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		<title>Is PostgreSQL the Worldâ€™s Great Open Source Database?</title>
		<link>http://vps.net/is-postgresql-the-worlds-great-open-source-database?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=is-postgresql-the-worlds-great-open-source-database</link>
		<comments>http://vps.net/is-postgresql-the-worlds-great-open-source-database#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2013 14:57:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake Neeley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Programming and Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Database]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mySQL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PostgreSQL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SQL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Development]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.vps.net/blog/?p=2009</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>PostgreSQL is an outstanding open source object-relational database application started in the late 1980s at the University of California at Berkley (UCB). At the time Mike Stonebraker, a computer scientist at UCB, and his team decided to break new ground &#8230; <a href="http://vps.net/is-postgresql-the-worlds-great-open-source-database">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a></p><p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/is-postgresql-the-worlds-great-open-source-database">Is PostgreSQL the Worldâ€™s Great Open Source Database?</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<center><img src="http://www.vps.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/VPS-PostgreSQL.png" alt="PostgreSQL Database Benefits" /></center>

<a href="http://www.postgresql.org/">PostgreSQL</a> is an outstanding open source object-relational database application started in the late 1980s at the University of California at Berkley (UCB). At the time <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Stonebraker">Mike Stonebraker</a>, a computer scientist at UCB, and his team decided to break new ground to design the data store of the future by exploring the concept of â€œobject relationalâ€ technologies. After many years the current PostgreSQL has evolved to a robust object relational database system.

During the last 15 years it has earned a reputation for reliability, data integrity and functionality used on most major operating systems.

<span id="more-3159"></span>

<center><strong>What Makes PostgreSQL work?</strong></center>
The following are four reasons that PostgreSQL is arguably the <a href="http://www.josetteorama.com/open-sourcefree-software/all-about-postgresql-%E2%80%93-the-world%E2%80%99s-most-advanced-open-source-database/">most advanced open source object-relational database</a>:
<ol>
	<li><strong>Open Source Community</strong></li>
<a href="http://www.postgresql.org/about">PostgreSQL is open source</a> and follows open source community guidelines allowing various programming pioneers to examine the code, fix the little bugs, and, while in the process, add new features. The project policies allowing this growth, state:
<ul>
	<li>This is a collaborative effort; it is a community where everyone benefits, especially when new people and ideas are contributed.</li>
	<li>All contributors get credited, so efforts are rewarded.</li>
	<li>Contributors can also answer users questions that encourage new users to ask questions and report any problems.</li>
</ul>

	<li><strong>Works Seamlessly</strong></li>
The PostgreSQL system is reliable, robust and has very few bugs or security flaws. It is through strong collaborative support that it has acquired a reputation as a reliable and efficient database; its once a year updates keep it functioning seamlessly. For programmers PostgreSQL just works. It is transactional and optimized for anything between 1 byte and 1 gigabyte. You don't need to use a different data type for the size column you are using as you do with other database systems.

	<li><strong>Advanced Features</strong></li>
PostgreSQL has more than a few advanced features that also draw developer use. These coupled with the advanced built in optimizer keeps developers using the system. The following are the features PostgreSQL is best known for:
<ul>
	<li>Array types that are indexable and work well.</li>
	<li>Server-side programming languages like PL/pgSQL and options that allow you to write procedures in java, tcl, R Perl, Python, Ruby, etc.</li>
	<li>Extensible operators that allow for text research, additionally programmers have access to GIS systems and other data types</li>
	<li>Windowed aggregate queries, plugins, and recursive queries are also fully supported.</li>
</ul>

	<li><strong>Cost</strong></li>
PostgreSQL is completely open source, meaning it is free and yet also offers excellent updated versions and follows SQL standards, so you can reuse skills from other databases. Additionally, it has a low DBA overhead, with many people having said they use it and don't have to think about fixing it for years.
</ol>

	<strong>The Bottom Line</strong>
PostgreSQL has always been a favorite of those who come from a database background. For the average user, PostgreSQL may be an unknown system, simply because it hasn't undergone the strong marketing other systems have. But experienced database programmers know that PostgreSQL and MySQL are very different from each other. They differ in everything from code quality, code license, features, typical use and even in organization features.<p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/is-postgresql-the-worlds-great-open-source-database">Is PostgreSQL the Worldâ€™s Great Open Source Database?</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>Five Great Features of the Latest Version of the Linux Kernel</title>
		<link>http://vps.net/five-great-features-of-the-latest-version-of-the-linux-kernel?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=five-great-features-of-the-latest-version-of-the-linux-kernel</link>
		<comments>http://vps.net/five-great-features-of-the-latest-version-of-the-linux-kernel#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Jan 2013 11:55:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake Neeley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Programming and Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Linux]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.vps.net/blog/?p=2001</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Barely three months have passed since the launch of Linux 3.6 and already Linux 3.7 kernel has been released. The new kernel boasts significant changes when compared to its immediate predecessor. In addition, the changes not only affect system administrators &#8230; <a href="http://vps.net/five-great-features-of-the-latest-version-of-the-linux-kernel">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a></p><p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/five-great-features-of-the-latest-version-of-the-linux-kernel">Five Great Features of the Latest Version of the Linux Kernel</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<center><img src="http://www.vps.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/VPS-5-Features-of-Linux3.png" alt="5 Linux Features" /></center>

Barely three months have passed since the launch of Linux 3.6 and already <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/121112-linux-arm-264989.html?hpg1=bn" target="_blank">Linux 3.7 kernel</a> has been released. The new kernel boasts significant changes when compared to its immediate predecessor. In addition, the changes not only affect system administrators and developers, but also users who run Linux on their PCs. One of its hallmark new features includes supports that make it compatible with ARM 64-bit architecture.

