Aws EC2 Application Hosting

[greggpb]

Is AWS ec2 a viable platform to host a web app where majority of the users will be in South Africa initially?

or will latency always be an issue ?

I have been hosting a webapp there on a small scale EC@ t2 and RDS, but am not sure it will scale ?

 

[nexxus]

It depends if latency is an issue for you. EC2 is a highly viable platform and I know of more than 1 or 2 large SA sites that host on it. I would host off their EU node as well, it cuts a little bit off the latency but in the end, it is what it is. If your app makes heavy use of sockets & real time communication it may be an issue but my guess is that it isn't.

A small EC2 & RDS instance should be fine for a low traffic site (they're both single core, so don't be doing too much processing.) Like most things, it depends. You can serve a lot of people a lot of content on that setup if your code is built to do that but if you start to do anything taxing or dynamic you're going to struggle.

 

[gkm]

Probably best to host from Dublin for least latency.

It is impossible to say if a t2 will be good enough without detailed knowledge of your app, but if not you can always just change the instance size or add more instances behind an ELB, if you run out of steam. For your RDS DB, you can also make it bigger from the RDS Console.

Maybe worth running a stress test to find out how much headroom you have.

 

[nexxus]

To add to that, I'd say put your app behind an ELB, whether or not you're using it. It just builds in some of the ability to scale without much fuss.

 

[greggpb]

I think latency is the killer,

We use the app to data capure and store documents, so there is alot of typing and screen changes. almost like a custom written crm that is specically for our business but also runs our business process..

I have used AWS for the prototype, but am wondering if I would be better to host on a sa local ubuntu instace , that said it is alot more work to maintain the servers locally that on AWS.

 

[JStrike]

If you're not using AWS, you should be

 

[greggpb]

If you're not using AWS, you should be

lol..

 

[gkm]

I think latency is the killer,

We use the app to data capure and store documents, so there is alot of typing and screen changes. almost like a custom written crm that is specically for our business but also runs our business process..

I have used AWS for the prototype, but am wondering if I would be better to host on a sa local ubuntu instace , that said it is alot more work to maintain the servers locally that on AWS.

Latency to Dublin is around 200ms. Humans will not be able to detect it for your kind of app. I also agree with the comment to use an ELB from day 1, even if you have just one instance behind it.