Running applications efficiently in online social networks

In the past several years, online social networks (OSNs) such as Facebook and MySpace have become extremely popular with Internet users. Such sites are popular with users because they simplify both communication among "communities" and access to applications. Application developers are attracted to these sites also, as they are able to exploit "word-of-mouth" marketing, which these OSN sites have embodied into their user experience. A challenge for developers though is managing the application, as it is difficult to predict how successful the marketing will be. Our solution combines an OSN, Virtual Appliances, and a utility computing environment together. We demonstrate our solution using the Facebook portal (OSN), the Fire Dynamics Simulator (application), and a utility environment we built using tools such as Condor, Moab and Xen. The application is supported using Virtual Appliances, which interact with our flexible infrastructure to dynamically expand and contract based on user demand. Thus, we are able to make much more efficient use of the underlying physical infrastructure. We believe that our solution also has great potential for enterprise IT environments. Initial feedback suggests combining an OSN with our flexible infrastructure provides a much better user experience than the traditional, standalone use of the (legacy) application, and simplifies the management and increases the effective utilization of the underlying IT resources.