This enables developers to create multiple ARM platforms using one base kernel. This is a great addition given that earlier versions required that each ARM hardware to be assigned a customized kernel version. Without divulging too much, let's look into details at some of the new features that make Linux 3.7 stand out.

<span id="more-3158"></span>

	<ol><li><strong>ARM Multi-platform Support</strong></li>
Typically, a Linux distribution for x86 computers should have the capacity to boot and function in other PCs (difference arising from motherboard type, chipsets, CPU vendor, GPU models etc.) from a one-point distribution install media. This ability to boot and work in different hardware and system configurations is taken as a standard in the PC world, albeit it never existed in the Linux ARM world. <a href="http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_3.7" target="_blank">Linux 3.7 boasts of a multiplatform support</a> that allows a single ARM kernel image to be applied to boot several PCs.

	<li><strong>Enhanced Security Through Signed Kernel Modules</strong></li>
This <a href="http://www.h-online.com/open/features/What-s-new-in-Linux-3-7-1759862.html"target="_blank">new version allows users to sign kernel modules</a> if they wish to. The kernel is capable of disabling the loading of modules that haven't been signed in with the correct password, even for root users. This security feature blocks a hacker who has already gained root user access from installing a rootkit via the usual module loading procedures.

	<li><strong>SMBv2 Support</strong></li>
Contrary to earlier announcements made during the release of Linux 3.6, SMBv2 was not featured in this version. Nevertheless, it is now available in this new kernel. SMBv2 protocol is the successor of SMB network and CIFS file sharing protocols. It offers users better user experience, unmatched security and features that were not available in earlier versions.

	<li><strong>Networking</strong></li>
The developers of Linux 3.7 have merged support for Network Address Translation (NAT) with IPv6. A number of Linux developers previously questioned the essence of merging NAT with IPv4 as it resulted in redundancy caused by larger address space requirement. However, IPv6 specifications avoid much of the problems linked to IPv4, making the NAT and Ipv6 merge more useful. This feature is particularly relevant to institutions or users who need to make their internal network topography opaque.

	<li><strong>Intel SMAP Support</strong></li>
The new kernel version boasts of a groundbreaking security feature that will soon be availed for future Intel processors, Supervisor Mode Access prevention (SMAP). This feature prevents kernel access to memory pages accessed by user-space. This in general stops any kind of hacking exploits.</ol><p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/five-great-features-of-the-latest-version-of-the-linux-kernel">Five Great Features of the Latest Version of the Linux Kernel</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>6 Technical Tips to Make you the Hippest Ruby on Rails Programmer</title>
		<link>http://vps.net/6-technical-tips-to-make-you-a-better-ruby-on-rails-programmer?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=6-technical-tips-to-make-you-a-better-ruby-on-rails-programmer</link>
		<comments>http://vps.net/6-technical-tips-to-make-you-a-better-ruby-on-rails-programmer#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:59:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake Neeley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Programming and Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[RoR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ruby]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ruby on Rails]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.vps.net/blog/?p=1990</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>The Ruby programming language is suited not only for professional programmers but also newbies. On the other hand, Rails is a web framework that adopts a model-view-control approach written in Ruby. The salient advantage of Rails over other frameworks is &#8230; <a href="http://vps.net/6-technical-tips-to-make-you-a-better-ruby-on-rails-programmer">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a></p><p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/6-technical-tips-to-make-you-a-better-ruby-on-rails-programmer">6 Technical Tips to Make you the Hippest Ruby on Rails Programmer</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<center><img src="http://www.vps.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/VPS-Hip-RoR-Programmer.png" alt="" /></center>

The <a href="http://rubyonrails.org/">Ruby programming language</a> is suited not only for professional programmers but also newbies. On the other hand, Rails is a web framework that adopts a model-view-control approach written in Ruby.

The salient advantage of Rails over other frameworks is that it is based in convention rather than configuration. Thus, if you follow the right conventions you can eliminate lengthy configuration processes of files that can be time consuming. However, these benefits come at cost. For starters, that cost manifests itself in the fact that one needs to understand internal Rails conventions and setups. To assist you in this journey to become a professional Rail on Ruby programmer here are some important tips.

<span id="more-3157"></span>

	<ol>
<li><strong>Save Time with Plugins</strong></li>
One key feature of Rails is that it has a <a href="http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/25/ruby-on-rails-tips/">defined plugin structure</a> that allows its users to install and run plugins in their application. Hence, there is no need to reinvent the wheel when creating features like forums or messaging systems; there is a wide pool of Rails plugins available that can be easily installed saving you the time and the hustle of coding from scratch.

	<li><strong>Understand the Model-View-Control Concept</strong></li>
Rails heavily relies on its <a href="http://www.codercaste.com/2011/02/11/10-ruby-on-rails-3-tips-that-will-make-you-a-better-rails-programmer/">design framework</a>, model-view-control, hence it is imperative for one to understand what it entails. The model contains the program body with the main functions and generally serves as the business logic of the system. A controller is responsible for transferring data between the model and view. The view forms the part where data is represented to the user. As a golden rule one should never include logic in the view panel.

	<li><strong>Populate Your Database Using Fixtures</strong></li>
The folder fixtures/test usually contains a yaml representation for each of the models you have generated. Use these representations to define and configure static data for your database. Start by tasking to drop, and then create, transfer and lastly seed your database.

	<li><strong>Use Modules for Repetitive Non-model Functionalities.</strong></li>
There are instances when you need to carry out some repetitive functions, but in different modules. Further, the things you are generating are not for a particular model. In such situations modules come in handy. Modules are typically loaded from /lib and they can be easily recreated to suit various functionalities.

