Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : VPS Hosting : Cloud Server Vs. VPS

[brc_csf]

Hello,

We've seen lot of comparatives about Cloud and VPS but most of them seem to focus on the end user aspects.

Let's work out the technical aspects:

1) Aren't all of them running on "VPS" technologies? (Vmware, Xen, QEMU, etc).

2) Are there other virtualization technologies that are used only for cloud servers and not for VPS (any that we won't see being used by vps/non-cloud hostings)?

3) Are they able to work like a grid, spreading processes among the servers on the cloud? If so, wouldn't that make things slower or introduce a new point of failure (let's say you have DB processes spread among several hardwares, if one of them die you may have db problems).

4) Why do hosts say that CLOUD can guarantee resources and VPS can't? Really can't get that.

5) Why do Cloud Hosts say that VPS is oversold and cloud is not ? I believe both of them could be oversold the same way.

6) technically speaking, tell me if cloud could be summarized this way:
Several servers working wth a VPS technology, sharing a central storage and having a centralized system which is able to monitor each virtual server, do upgrades, move them to other nodes on the cloud, etc

Thanks

[Cirtex]

1) Yes
2) Yes
3) Yes and No, completely depends on what they define as "cloud" as many hosts simply use cloud vps or cloud hosting as marketing, but not truly "redundant" nor even have "external backups"
4) Thats not true, where did you see that?
5) Agreed but again this depends on the host, some oversell, some don't in either cases.
6) Many VPS providers cluster systems together with centralized storage and just don't Advertise it as cloud. Some even have redundancy in their storage cluster for VPS based on Xen/OpenVZ and even VIrtuozzo, it just depends on their setup and if they choose to advertise it as cloud or not.

Some are also more scalable than others, but again it is not always the case.

Hope that helps answer your questions.

[brc_csf]

So.. If I have a linux cloud, some of my MySQL forks/threads could be on different servers? If so, which virtualization is that ?

Don't think that would make stuff faster. We've tried grid technologies like Mosix some years ago and not all applications would take benefits from it. Some would run slower.

[WebGuyz]

Some of its marketing, but all cloud vendors have a SAN backend (usally with backup failover SAN)and the ability to move vm's easily across multiple servers for load balancing and of course failover processing. Also being able to dial up more processor nodes, more memory, and disk space from your control panel and have it provision instantly is a big difference.

[Nnyan]

way too much marketing. I know it means different things to different hosts but for me having a SAN and the ability to move a VPS to a different box is NOT a cloud. But hey that's just me.

[WebGuyz]

Originally Posted by Nnyan

way too much marketing. I know it means different things to different hosts but for me having a SAN and the ability to move a VPS to a different box is NOT a cloud. But hey that's just me.

So tell us what you think cloud vs VPS means

[MikeTrike]

Originally Posted by WebGuyz

So tell us what you think cloud vs VPS means

Cloud uses the same technologies as say a Xen VPS for example. It's the resiliency and deployment techniques that differs it from your "run of the mill" VPS hosting services. A true cloud has the design goal of "do not fail" under any circumstances. Basically it comes back to that whole five nines thing. 99.999% realistically achievable uptime if deployed correctly.

[XTremo]

To me.....speaking as a client, not a host.....too many providers over-complicate things in the way they present the cloud concept.

Spell out the benefits to potential clients in a simplistic manner, not just reel off a load of techie features that the average end user just won't understand.

[sam9]

Originally Posted by brc_csf

Hello,

We've seen lot of comparatives about Cloud and VPS but most of them seem to focus on the end user aspects.

Let's work out the technical aspects:

1) Aren't all of them running on "VPS" technologies? (Vmware, Xen, QEMU, etc).

2) Are there other virtualization technologies that are used only for cloud servers and not for VPS (any that we won't see being used by vps/non-cloud hostings)?

3) Are they able to work like a grid, spreading processes among the servers on the cloud? If so, wouldn't that make things slower or introduce a new point of failure (let's say you have DB processes spread among several hardwares, if one of them die you may have db problems).

4) Why do hosts say that CLOUD can guarantee resources and VPS can't? Really can't get that.

5) Why do Cloud Hosts say that VPS is oversold and cloud is not ? I believe both of them could be oversold the same way.

6) technically speaking, tell me if cloud could be summarized this way:
Several servers working wth a VPS technology, sharing a central storage and having a centralized system which is able to monitor each virtual server, do upgrades, move them to other nodes on the cloud, etc

Thanks

I think most of your Qs got responded to.

"Several servers working wth a VPS technology, sharing a central storage and having a centralized system which is able to monitor each virtual server, do upgrades, move them to other nodes on the cloud, etc"

I think linking an API helps automatic scaling. Also most cloud systems use billing systems which enable low compute unit metering.

Cheers!