Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Cloud Hosting : Setting up a cloud?

[CymraegWalesHosting]

Hey guys, just had an idea. Is a cloud effectively a server say with 64GB Ram, 4 x quad processes connected to a DAS with 20TB storage etc?

or have i completely got the wrong idea?

Best,
Nathaniel

[larry2148]

No a cloud would be more of a computer cluster. Although you have the right idea by separating the storage and processing. A cluster would be more like 10 servers doing the processing and distributed storage as well, but being a "cloud" customers wouldn't know it was actually being run on multiple servers. We'll wait to see what one of the actual cloud providers has to say on the subject .

[Dedicatedone]

Larry has the right idea. A cloud is a cluster of servers where the resources are pooled together. This allows the host to offer a solution where the client can scale all resources (CPU, RAM, HD) as well as offer a way to interconnect those cloud server to other cloud appliances (Firewall, switch, database server, etc). This allows for everything to be in the cloud and not hardware based that allow the client to change their configuration on the fly.

It's not as simple as putting a few servers in a cluster, there are several companies out there that provide a cloud platform. One that you may want to check out is www.3tera.com.

[hexahost]

Cloud is more than a high capacity server. If you have a single node, then its not a cloud. I would say minimum 2 hardware nodes with proper interconnections and clustering (active/active), properly configured cluster ware (Grid software ?), centralized firewall, centralized load balencer ... all of the above will form a Cloud platform.

[cjcUSDW]

Part of the 'cloud computing' getting so much buzz is the ability to "auto-provision" services as needed (i.e. new customers or, as required - load). I don't think you can start talking about a cloud or grid until you get around to 32way/64way servers being linked together to provide multi-tenant services.

[HostColor]

A "Cloud" is not just a HA cluster or any kind of computer (server) system which can handle a heavy applications or load. In web hosting "Cloud" refers to a different model of providing and using web hosting service, based on performance billing. Go to WHT Wiki to read more about Cloud Hosting.

[FortressDewey]

You can also goto VMware's website, they have some good screen shots etc explaining what it is. I've seen how it works across ~100 servers in 3 different DC's and it's pretty amazing on the technology.

[mwatkins]

Ubuntu cloud-computing components released
By Rupert Goodwins, ZDNet UK | 2009/04/27 11:49:01

With the launch of version 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope, Ubuntu Server Edition is available on Amazon EC2, while Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud is an EC2-compatible system that can create a cloud on a company's own network.

The Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud system is based on Ubuntu Server Edition 9.04 and Eucalyptus, a system with an EC2-compatible API, elastic block storage (EBS) equivalent and an S3 compatible storage manager. With it, the company said, users can build their own private clouds entirely from open-source components.

There are similar developments in BSD land too.

[datums]

You can also take http://www.eucalyptus.com/ for a spin. It's open source and uses similar EC2 api calls

[ddwebguru]

A cloud hosting architecture can be defined as a cluster of servers with elastic load balancing.It can be seen as a multinode structure capable of scaling with all the nodes capable of sharing the load.

[blessen]

Originally Posted by CymraegWalesHosting

Hey guys, just had an idea. Is a cloud effectively a server say with 64GB Ram, 4 x quad processes connected to a DAS with 20TB storage etc?

or have i completely got the wrong idea?

Best,
Nathaniel

Read the contents from the below link to get an idea about cloud
http://www.networkworld.com/newslett...cloudsec2.html

[CymraegWalesHosting]

Well i would just like to say thank you all. Over the past 3 - 4 months i have learn't so much about cloud computing and have invested in nearly £15,000 on our brand new UK Cloud Infrastructure.

Although our cloud is now open for general use, we are adding new features to it all the time. We have built it off the OpenQRM infrastructure. We also use the High Availability feature which means, entire VPS's and Virtual VPS Nodes are automatically swapped over in a flash to a new server within 60seconds.

[isparky]

an interesting link http://zrgjo.tk

best

[vodien]

but what are the benefits of cloud hosting over getting say, a single server, or a load balanced setup? wouldn't hardware costs be prohibitive for a cloud setup?

[CymraegWalesHosting]

The benefits is High Availability, Scalability and performance.