	<li><strong>Easy Data Loading</strong></li>
From time to time you'll need to move data from production to development or vice versa. Yaml_db is a plugin that enables you to load or dumb data by issuing a Rake command. The data is then loaded in a yaml file located in db/data.yml. This offers a flexible option of loading data that grants the user the benefit of reading the data from the file.

	<li><strong>Use Racks to Save Time</strong></li>
Typically, most programming projects involve developing more than one application specific code. Web services need to be queried, code snippets rewritten, and files moved requiring several coding micro-projects. Rake is a build tool scripted in Ruby that works easily with Rails projects. This is because Rail projects have several Rake tasks already defined. To confirm this, simply run the rake -T command.</ol>



<a href="http://rubyonrails.org/">Ruby on Rails offers numerous benefits</a> especially in eliminating hurdles common when programming powerful web applications that previously took months to code. The framework, developed in 2003 by David Heinemeier, has expanded exponentially thanks to a healthy and vibrant Rails ecosystem that links developers further facilitating knowledge sharing. One thing for sure is that Rails is gaining acceptance by programmers as one of the best frameworks for designing web applications courtesy of its systematic, not forgetting easy, approach of developing.<p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/6-technical-tips-to-make-you-a-better-ruby-on-rails-programmer">6 Technical Tips to Make you the Hippest Ruby on Rails Programmer</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>10 Ways to Speed Up your WordPress Site</title>
		<link>http://vps.net/10-ways-to-speed-up-your-wordpress-site?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=10-ways-to-speed-up-your-wordpress-site</link>
		<comments>http://vps.net/10-ways-to-speed-up-your-wordpress-site#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Dec 2012 16:42:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake Neeley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[WordPress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Site Speed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wordpress]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.vps.net/blog/?p=1984</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Every search engine, whether it be Google or Bing, want users to have a great experience; part of which lies in visiting a fast website. Even so, some websites just seem to load slowly no matter what you do. However, &#8230; <a href="http://vps.net/10-ways-to-speed-up-your-wordpress-site">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a></p><p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/10-ways-to-speed-up-your-wordpress-site">10 Ways to Speed Up your WordPress Site</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<center><img src="http://www.vps.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/VPS-WordPress-Site-Speed.png" alt="" /></center>

Every search engine, whether it be Google or Bing, want users to have a great experience; part of which lies in visiting a fast website. Even so, some websites just seem to load slowly no matter what you do. However, according to <a href="http://wordpress.tv/2012/08/26/chris-coyier-10-things-to-make-your-site-faster/">Chris Coyier, a WordPress expert</a>, a slow WordPress website is primarily caused by â€œfront-endâ€ issues.

<b>Why is Site Speed So Important?</b>
You have probably heard it before, but you only have a few seconds to capture the interest of a visitor and convince them to stay on your website. This is why layout and style are important - but of all the important elements out there â€“ speed is the most important. If your site doesn't load quickly people will go away. The following are a few easy fixes anyone can do to make their WordPress website load faster.

<span id="more-3156"></span>

<ol>
	<li><strong>Your Hosting Company</strong></li>
While an inexpensive shared hosting option may work for a new website, one that gets a lot of traffic will need a more advanced hosting service, and in many instances, a VPS (shameless plug!). A VPS is a great option for many designers and developers to explore their capabilities and options.

	<li><strong>The Framework</strong></li>
The themed frameworks made specifically for WordPress, keep the workings simple, and offer speedy load times. While you can have a designer say build a custom self-hosted WordPress sites, the themes are the most economically efficient way to get a faster loading website.

	<li><strong>HTTP Compression</strong></li>
By using Gzip or Deflateit you can essentially compress the files sent over an HTTP connection to a very minimal size. This makes sending the files back and forth to the Internet hosting server faster. You can get the code you need by going to html5boilerplate.com to get the Apache directive code.

	<li><strong>Caching</strong></li>
Be sure you find an effective caching plugin. These improve page load times and can be found through the plugin feature of your WordPress dashboard; a favorite is <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/">W3 Total Cache</a>. Once you download and install the plugin through the plugin feature on your dashboard, you only need to click the "Activate" link initiate it.

	<li><strong>Combine CSS and JavaScript</strong></li>
A WordPress site should have, at most, 3 CSS files; a global CSS (telling the entire website how to work) and one or two sections or page files. These can then be combined with JavaScript code you write yourself.

	<li><strong>Optimize Images</strong></li>
Use an image optimizer like <a href="http://www.smushit.com/ysmush.it/">Smush.it</a> to reduce the size but not the quality of the image. If you aren't up to doing this with every image you can use the WordPress plugin for Smush.it called WP-SmushIt. This will automatically reduce all of your images automatically for you.

	<li><strong>Optimize the Homepage</strong></li>
There are several things you can do to optimize your homepage. Here are a handful;

	<ul>
<li>Showing excerpts of posts instead of the full post.</li>
	<li>Reduce the number of posts you allow on the page. In the beginning you may have opted for the default listing of all posts, but now that you are more experienced you want to keep it at a manageable three to five.</li>
	<li>Remove sharing widgets you don't use from the home page and instead place them on the posts.</li>
	<li>Remove plugins you don't use.</li>
	<li>Keep widgets to a minimum.</li></ul>

You need to keep your website clean and easy to read. People come here to get content not to see all the cool buttons.

	<li><strong>Take Care of the Database</strong></li>
Download a plugin called WP-Optimize to get rid of spam, old revisions, drafts, tables, which you don't need and could very well be slowing down your site.

