cloud computing platforms - amazon ec2 etc.

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nkpza

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Out of curiosity, anyone here using these for business or personal use? i.e compute nodes, webhosts etc on amazon ec2 or others?

What has this been like?

I'm debating if it is worth spending cash to build a private cloud platform( give in to my once-in-a-decade need to fiddle with hardware and will also allow me to explore setting-up and maintaining a cc platform ) or to use the money to lease instances off amazon ec2.

Hmmm...
 
nkpza said:
Out of curiosity, anyone here using these for business or personal use? i.e compute nodes, webhosts etc on amazon ec2 or others?

What has this been like?

I'm debating if it is worth spending cash to build a private cloud platform( give in to my once-in-a-decade need to fiddle with hardware and will also allow me to explore setting-up and maintaining a cc platform ) or to use the money to lease instances off amazon ec2.

Hmmm...
Click to expand...

I think the point of using the cloud is that it saves you from doing the heavy lifting yourself :P

A true cloud platform provides ample redundancy and scalability, which would be expensive and time-consuming (=heavy lifting) to achieve on even on a private scale (I'm assuming 'private' is being used to refer to 'home/personal use')?

If you need *serious* hosting for your app then stick with ec2 etc., but if you want to play with virtualisation etc. then go ahead and build your own 'mini data-centre'.

I definitely wouldn't host a mission-critical app on a 'private cloud' though - defeats the purpose and benefits of cc IMHO!

:)
 
Our company uses cloud (Amazon) servers and it has been very successful. The true cost of ownership is much lower than physical hosting (we make use of two hosting facilities). Very easy to deploy a new cloud or 2 as our needs grow. Great for prototyping projects for clients as we can shutdown after the demo.

But what I love the most is that my app I maintain runs on its own cloud server and I don't have to worry about other hogging valuable resources. Add in Elastic Store and the world is your oyster.

If you can afford a static IP then it gets even better as you can then shutdown your instance and boot up when needed again.
 
Personally I won't touch EC2 at all, www.rackspacecloud.com all the way. Actually signed up/started up my own server with them on Friday, been running like a dream since then. The account also allows me direct access to Cloud Files, which can be setup as CDN containers and served across the world. Bandwidth rates are also extremely cheap. I think I pay $3 for 10gig outgoing and 10gig incoming (incoming would obviously be less than outgoing). And with using their CDN, it costs $22 for a 100gb worth of transfer.

What is also really nice is bandwidth between your servers internally is free, and it's super easy to expand and load balance where 1 server shares it's public IP with several, and/or setup a database server within a few minutes... :p
 
Thanks all. Forgot about rackspace.

So what's it like working on a remote instance? Is it all console mode or can you fire up X windows(linux) and have access to the internet etc?
 
Well, you tell it which image/flavor of OS you want and about 10 min later you have it, full console access / RDP and everything just works...

With RackSpace, once you finished setting everything up/updating or what not, you can create an image of your install and always restore to that point, seamlessly integrates with their Cloud Files. What I like about this is that I have CDN access, so I don't need a server with big hdd space, CDN takes care of any huge files I need to host for clients.
 
Thanks for the info on rackspacecloud. Regarding pricing, does the hourly rate start from the time the server/instance is complete and provisioned?
Also, after chatting to one of the guys at rackspacecloud the billing happens regardless of whether or not the server is up/being used. The billing only ends when the instance is deleted, is this correct?
 
AcidRaZor said:
Personally I won't touch EC2 at all, www.rackspacecloud.com all the way. Actually signed up/started up my own server with them on Friday, been running like a dream since then. The account also allows me direct access to Cloud Files, which can be setup as CDN containers and served across the world. Bandwidth rates are also extremely cheap. I think I pay $3 for 10gig outgoing and 10gig incoming (incoming would obviously be less than outgoing). And with using their CDN, it costs $22 for a 100gb worth of transfer.

What is also really nice is bandwidth between your servers internally is free, and it's super easy to expand and load balance where 1 server shares it's public IP with several, and/or setup a database server within a few minutes... :p
Click to expand...

Any reason why? I'm curious as I do not make the decisions at work but I just like to know.
 
Gushesh said:
Thanks for the info on rackspacecloud. Regarding pricing, does the hourly rate start from the time the server/instance is complete and provisioned?
Also, after chatting to one of the guys at rackspacecloud the billing happens regardless of whether or not the server is up/being used. The billing only ends when the instance is deleted, is this correct?
Click to expand...

That is usually the case, otherwise a storage fee can sometimes be arranged which is paid when the vm is not used.
 
cbrunsdonza said:
Any reason why? I'm curious as I do not make the decisions at work but I just like to know.
Click to expand...

They don't give you a static IP address when setting up a cloud server, it's an optional extra and costs extra. It's also a bit more complicated to get up and running from my experience. And I'm not entirely sure about this, but the Cloud Files/CDN offered by Rackspace integrates directly with their Cloud Hosting, so it's seemless (especially backups of the images you do). Not entirely sure if Amazon offers the same thing.

Then compared in terms of cost, Rackspace is 20-60% cheaper than Amazon for CDN/Cloud file/Cloud Server services. Plus Rackspace has awesome support and an 0800 number from SA I can phone 24/7. no 0861 or international numbers for support...
 
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