Cloud vs VPS

[albatroz]

When do you consider that Cloud is better/more cost effective than VPS?

[enotchnet]

The Cloud would be better in my opinion.

Its a way for you to have your sites on fully redundant hardware (in theory) and it gives you a way to split your website / application into tiers rather than having all of the components on a VPS where your services may be fighting for memory and other available resources.

You will pay more for a Cloud solution though. Even your highest VPS package would probably compare to an entry level Cloud package with the likes of Rackspace, etc.

[albatroz]

This is perfect from the final user point of view.
In other words we (hosting providers) should have Cloud in our catalogs in other to prevent loosing of business.

BTW how do you see the Microsoft Azure offer?
Is it competitive with Amazon EC and others?

[enotchnet]

The VPS market is becoming too saturated. There is still a niche market for hosts to offer solutions based on Xen. For what its worth the Amazon cloud is based on Xen so I think we will see more providers moving into the Cloud space as time goes on or starting to offer Xen solutions. We are also building a cloud solution.

MS Azure is good but I believe Amazon has beat Microsoft to market this time. I do believe Microsoft has a better solution with Hyper-V for Windows based Cloud solutions but since MS is new to the hosting space they are missing many critical pieces to really hit critical mass.

So for now Amazon EC wins the battle of the Cloud!

[HostColor]

Are you sure you understand what does "Cloud" mean? It is not any particular technology. It an approach to computing, a model that allows for distributing computing resource through a network of servers. In Web Hosting a cloud computing infrastructure means - high availability, load-balancing, system and service scalability, redundancy on software and hardware level, and flexibility.

A VPS hosting service can be provided from a Cloud infrastructure. In fact most providers that claim to be "Clouds" offer a virtual instances provided from any kind of grid or cloud alike systems.

But when it comes to a "Cloud" we should discuss not just an infrastructure models, but also software platforms and service models.

[albatroz]

When I talk about VPS generally talk about services based on Virtuozzo (Parallels technology)
or Linux Virtual Server running on one big server, but when talk about Cloud hosting,
generally is about services distributed in serveral servers.

My impression is that Xen technology is mostly used on Cloud hosting instead of Parallels (most used on VPS) am I right?

[enotchnet]

Are you sure you understand what does "Cloud" mean? It is not any particular technology. It an approach to computing, a model that allows for distributing computing resource through a network of servers. In Web Hosting a cloud computing infrastructure means - high availability, load-balancing, system and service scalability, redundancy on software and hardware level, and flexibility.

A VPS hosting service can be provided from a Cloud infrastructure. In fact most providers that claim to be "Clouds" offer a virtual instances provided from any kind of grid or cloud alike systems.

But when it comes to a "Cloud" we should discuss not just an infrastructure models, but also software platforms and service models.

I don't mean to be rude but I hope this wasn't directed towards me. I am very aware of the definition of a Cloud and difference between the hardware and software aspects of a Cloud. However, a Cloud is as good as the hardware and software that it is build upon as a combined solution.

If you look at OP's title you will see the words "Cloud vs VPS" and then this text in the first post "My impression is that Xen technology is mostly used on Cloud hosting instead of Parallels (most used on VPS) am I right?"

We did not discuss software platforms as such here but I did make reference to Xen as being one of the more popular software platforms.

[HostColor]

I don't mean to be rude but I hope this wasn't directed towards me. I am very aware of the definition of a Cloud and difference between the hardware and software aspects of a Cloud. However, a Cloud is as good as the hardware and software that it is build upon as a combined solution.

If you look at OP's title you will see the words "Cloud vs VPS" and then this text in the first post "My impression is that Xen technology is mostly used on Cloud hosting instead of Parallels (most used on VPS) am I right?"

We did not discuss software platforms as such here but I did make reference to Xen as being one of the more popular software platforms.

There is no reason to be rude, unless you like being one I have never though off commenting your post or arguing with you! Of course after you posted this, Im glad to stay on the topic and to talk to you. Don't you mean that Amazon's model of using cheap computing resources works only for scalability, but at the same time is not that reliable? Of course I might be wrong, so I appreciate your opinion.

[arisythila]

I would consider a product like Virtuozzo, or OpenVZ, or some of the others being VPS's. While VPS's are hosted on a single server solution, Cloud based solution are hosted on multiple servers.

Sort of how I explain it to people is. I take 100 servers, and create a virtual environment we call the "cloud" Your Machine runs in this cloud, If we have a server failure, that cloud just gets smaller, but the cloud remains up.

When we were running Virtuozzo, If the server failed, All of our VPS's would be down until we troubleshooted what was wrong. With Cloud we can pretty much take our time. I love it when hosting is a little less stressful! :-)

[albatroz]

So in summary what model are you in favor of?
One big server with serveral VPSs or the multiple server distributed cloud?

I would consider a product like Virtuozzo, or OpenVZ, or some of the others being VPS's. While VPS's are hosted on a single server solution, Cloud based solution are hosted on multiple servers.

Sort of how I explain it to people is. I take 100 servers, and create a virtual environment we call the "cloud" Your Machine runs in this cloud, If we have a server failure, that cloud just gets smaller, but the cloud remains up.

When we were running Virtuozzo, If the server failed, All of our VPS's would be down until we troubleshooted what was wrong. With Cloud we can pretty much take our time. I love it when hosting is a little less stressful! :-)

[arisythila]

Depends on the application. If uptime is critical, I'd look at some sort of cloud based clustered hosting solution. That way if an application(Apache or IIS) server goes down your website doesn't.

When we were running Virtuozzo, We didn't really have problems with the hardware. Our problems stemmed from our customers. You get a couple of heavy hitters that should be on dedicated servers, and they can possibly take down the whole Virtuozzo box.

With cloud based computing we are not seeing that kind of effect on our customer base, even the heavy hitters. This may be because of how Applogic runs.

[sam9]

When do you consider that Cloud is better/more cost effective than VPS?

Many times this discussion can become one of semantics. However, most cloud hosting providers offer (1) auto scaling (2) On demand availability (3) Pay As You Go pricing. These are things missing in VPS. So, if these matter to your application/site and/or business, then cloud is the way to go.

There are many providers in the market, each with their distinct advantages and shortcomings. The ultimate choice will depend on your specific requirements.

Cheers!

[ckeck]

There are many differences that may or may not be important to you when looking at deploying in the Cloud or on a traditional VPS platform. I did a small write up a few months back on this very subject, maybe it will help.

http://chadkeck.com/2009/11/rackspac...vps-platforms/

[Fahd Khan]

Connecting to the cloud with your COLO or Dedicated Servers for free
An awesome feature which is available with all Gigenet Cloud Servers is the ability to have devices outside of the cloud connect to devices inside the cloud at no cost. If you have a dedicated server with GigeNET, it comes free with a gigabit private network port, all Gigenet cloud servers come with a private vlan and private gigabit network port. In a few seconds your dedicated server and gigenet cloud server can communicate for free, securely over gigabit speeds.

This is also available for co-location customers, we just setup a customer today in fact, we ran a cross connect from his rack to the private network distribution switch and in seconds they were able to talk to each other as if they were local.

In this case the customer has a rack with his own SAN in it, he is now able to access the san with his Gigenet Cloud Servers. Another notch on the board for the powerful capabilities of the Gigenet Cloud service. The power and features of the cloud is infinite!