	<li><strong>Hotlinking Status</strong></li>
This could seriously affect you if you make custom images that other webmasters want to hyperlink to. This â€˜bandwidth stealingâ€ will obviously slow down your VPS. If too many people do this it will significantly affect your load time.

	<li><strong>Gravatar Images</strong></li>
Set the Gravatar image to nothing because it improves your load time. If you set the default image to a blank then your site loads faster.
</ol>


By following the above easy quick-fixes, you can significantly improve the load speed of your WordPress website, thereby keeping visitors longer on your site and increasing the chances of the search engines giving online real estate a better organic listing.

Note: These are some great tips but we strongly recommend taking a backup before you try any of these.<p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/10-ways-to-speed-up-your-wordpress-site">10 Ways to Speed Up your WordPress Site</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Are JSON APIs Kicking XMLâ€™s Butt?</title>
		<link>http://vps.net/are-json-apis-kicking-xmls-butt?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=are-json-apis-kicking-xmls-butt</link>
		<comments>http://vps.net/are-json-apis-kicking-xmls-butt#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Dec 2012 18:05:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake Neeley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Website]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[API]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[JSON]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[XML]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.vps.net/blog/?p=1971</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>A decade ago, XML emerged as the primary data interchange format. At inception, it provided a breath of fresh air and a great improvement from its predecessor â€“ Standardized Generalized Markup Language (SGML). It is credited for introducing file sharing &#8230; <a href="http://vps.net/are-json-apis-kicking-xmls-butt">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a></p><p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/are-json-apis-kicking-xmls-butt">Are JSON APIs Kicking XMLâ€™s Butt?</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<center><img src="http://www.vps.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/VPS-JSON-Beating-XML.png" alt="" /></center>

A decade ago, XML emerged as the primary data interchange format. At inception, it provided a breath of fresh air and a great improvement from its predecessor â€“ Standardized Generalized Markup Language (SGML). It is credited for introducing file sharing across HTTP connections and enabling other Internet (including Microsoft Office) functions. However, in the recent years a bold transformation has been taking root.

In a nutshell, the more lightweight, bandwidth non-intensive, JavaScript Object Notation <a href="http://blog.appfog.com/why-json-will-continue-to-push-xml-out-of-the-picture/">(JSON) has been slowly upstaging XML</a>; not as a competing alternative but as a full-blown successor. To fully appreciate this fact, let's consider statistics from Programmableweb: <a href="https://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2011/04/27/the-stealthy-ascendancy-of-json.aspx">JSON held a market share of 51%</a> Â (while XML had 49%) of new APIs added between March and April 2011. This has to be viewed from the perspective that XML has been in the market for twice as long as JSON.

<span id="more-3155"></span>

<strong>Comparison between XML and JSON</strong>
A number of factors can be pointed as the drivers behind this trend, but the major one is the complexity associated with XML. <a href="https://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2011/04/27/the-stealthy-ascendancy-of-json.aspx">JSON's popularity is largely based on its simplicity</a> and nonconformity to XML protocols.

JSON's simplicity is exemplified in two forms; Â the rules of serializing data, and the interfaces of parsing data. Unlike XML, the latter's parsing and serialization rules are fairly simple. JSON data is grouped as objects, featuring arrays, strings, Boolean or numbers. They do not have metadata or metadata structures, common in XML, that require processing instructions to have entity references.

Additionally, XML is mostly considered as unstructured, but in practice it adopts a more structured framework than JSON. This is due to the fact that it uses metadata standards that constrain identity, security, and application formats. On the other hand, <a href="https://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2011/04/27/the-stealthy-ascendancy-of-json.aspx">JSON adopts very few standards</a> apart from those imposed by toolkits and frameworks such as JQuery. In the long run this brews a challenge especially for infrastructure vendors who provide support services targeting application data â€“ Â web application firewall, data scrubbing, IPS and advanced routing â€“ to continue to deliver applications without recognizing JSON as an alternative.

Typical of any new technology, the lure of simplicity and availability of user-friendly features plays a great role in boosting the product/service market penetration. However, as they say the devil lies in the details, it's imperative to not only dwell on the superficial aspects of a technology but also its technical aspects. Some of JSONs technical aspects are;
<ol>

	<li><strong>JSON is not Java Script</strong></li>
It is important to point out that <a href="http://www.internetsociety.org/articles/using-json-ietf-protocols">JSON is a language independent data format.</a> However, the constructs of JSON arrays and objects adopt JavaScript semantics.

	<li><strong>Character Set Support</strong></li>
JSON purely relies on Unicode and hence non-Unicode encodings are incompatible. This is in contrast to XML in which ISO-8859-1, US-ASCII, Shift_JIS, and other character sets can be explicitly specified.

	<li><strong>Schemas</strong></li>
In reality there is no standardized schema language for JSON. However, the debate for needing a standardized schema language is mired by controversy partly because JSON is viewed to be too simple on its own.

	<li><strong>Performance</strong></li>
From a general perspective, JSON is less 'wordy' than XML, resulting is less payload volumes and memory required.

