Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Cloud Hosting : Site, not instance cloud computing options?

[MrLister]

What are the different site cloud computing options out there? (aka, I'm not "launching" and managing instances but instead I'm just treating it as "one" server that can grow into whatever I need it to)

[zendzipr]

The cloud term can be confusing and many vendors use their own definition. If you plan on having a "long term" server make sure you have a plan that does not charge per time usage like gogrid. Amazon has a decent plan but a minimum RAM purchase. Depending on what you are looking at doing, a quality VPS may take care of what you are looking for.

[MrLister]

vps won't work. we want to go from 5 httpd servers & 1 mysql to "one" cloud server

[zendzipr]

Just a small FYI. Most clouds are VPS servers. GoGrid runs Xen.

[MrLister]

ah ok, i thought you were thinking part of server vpn thing.

Other than gogrid, any other ones you would recommend?

[zendzipr]

No, I did not mean VPN....

I have several customers who use the Amazon cloud for short term usage. Unless you are looking into using a cloud for a specific reason, ie short term usage, I personally do not recommend using a cloud. Current cloud products tend to be a bit more expensive than Virtual Private Servers. I would instead recommend infrastructure providers that specialize in clustered virtualization.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by zendzipr

No, I did not mean VPN....

I have several customers who use the Amazon cloud for short term usage. Unless you are looking into using a cloud for a specific reason, ie short term usage, I personally do not recommend using a cloud. Current cloud products tend to be a bit more expensive than Virtual Private Servers. I would instead recommend infrastructure providers that specialize in clustered virtualization.

clustered virtualization, how does this differ from amazon?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by MrLister

What are the different site cloud computing options out there? (aka, I'm not "launching" and managing instances but instead I'm just treating it as "one" server that can grow into whatever I need it to)

Have you considered Mosso? Assuming you are hosting websites that is.

[lostmind]

Originally Posted by MrLister

vps won't work. we want to go from 5 httpd servers & 1 mysql to "one" cloud server

Doesn't really work that way.

The magical "cloud" is just a bunch of VPS's with a fancy billing interface.

You can't really consolidate 6 servers into 1 "cloud" hosting account.

[ckeck]

It sounds like the Cloud Sites platform from the Rackspace Cloud might be exactly what you are looking for. If you don't require full complete control over the web servers and MySQL server directly you can simply upload your web application and database and it will be scaled up/down across multiple physical servers, completely automated depending on traffic. You don't have to lift a finger, and from your perspective, it is all in "one" location. The entire platform is fully managed/maintained except for your specific app/website code. Might be a match made in heaven

[Spudstr]

Originally Posted by ckeck

It sounds like the Cloud Sites platform from the Rackspace Cloud might be exactly what you are looking for. If you don't require full complete control over the web servers and MySQL server directly you can simply upload your web application and database and it will be scaled up/down across multiple physical servers, completely automated depending on traffic. You don't have to lift a finger, and from your perspective, it is all in "one" location. The entire platform is fully managed/maintained except for your specific app/website code. Might be a match made in heaven

Rackspaces "cloud" is slicehost which is xen, just like Amazons EC2.. xen..

what is xen? virtualization. Yes oh my god VPS's have taken off....

There was an artical the other day about who is the biggest "cloud" company. Oddly enough i think if it was godaddy? or hostgator if they renamed their "VPS" product to a "cloud" they would be #1.. Shinanagens I tell you.. all PR/marketing crap.

[eming]

yeah, well - most clouds has added new billing structures, new ways of scaling up and down, new forms of redundancy and an easier way to move stuff around.

But ya, most are *just* xen, thats what we use as well.


D

[lostmind]

But Ditlev, these new billing structures aren't anything automatic. If I want a second vps with vps.net because I am planning a big traffic purchase for 2 days, I have to manually go an login to your control panel and buy this, right?

Ok, provisioning might be automatic, but hey I've had auto provisioning for years.

And at rackspace, softlayer, blah blah who else, I have to do the same thing. Or I have to be a programming whiz an interface with your api's to purchase a new vps/cloud instance... and then I have to be a bit of a server whiz to get mysql running on it properly and then tell my application to use that as the db server. Or get several vps instances and create myself a cluster, or web proxy etc etc.

It doesn't just scale on it's own. You are stuck in a box of set configurations right now still too.

There is no magic to it. At least, not yet.

Give me automatic clustering or transparent process migration and bare metal performance. Then we have magic

[eming]

Originally Posted by lostmind

Give me automatic clustering or transparent process migration and bare metal performance. Then we have magic

I don't believe in magic - do you? I believe in good transparent redundant setup's that gives you flexibility and scalability instantly.

Originally Posted by lostmind

But Ditlev, these new billing structures aren't anything automatic. If I want a second vps with vps.net because I am planning a big traffic purchase for 2 days, I have to manually go an login to your control panel and buy this, right?

...

Originally Posted by lostmind

Ok, provisioning might be automatic, but hey I've had auto provisioning for years.

If you plan to buy a lot of traffic for 2 days, say 14 days for now, then you just tell our system to add a few nodes to your server(s) from that date to that date. You only pay for the resources for those 2 days...We call it scheduled bursting, and that can be done from our admin. It's a pretty cool feature.
Like, if you have newsletters going out every Monday, and you know you have more traffic Tuesday, then just tell our system to add an extra node Tuesday, and take it away Wednesday. Have you been able to do that for years?

We also have (in closed beta currently) an auto scaling feature saying: "if my server reaches xx load, for yy minutes, please add zz nodes". It's a pretty simple way of autoscaling - but it is there.

That being said, the ability to buy resources (what we call nodes) and allocate it as you wish is what is the real "magic" here.

So, say you buy 4 nodes from us, that would give you 4 independent units of 256mb ram, 400mhz cpu and 10gb storage each - that you can bundle and unbundle as you wish.
So you can build 1 server with the full gig, 2 servers with 512mb each, 4 servers with 256mb each...you get the idea. And you can reallocate your resources at any time. You can even move the resources from cloud to cloud, so if you'd like 2 of those 'nodes' in UK and 2 in US - just point and click...Have you been able to do that for years? Instantly?

Ya, we do have so much more on the way that will make this even cooler, but I think what we (not only VPS.NET - but the whole cloud-movement) are doing here will eventually turn out to be quite an amazing thing!


D

[dazmanultra]

Ditlev, I think what he's saying is that whilst he can provision extra instances easily enough, it doesn't mean his application automatically scales across those extra instances.

Load-balancing, for example - he needs to setup an additional webserver and then add that web server to the pool in the load balancer configuration. But none of it happens automatically - he has to be on the ball and have some idea of when the spikes are likely to happen, or be able to be near a computer when he finds out they're happening. What if an article you wrote a month ago gets featured on Digg whilst you're away on holiday? :p