[sf-perl] episodic cloud-based computation?

[Rich Morin]

At 3:42 PM -0700 10/16/11, James Briggs wrote:
> Hi Rich.

Hi, James.  Long time, no see...


> Cloud linux instances are usually billed by the hour,
> which doesn't match your computing granularity ...

Understood.  However, cloud computing is also a fertile
area for economic and technical experimentation, so I'm
hoping that something appropriate may surface.

For example, someone might offer a service that charges
a minimal fee for having apps "rolled out" and real $$$
for rolling them in and running them.


> - The closest thing to what you want is prolly Google
>   AppEngine, but they don't run Perl programs.

In this case, I need to run a proprietary Windows app,
via Wine.  So, AppEngine is a non-starter.


> - You can get a hosting account on a large host like
>   GoDaddy, and run your jobs as CGI programs across
>   their load-balanced web clusters.

Not a bad suggestion.  I assume I'd pay mostly for CPU
usage and such.


> - Some people have also exploited other SaaS APIs,
>   like Salesforce.com, as low-cost compute farms.

I'd be interested in knowing more about this approach.

-r
-- 
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