	<li><strong>Namespaces</strong></li>
Currently JSON has no standardized name-space specification. This is partly attributed to the fact that many JSON specifications do not require a name spacing function nor the complexities associated with federated name-spacing system.</ol>

<p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/are-json-apis-kicking-xmls-butt">Are JSON APIs Kicking XMLâ€™s Butt?</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>Three Ways to Replace Your FeedBurner Setup</title>
		<link>http://vps.net/three-ways-to-replace-your-feedburner-setup?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=three-ways-to-replace-your-feedburner-setup</link>
		<comments>http://vps.net/three-ways-to-replace-your-feedburner-setup#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2012 18:22:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake Neeley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Feedblitz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FeedBurner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MailChimp]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[RSS Feeds]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.vps.net/blog/?p=1963</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Google made headlines and angered bloggers worldwide earlier this year when they announced that their popular FeedBurner service would be shut down on October 20, 2012. While this does not mean that the service is unusable by current subscribers, they &#8230; <a href="http://vps.net/three-ways-to-replace-your-feedburner-setup">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a></p><p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/three-ways-to-replace-your-feedburner-setup">Three Ways to Replace Your FeedBurner Setup</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<center><img src="http://www.vps.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/VPS-Replace-Feedburner.png" alt="Replace FeedBurner" /></center>

Google made headlines and angered bloggers worldwide earlier this year when they announced that their popular FeedBurner service would be shut down on October 20, 2012. While this does not mean that the service is unusable by current subscribers, they have phased out support for the product and discontinued offering statistics for its users and their blogs.

Luckily, all is not lost. There are still plenty of ways to integrate all or some of the same features you may have enjoyed with FeedBurner into your blog.

<span id="more-3154"></span>

<strong>MailChimp</strong>
<img src="http://www.vps.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/MailChimp-Logo.png" alt="MailChimp Logo" align="right"/>This service is great for those who blog frequently and want to send out RSS-based emails to their subscribers on a regular basis like FeedBurner did. Unfortunately, their free plan has limit of 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month. However, those who don't mind paying a little extra for the service will be happy to know that they offer email and live technical support.

Even better, making the <a href="http://blog.mailchimp.com/moving-your-subscriber-list-from-feedburner-to-mailchimp/">switch from Feedburner to MailChimp is easy</a>. Simply export the CSV file of your feed (located in the "Manage Email Subscriber List" menu) and select the "import" option on your MailChimp subscriber menu. Once your CSV has been uploaded, your feed will update automatically.

<strong>Feedblitz</strong>
<img src="http://www.vps.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/feedblitz-logo.png" alt="Feedblitz Logo" align="right"/><a href="http://assets.feedblitz.com/TheFeedBurnerMigrationManual.pdf">Feedblitz is more or less a clone of FeedBurner</a>, offering both email and RSS tools and statistics. The difference? Users with lots of subscribers will have to choose one of their tiered pay plans. It's fairly easy to make the move to their service. Simply import your FeedBurner settings to your Feedblitz control panel and set up your new feed. It will automatically include your current RSS and email subscribers, and after you replace your FeedBurner code with Feedblitz on your site, any new subscribers won't even realize there was a change.

<strong>Use "Native RSS Feed"</strong>
This is a great option if you're not looking for continued email subscriptions and just want to give users an easy way to follow your blog. Simply install an RSS plugin to your blog and instruct users to subscribe in this way. While primitive, its best feature is that it's completely free with no limitations and very easy to use.

FeedBurner's demise leaves a big hole in the blogging community. While some of your solutions may be a little patchwork for the time being, there are still plenty of ways to stay connected to your readers.<p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/three-ways-to-replace-your-feedburner-setup">Three Ways to Replace Your FeedBurner Setup</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>Transcript of the 12/20/2012 Townhall</title>
		<link>http://vps.net/transcript-of-the-12202012-townhall?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=transcript-of-the-12202012-townhall</link>
		<comments>http://vps.net/transcript-of-the-12202012-townhall#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2012 12:51:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>terry</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[townhall]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.vps.net/blog/?p=1960</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Thank you for attending our townhall. We will begin shortly. Please feel free to submit any questions you have and at the start of the townhall we will answer them. Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director): We will be starting the &#8230; <a href="http://vps.net/transcript-of-the-12202012-townhall">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a></p><p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/transcript-of-the-12202012-townhall">Transcript of the 12/20/2012 Townhall</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[Thank you for attending our townhall. We will begin shortly. Please feel free to submit any questions you have and at the start of the townhall we will answer them.

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
We will be starting the town hall in a couple of minutes

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
We would like to welcome you this, our second annual town hall. First a bit of housekeeping. The format of this will be a quick review of the year, what we have upcoming for 2013, and followed by any Q&amp;A. Feel free to put a comment at any time and we will answer them at the end of the session.

As 2012 is closing to an end its been a good year for VPS.net. We started off the year with the full introduction of our HP SANS's improving uptime and performance for all the upgraded clouds.

We also have expanded our reach across the globe with addition of new locations taking our global reach to 20 unique locations, making us the most geographically diverse cloud provider.

With this we have seen a double digit growth across VPS.net a whole, bucking the current economic trends putting us in a good place for 2013.

We are however not happy just sitting on our laurels and have a number of service enhancements coming up in 2013, which will be available for all users.

In the first few weeks of Jan we will be launching our new bandwidth nodes allowing you to scale up just the bandwidth on your VPS as required without having to purchase extra nodes.

We will be also rolling out full IPv6 support within Q1 across all of our core locations, with native support in our control panel

We also are planning on extending our clone and deploy technology which currently allows you to clone your VPS on the same cloud. The new version will allow you to clone the VPS on to a remote cloud as well as adding the ability to migrate your data, to another cloud/location, at your own convince. This is currently on final internal beta testing

Also we will be further extending this to allow you to download and upload your own VPS images to avoid vendor lockin. Its your data, your are free to do with it what you want!

This are our plans for just Q1 of 2013, and we have many other great add-ons and service enhancements for the remaining quarters of 2013.

As always we love to hear if you have any idea of what you think we should be doing, or enhancements we should be making to the service. Customers are the reason we get up in the morning, and we want to keep them at the center of our little cloud hosting world.

