I've got a fairly substantial online business that is currently on a shared hosting box that is forever going down. I'm now looking at either a traditional managed server or cloud hosting. In particular a friend has suggested VMware hosting - does anyone have any experience of VMware on here?

Hello and welcome to WHT,

Can you tell me a little more about your site? How much storage? Transfers? Is it database heavy? Do you know how many concurrent users? And what kind of budget do you have?

There are many ways you could go with this, so the more information that is available the better the advice you will get.

VMWare is a popular virtualization technology company, and has also worked it's way into the Cloud market share as well. Personally I'm a fan of both virtualization and Cloud that is built using the Xen hypervisor, and not VMWare products but each has it's own advantages.

You can even have a managed Cloud server so it all depends on your needs really. :)

If you are looking for something that needs to be online. My vote goes for "true" cloud hosting or a high availability virtual server. i.e. redundant cloud infrastructure or a virtual server with a provider who uses a SAN with multiple nodes and auto fail over.

Thanks for your replies. We use about 20GB of storage at the moment. The database is mysql and is used just for user authentication stuff really - it's not heavy usage. I'm not looking for bargain basement hosting so budget is realistic for this kind of thing.

When you say 'true' cloud hosting are you meaning VMware hosting?

Thanks for your replies. We use about 20GB of storage at the moment. The database is mysql and is used just for user authentication stuff really - it's not heavy usage. I'm not looking for bargain basement hosting so budget is realistic for this kind of thing.

When you say 'true' cloud hosting are you meaning VMware hosting?

When I say cloud in general, I mean something that is self healing. Same with HA virtual servers in general. Some providers even call OpenVZ "enterprise grade" or "highly available" which is for the most part, probably b.s.

VMware has the ability to run in a HA manner, but that's not going to stop people from sticking it on a single node and calling it cloud. The same goes for Citrix XenServer, Xen Source.

Basically just ask what hardware a provider uses and how it is redundant or self healing. If they are unwilling to share at least the basics of their infrastructure then walk away. If you ask and they provide the right (and honest) answers, then go for it.

Thanks for your replies. We use about 20GB of storage at the moment. The database is mysql and is used just for user authentication stuff really - it's not heavy usage. I'm not looking for bargain basement hosting so budget is realistic for this kind of thing.

When you say 'true' cloud hosting are you meaning VMware hosting?

Ok storage is reasonable, and MySQL I assume your website is also in a language that will run fine on a *NIX environment? You do not need Windows correct?

"true" cloud hosting is more or less defined as an infrastructure that it scalable (definitely horizontal, but at least somewhat vertical. In the "truest of true" cloud applications it's near limitless virtual scaling. This could be done for you on several platforms), high availability, and redundant. Basically, your environment will be on one that is independent of any of the servers or components it's running on. It uses the servers as commodities and can instantly and seamlessly (automatically!) be migrated from one to another, or even scale up from say.. 1 to 10 servers as needed. It should also be managed entirely from the web.

What he was warning about is there are providers out there just selling a VPS as cloud, and in some cases a VPS can meet the definitition of cloud, however a VPS is not limitless vertical scaling. It will be able to utilize one physical server as it is comprised of just one OS environment. A true cloud infrastructure will require an application framework that is built to cloud specifications that can scale vertically. However this does not really require any customizations on your application either depending on what it is.

AppLogic is also a great platform that will provide a true cloud infrastructure for you to grow on. LAMP stack's can be built to near limitless vertical scaling rather easily actually, and it also makes development and deployment a breeze.

Listen to this guy for cloud stuff ^

I'm more knowledgeable about virtual servers in general.

This article looks like it might help. http://ezinearticles.com/?Comparison-of-Managed-Servers-Vs-VMware-Hosting

In a nutshell I'd say cloud hosting is great for established sites but there are certainly cheaper options if you are just starting out.

This article looks like it might help. http://ezinearticles.com/?Comparison-of-Managed-Servers-Vs-VMware-Hosting

In a nutshell I'd say cloud hosting is great for established sites but there are certainly cheaper options if you are just starting out.

The big problem I see with VMWare providers is that it is still limited to create just VM's, aka VPS's. A single operating infrastructure is limited by that of one server. Since the op stated I've got a fairly substantial online business that is currently on a shared hosting box that is forever going down. this is not a startup, and would benefit looking into Cloud further. As stated, the truest of true cloud infrastructure's are built to scale an application vertically beyond a single server. VMWare cannot do this. Any serious site with growth potential will have growing pains with this limitation.

Now, depending on the actual usage of the site (traffic) would help determine the infrastructure needs more.

I've got a fairly substantial online business that is currently on a shared hosting box that is forever going down.

Is it your website going down, or the entire server it is on?

Do you know the cause of the failures?

The basic technique for high availability is to use two separate data centres; that's what banks and so on do.

The following are some of the advantages of using VMware Server:

It allows one to power on virtual machines at system boot.

It allows one to start/stop/use virtual machines from remote computers.

I've got a fairly substantial online business that is currently on a shared hosting box that is forever going down. I'm now looking at either a traditional managed server or cloud hosting. In particular a friend has suggested VMware hosting - does anyone have any experience of VMware on here?
Good points about choosing a scalable & 'self healing' cloud infrastructure. Most good providers will offer that.

I notice you do mention you are looking for a managed solution. You will need to ensure that the cloud provider offers this - please be explicit in your questioning, here, as different providers will define managed cloud hosting, differently. This is especially relevant as you will be moving from a shared hosting environment, which is fully managed, typically.

Cheers!

The big problem I see with VMWare providers is that it is still limited to create just VM's, aka VPS's. A single operating infrastructure is limited by that of one server. Since the op stated I've got a fairly substantial online business that is currently on a shared hosting box that is forever going down. this is not a startup, and would benefit looking into Cloud further. As stated, the truest of true cloud infrastructure's are built to scale an application vertically beyond a single server. VMWare cannot do this. Any serious site with growth potential will have growing pains with this limitation.

Now, depending on the actual usage of the site (traffic) would help determine the infrastructure needs more.


Your missing a key part of the ops situation, while sure scaling up is one thing but scaling out and the application he is using to be able to scale out is a totally separate problem at hand. And then this also comes into issues with licensing and flexibility of the application as well.

There is no such thing as "VMware hosting". As you know VMware is a producer of virtualizaton technologies.

There is no such thing as "VMware hosting". As you know VMware is a producer of virtualizaton technologies.
I'm sure he/she meant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware_vSphere

And several hosts refer to VMWare.
For example: http://eurovps.com/eng/dedicated_servers/hybrid_servers/

There is no such thing as "VMware hosting". As you know VMware is a producer of virtualizaton technologies.

Yeah you might want to rephrase the way you said this. Because there are plenty of providers that offer virtual servers on the VMware platform.