecture makes the above assumptions. For example, a cloud computing solution acts like it has an infinite storage capacity available.

I’m coining the term “Cloud Computing Partitioning Pattern (CCPP)” and will explain next time what I mean by being able to partition a cloud computing solution in order to provide fast and successful operations from the time a request is received through a domain model all the way to persistence and back.

Until next time.

I strongly believe that when designing software, the human aspect, or the end-user, the one who is actually using the software, is the center of an application. By that I mean, every software design should be centered around the user, the woman or man who will be spending a lot of time with it. Good software design is designed around a person who is using it for a particular purpose.

I wanted to express my thoughts about software design and started thinking how I can express my thoughts and ideas in a way that others can understand. I have an intense passion of creating high-quality software. Almost to a point where you can say I have an obsessive passion of creating the best software it could possibly be. But, what is high-quality software? I have come to learn that high-quality software must be coupled with greatly designed software.

Over the decades, the art of creating software has been influenced by several industries including but not limited by the construction industry, the electronics, industry, and the industrial industry. Design principles and ideas leaked from these industries into the software industry.

Designing successful software, in my opinion, can be guided by the 10 Design Principles from the Industrial design principles by Dieter Rams, an amazing industrial designer and an industry icon who has an extensive and important influence over modern industrial design. I have applied his industrial design principles to the software industry the way I see these principles can be applied. Lets first take a look at what these principles are:

1. Good design should be innovative.
2. Good design should make a product useful.
3. Good design is aesthetic design.
4. Good design will make a product understandable.
5. Good design is honest.
6. Good design is unobtrusive.
7. Good design is long-lived.
8. Good design is consistent in every detail.
9. Good design is environmentally friendly.
10. Good design is as little design as possible.

All 10 design principles can be applied when architecting and designing great software. Each one of these principles above are very true and tested over the decades because they center around a person using a product. The industrial industry has been around for many decades now and we better learn from it.

If you have ideas or comments, please provide them. I welcome different point of views as this is usually a hot topic in the IT community.

 
Productivity

Productivity in software development can be measured in how fast a developer can complete a given work item with the assumption that the quality of the software is not compromised. How much time does it take to get things done without any compromises? Because most projects have a limited amount of time to complete, being productive impacts Cost Reduction to create and maintain the application as well as a better chance for future funding. Being productive should mean that one can get the work done and still deliver high quality software, with a high degree of reliability, and a fair amount of maintainability. Compromises in any one of these areas will result in loss of productivity either in the short-term or long-term of the product life-cycle.

The Object Persistence can be designed in such a way that the system is not locked into a particular database, for example. Because there is no database vendor lock-in, you can gain productivity by simply abstracting storage specific features. For example, if you decide to use an Object Relational Mapping Tool (ORM), you should let the ORM tool worry about creating and maintaining the database schemas for any database it supports based on your Object Model. This can buy you a tremendous amount of productivity because you are delegating this huge maintenance burden to the ORM tool.

• Productivity in software development can be gained through abstraction and automation.

Maintainability

Depending how Object Persistence is done, it usually allows for easier maintainability when requirements change. The fewer changes that need to be made to a system, the easier it is to maintain. Because of abstracting the object persistence, there is a high possibility that a system can be created that is easy to maintain. Because you no longer have to make changes to a database schema or data access layer, you can concentrate on making the changes usually only in one place: the object model and sometimes to the output such as the user interface or a new report

How many times have you read somebody else’s code and trying to figure out what the heck it is trying to do? Hard to read code, or Spaghetti code, is hard to maintain. In general, the fewer lines of code to maintain, the better. Because of the abstraction of the Object Persistence, much fewer lines of code are necessary. A simple method call such as the Save() method is all it’s needed. This makes the code much easier to read and to maintain.

By eliminating the database schema, eliminating a data access layer, and any data or value objects, we are eliminating several points of failures. By reducing point of failures, the system becomes immediately easier to maintain and more reliable.

The easier it is to maintain an application, the less time is required to train somebody else to learn it. Easy to understand code is easy to support no matter who will need to take over the code.

Maintainability is probably the biggest impact of an application throughout its lifetime much more so than the advantages of reusability in Object Orientation.

Cost Reduction

Studies have shown that in the lifetime of an application, 10% of the time is used to create the application, and 90% is used to maintain it until it is retired. If we can reduce the amount of time needed to maintain the application, we can reduce the amount of money spent to keep it alive. We are trying to work smarter using the right tools instead of harder using no tools or unnecessary procedures.

Being more productive has an immediate impact on cost. When a developer can implement a change quicker, the cost of maintaining an application is reduced. The time saved can be used for other duties or other projects. Many times, being more productive can allow for future projects to be approved vs. projects that won’t make the approval because the timelines would not permit to do so otherwise.

Today, labor cost is one of the most expensive liabilities a company can have. On the other hand, the workforce is also the most important asset a company has. There was a time where hardware was the most expensive part in an IT department. Hardware and tools are now extremely inexpensive today. It is mass produced and no longer a major factor in software development.

Purchasing third party component libraries can reduce the time and effort to complete an application. Some of these tools such as ORM tools can seem expensive initially, but; in the long term, you cannot afford not buying them. It is far more costly to write these components or tools on your own than to purchase them.

As a professional, I’m running my .Net development on the iMac using VMWare under a Windows XP window. Works great. The main reason to actually go out and invest into an iMac was iPhone development for the new iPhone 3G using the COCOA Touch framework and XCode.

This is really exciting and I strongly believe that the iPhone from a development point of view has a huge potential. I’ve some personal projects I’m working on for the iPhone at the moment. When the first app is released in the AppStore, I will announce it here. I’ve not felt this excited since the late 80′s when I started writing my first shareware program ACZAR.