OK Thats covers what we have done over the last year, and what we are planning on doing on the first 3 months of 2013. Now on to viewers questions

<span id="more-3153"></span><strong>Jake :</strong>

Will there be any new locations added to the network in 2013?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Yes we are planning on extending to new locations, as well as upgrading some of our new locations. We also have some major upgrades going into London in Q1 that will give users faster CPU's, and much faster disks using new 3Par SANS

<strong>Matty :</strong>
Any news on when we will have IPv6 available?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
We are aiming to have our core locations fully supporting it (via the control panel) in Q1. Currently London and SLC can have manually allocations issued and used. If you want to take advantage of that please email support@vps.net and one of the network techs will be able to give you a block

<strong>Mathieu :</strong>
Has there been any consideration to different tiered storage platforms?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Yes. Thats definitely on our 2013 roadmap and the new 3Par/HP SANS we are rolling out will allow us to sell tiered storage with minimal fuss. IF you have any exact requirements or would like any more technical details do please feel free to email me directly on rghf@vps.net

<strong>Steve :</strong>
What happened to the South African datacenter location?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
We have an agreement in principal with a provider but it fell through as we couldn't agree exact terms. We want to make sure that any service we take from a datacenter matches our requirements. It is however on our 2013 roadmap as we do have a number of requests for it

<strong>Jeff :</strong>
What does that mean? Can we download the VPS image &amp; use it as an in-house VM for testing?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Thats the general idea! Exact specs and support will be announced at a later time but we will allow people to move data in and out. We will also be looking to extend that further to allow people to send us hard disks or encrypted data, but again still working out the finer (legal) points of that

<strong>Jeff :</strong>
Any plans to offer load balancers or firewalls?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Yes. One of our sister brands has that in testing. Once they have completed their rollout we will use their experience to roll it out to our platform as well

<strong>Steve :</strong>
Are we able to request a new application be added to the Hosted Apps?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Sure let us know (mgmt@vps.net) what you are looking for and we will see what we can do.

<strong>Evan :</strong>
Will you be expanding to Toronto?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
If there is enough demand of course! Best to register your interest with us and we can then go from there.

<strong>Mathieu :</strong>
How does VPS.net plan to take on competitors with many lowering pricing? Wil VPS.net lower the pricing at all?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
We do keep an eye on the market and are aware of commercial pressures. Some of that is price, some of that is the value added features of the product and some is the entire customer experience around that product.

<strong>Jeff :</strong>
Do you know what the rough timeframe is for rolling out load balancers / firewalls?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
I would like to think Q2/Q3 2013 but again there are no guarantees on that.

<strong>Jason :</strong>
Will we see any changes in managed support offerings in 2013?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
I would be interested in hearing what you would like to see, as currently we do offer a range of managed support options ranging from simple one time jobs, through to full 24x7 managed support. Feel free to drop me a line atrghf@vps.net and I will be happy to have a chat about it

<strong>Stuart :</strong>
Linux kernel updates have caused problems in the past on reboot, has this been addressed?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Taking the number of OS templates/kernels we can potentially support the answer has to be one of "maybe". Best to email support@vps.net direct on that and they will be able to drill down to an exact answer for your OS, cloud and kernel combination

<strong>Steve :</strong>
Is there a chance we will be able to export images to different clouds/locations in the future?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Sure that will be a fairly easy extension of the Clone and Deploy tech. I will pass that over to our devs to add to the roadmap/rollout plan

<strong>Paul :</strong>
I have concerns about system stability. Issues where you guys have a problem, turn something off then all our systems could be down for days. System stability from VPS has been shocking this year.

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Generally our stability has been vastly improved over the last year so I would like to believe that sort of experience is definitely a thing of the past, however as I said above we do focus on our customers. As such I would like to look at this in depth for you and speak to you as appropriate. If you could drop some details such as ticket numbers and background to rghf@vps.net then I will look into it and get back to you as quickly as possible.

<strong>Steve:</strong>
I'd really like to see a better failover option. There is DNS failover, but what about automatic failover to a different cloud? I know no other provider offers this so it would be amazing to see at VPS.net

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
All I can say currently is we are working on something. We've got 2 out of 3 of the puzzle pieces in place. We are just working on the last one

<strong>Jeff :</strong>
I agree with Steve's comment about failover. I'd also like to see some tools to address issues such as high-availability.

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
See my last reply, but yes definitely going to have some great failover stuff coming up

<strong>Matty :</strong>
I'd just like to say well done to you guys! and you deserve to give yourself a pat on the back There have been some vast improvements all around since the first town hall.

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Thanks! Its a team effort and we all aim to give our best and hoping 2013 brings even more great customer service

<strong>Edy :</strong>
Any plan to open up a location in Jakarta, Indonesia? There's a huge potential market here.

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
As above. Best to email us and let us know you are interested. The more people who say they want a location, the easier it is for us to open one there!

<strong>John :</strong>
Are you guys planning to revist the managed support options? Like offering different full management plans, etc?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Managed support means different things to different people. We offer what we feel is a decent spread of support options for all pockets. If however there is demand for something that we aren't providing then we would love to hear about it. Best to drop us a line (mgmt@vps.net) and happy to discuss it and potentially do something custom.

<strong>Grant :</strong>
Any chance of making billing a 24/7 department? It's been a problem when I've had a billing issue to have to wait longer than 24 hours for a response.

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Billing isn't traditionally a 24x7 service offered by any service industry. Also taking the number of tickets we see its hard to justify having someone sitting there twiddling their thumbs for half the time. That said we do now allow support access to un-spending overdue account on a per case basis which is generally the most urgent type of billing issue that comes up.

<strong>Eric :</strong>
Will we be seeing any changes in the cloud hosting? It feels like it's been neglected compared to the other services, and I haven't seen anything mentioned for it in 2013.

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Yes. We've recently rolled out a number of new cloud hosting (shared hosting) locations across our clouds and there are some service enhancements/cleanups scheduled over the course of 2013.

<strong>Steve :</strong>
Which cloud location is the biggest?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
London has the most clouds and is up to LON-K currently

<strong>John :</strong>
Are there any plans to offer more selection on the cloudhosting packages? Or will you still be sticking with the 3 for 2013?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
The product is aimed at people who don't quite know what they need, hence the simple 3 tiers. That said again if there is a demand for a more flexible offering its something we could easily accommodate.

<strong>Grant :</strong>
Thanks for your prompt reply and help! <img src='http://vps.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> 

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
You're welcome

<strong>Mathieu :</strong>
I want to say Vlad is a tremendous help at answering complaints but I understand the company is growing. Will VPS.net maintain the same level of openness as it currently has?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Of course. I'm the person that dictates how open we are and I fundamentally believe that if you aren't transparent its going to come back to bite you.

<strong>John :</strong>
Do you know what other potential locations we might be seeing for 2013?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>:
Not currently, but I would expect between 1 and 5.

<strong>Mathieu :</strong>
Will we see the forum return at any point?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
We make sure that we can be contacted (twitter,facebook,getsatisfaction). The forum as it was, was a ghost town. Its a catch-22 of do we have a dead forum that doesn't do reputation any good or try to encourage growth, when there are a number of other methods. The forum is great for customer to customer communication but it needs someone to spearhead that.

<strong>John :</strong>
What steps is VPS taking to help with IPv4 Exhaustion? Will it affect us at all any time soon?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Customers won't find any major impact day to day, and it is something that we are tackling. The unfortunate position is that until everyone has native IPv6 support in their internet connection, and use it, we won't be able to move to a pure IPv6 environment. If we could move to it tomorrow it would solve a number of issues but there is a general lack of apathy in the industry (and we are just as guilty of this as other companies) to make the move to pure IPv6

<strong>Emily :</strong>
I represent a non-profit organization and I appreciate the discount VPS.net offers. Will we see any other benefits for organizations like mine?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
We deal with non-profits on a case by case basis. If you would like to discuss you exact situation and how we can work together further please do feel free to email us onmgmt@vps.net

<strong>Ian :</strong>
Will you be at any of the DrupalCamps or DrupalCon?

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
We've not yet fully decided on our 2013 conference schedule, but it was my favourite conference of last year.

<strong>Rus Foster (VPS.net Managing Director):</strong>
Once again thanks for all your time and thanks for joining us!<p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/transcript-of-the-12202012-townhall">Transcript of the 12/20/2012 Townhall</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>Season&#8217;s Greetings from VPS.net</title>
		<link>http://vps.net/seasons-greetings-from-vps-net?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=seasons-greetings-from-vps-net</link>
		<comments>http://vps.net/seasons-greetings-from-vps-net#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2012 08:27:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>terry</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[happy holidays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.vps.net/blog/?p=1949</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>The marketing team was hard at work playing on JibJab this week, and who better to have a bit of fun with than the operations guys? Check out the Disco Holiday Party, featuring Rus Foster, Kody Riker, Vitaliy Zhhuta, Svitlana &#8230; <a href="http://vps.net/seasons-greetings-from-vps-net">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a></p><p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/seasons-greetings-from-vps-net">Season&#8217;s Greetings from VPS.net</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[The marketing team was hard at work playing on JibJab this week, and who better to have a bit of fun with than the operations guys? Check out the Disco Holiday Party, featuring Rus Foster, Kody Riker, Vitaliy Zhhuta, Svitlana Khoroshylova and Whitney White!

<div style='background-color:#e9e9e9; -moz-border-radius: 10px;border-radius:10px;width: 567px;'><object id='A64060' quality='high' data='http://aka.zero.jibjab.com/client/zero/ClientZero_EmbedViewer.swf?external_make_id=hoqEUe0GSzajZujZynLrtw&#038;service=www.jibjab.com&#038;partnerID=holidays' pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' wmode='transparent' height='319' width='567'><param name='wmode' value='transparent'></param><param name='movie' value='http://aka.zero.jibjab.com/client/zero/ClientZero_EmbedViewer.swf?external_make_id=hoqEUe0GSzajZujZynLrtw&#038;service=www.jibjab.com&#038;partnerID=holidays'></param><param name='scaleMode' value='showAll'></param><param name='quality' value='high'></param><param name='allowNetworking' value='all'></param><param name='allowFullScreen' value='true' /><param name='FlashVars' value='cornerRadius=10&#038;external_make_id=hoqEUe0GSzajZujZynLrtw&#038;service=www.jibjab.com&#038;partnerID=holidays'></param><param name='allowScriptAccess' value='always'></param></object></div>
<p>
Some of my favorite moments in the video:</P>
<p>
Vitaliy Zhhuta, our lead system admin, and his solo dance at 11 seconds.
Kody Riker, our Support Team Manager, twirling his way around the video at 26 seconds.
Rus Foster, the Managing Director of VPS.net, pulling off the splits at 28 seconds.
Whitney White, the Social Media Managing, doing her best hopstep at 31 seconds.
Svitlana Khorashylova, the Office Manager, getting her boogie on 35 seconds.</p>

All of us at VPS.net wish you a happy holidays, and hope you have a prosperous 2013.
<p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/seasons-greetings-from-vps-net">Season&#8217;s Greetings from VPS.net</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Five Features of a Relational Cloud and Database-as-a-Service</title>
		<link>http://vps.net/five-features-of-a-relational-cloud-and-database-as-a-service?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=five-features-of-a-relational-cloud-and-database-as-a-service</link>
		<comments>http://vps.net/five-features-of-a-relational-cloud-and-database-as-a-service#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 19 Dec 2012 12:40:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jake Neeley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Cloud]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.vps.net/blog/?p=1943</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>With the advent of cloud computing, Relational Cloud systems have become an important feature of modern computing environments. For introductory purposes it's important to take look at the history behind the technology. Database-as-a-service (DaaS) and its offspring Relational Clouds emerged &#8230; <a href="http://vps.net/five-features-of-a-relational-cloud-and-database-as-a-service">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a></p><p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/five-features-of-a-relational-cloud-and-database-as-a-service">Five Features of a Relational Cloud and Database-as-a-Service</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<center><img src="http://www.vps.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/VPS-Relational-Cloud.png" alt="" /></center>

With the advent of cloud computing, <a href="http://web.mit.edu/ralucap/www/cidr11.pdf">Relational Cloud systems</a> have become an important feature of modern computing environments. For introductory purposes it's important to take look at the history behind the technology. Database-as-a-service (DaaS) and its offspring Relational Clouds emerged as an IT concept promising to shift much of the operational burden, scaling, configuration, performance tuning, access control, privacy and backup from database users to service providers; in the end effecting cost reduction to users.

Initially, a few providers introduced DaaS efforts into the market; which scored high in establishing the market need for this type of service.

However, they did not address three pertinent issues: elastic scalability, efficient multi-tenancy, and database privacy. This formed the basis for the Relational Cloud project in MIT to investigate technologies and setbacks related to DaaS within the sphere of cloud computing. Some of the technical aspects of relational cloud model include:

<span id="more-3151"></span>

	<ol>
<li><strong>Workload Awareness</strong></li>
The <a href="http://relationalcloud.com/index.php?title=Main_Page">design and development of Relational Cloud components</a> is based on the concept of workload awareness. The workload approach is adapted to multi-tenancy, which involves identifying functions, and workloads that can be easily co-located on the server, resulting in high consolidation and better performance. In the long run this reduces configuration efforts for both service providers and users.

	<li><strong>Database Security</strong></li>
The model boasts an adjustable security framework that is capable of integrating SQL queries (encrypted) capable of ordering operations, joins and aggregates. The work awareness approach also assists in monitoring data accesses and query patterns to gain useful insights applicable when optimizing or operationalizing security functions.

	<li><strong>Elastic Scalability</strong></li>
The adoption of a graph based data partitioning algorithm assists to achieve near linear elastic scale out, even when carrying out complex operations. This enables the system to support workloads and databases of different sizes since the number of multi-node transactions are minimized.

	<li><strong>Efficient Multi-Tenancy</strong></li>
The ultimate goal of any database developer is to design a system that minimizes the set of machines required while still meeting application level performance goals. In regards to this, <a href="http://web.mit.edu/ralucap/www/cidr11.pdf">Relational Cloud archives scalability</a> in the sense that it requires the developer to predetermine the resource requirements of individual workloads, how they will co-locate on one machine, and how to benefit from temporal variations of individual workloads to optimize hardware utilization efficiency.

	<li><strong>Placement and Migration</strong></li>
Resource migration and placement is obviously a major challenge when designing multi-tenant services such as Relational Cloud. Nevertheless, Relational Cloud overcomes this hurdle as it allows arbitrary placement of new database or workloads on some designated nodes for applications.</ol><p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/five-features-of-a-relational-cloud-and-database-as-a-service">Five Features of a Relational Cloud and Database-as-a-Service</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Join us for our Townhall December 20th</title>
		<link>http://vps.net/join-us-for-our-townhall-december-20th?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=join-us-for-our-townhall-december-20th</link>
		<comments>http://vps.net/join-us-for-our-townhall-december-20th#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:41:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>terry</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.vps.net/blog/?p=1916</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>With the holidays approaching, weâ€™re starting to look towards 2013 and the improvements that can be made. Before we can do that though, we must look back at 2012 and recognize a few outstanding members of the VPS.net team. Kody &#8230; <a href="http://vps.net/join-us-for-our-townhall-december-20th">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a></p><p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/join-us-for-our-townhall-december-20th">Join us for our Townhall December 20th</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[With the holidays approaching, weâ€™re starting to look towards 2013 and the improvements that can be made. Before we can do that though, we must look back at 2012 and recognize a few outstanding members of the VPS.net team. Kody Riker, Jibu Jose, and Vitaliy Zhuta were all chosen for the employee choice by their fellow employees for their hardwork and dedication to their position. It goes without saying that we all truly appreciate the amount of time they have spent helping our customers, and helping others within the office. Congratulations to the three of you!

<strong>VPS.net Customer Townhall
</strong>Last year we were able to have a lot of fun interacting with our customers through a townhall session. Weâ€™ll be holding a 2nd townhall December 20th at 5 PM GMT/9 AM PST. All of our customers are invited to attend and participate. Weâ€™re very excited to talk about some of the stuff that will be coming from VPS.net in 2013. You can signup to attend the townhall at <a href="http://www.vps.net/blog/vps-net-customer-townhall/">http://www.vps.net/blog/vps-net-customer-townhall/</a>

<strong>Holiday Support Hours</strong>
Our support offices will remain open during the holidays, including Christmas Day and New Years Day. If it turns out you need something, our team will still be available to assist you.

All of us at VPS.net wish you a happy holidays, and hope you have a prosperous 2013<p>The post <a href="http://vps.net/join-us-for-our-townhall-december-20th">Join us for our Townhall December 20th</a> appeared first on <a href="http://vps.net">VPS.NET</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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