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[Triple Zero]

Cloud servers, boys... cloud servers

Why does this sound like "frying pan, meet fire"?

Actually, I've been working with the technology for awhile and its tends to be more stable than the older hypervisor/virtual server design.

But how does it compare to dedicated, which is what we're looking at? I can easily imagine it'd be better than an old VPS.

Well cloud is probably the most robust to a powerful DDoS of course, but then, while it would be nice, it's not my highest priority to keep PD standing in the face of a DDoS

One of the really cool things about it is that you can build a server image, and set it up so if that server gets hammered, it will create a copy of the image, bring it up, drop a load balancing server in front of it and double your capacity until the server traffic returns to normal. At that point, it shuts down the extra servers and returns normal mode. Those hosts are paid based on usage only... and they have some nice configurations so that you don't start duplicating servers to deal with a DDOS etc.

Will the host do this setting up this way for you, or do you have to install all sorts of monitoring and server scripts to get it like this?

I admit it might be a bit of an overkill for PD.com, but the pricing is pretty competitive.

In this case, what it boils down to is, got any price quotes for non-US based clouds?

A disadvantage of going cloud is that it doesn't provide full root access, I want a machine I can freely install whatever I want on it (provided it's legal).

"Cloud Sites" don't give you root access. Cloud servers are basically disk/memory/processor and you can build your own server from the OS up... full CLI etc.

So how is it different from a VPS then, apart from that it can copy itself to more machines in order to catch more load?

Is the single machine you're hosting on shared with others, or is it basically renting a dedicated machine that can programmatically rent extra machines based on needs and loads?

If it's shared, you're still going to need a HYPERVISOR (sorry I'm going to insist that you capitalize this word to emphasize its awesome).

you need to be a resident of the Bahamas if you'd want to register http://himeo.bs

As a complete aside to the point of the thread, if we DO want to register himeo.bs I can possibly find someone who would do that for us.

Heh. I already figured that if anybody could, it'd probably be you

[Triple Zero]

Relevant to this thread: http://gun.io/blog/secure-your-domain-where-is-safe-to-register-a-domain-name/

Haven't had time yet to read it myself though.

[Doktor Howl]

Relevant to this thread: http://gun.io/blog/secure-your-domain-where-is-safe-to-register-a-domain-name/

Haven't had time yet to read it myself though.

It's sad that this is even a topic.

LAND OF THE FREE!  HOME OF THE BRAVE!

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

A VM architecture is basically a big server with a bunch of mini servers sharing the processor/memory etc. A Cloud architecture is a bunch of computers, set up as a parallel processing network. For non-techies that basically means that a VM is one server acting like many servers and a Cloud is many servers acting like one. In marketing-speak it provides resources as an on-demand service, rather than a physical product (VM or Dedicated Host).

So you pay for an image that fits your average needs. If you need more than the average, you can suck up additional processing resources from the cloud. If you need even more, you spawn a second image. You're basically paying for 'access' to the cloud, once you have that access you can use as much or as little as you need... and pay for what you use. The other advantage is redundancy; a physical server can crash and the other nodes continue to host/process your images.

As for configuration, it depends on the provider. I use Rackspace (US and UK alas) and they provide a nice GUI that helps build the images/load balancers and set the thresholds for when they should kick in and drop off.

A lot of big corporations are implementing this internally (like that unnaed company I used to work for). Instead of 200 servers, they have a 200 node cloud. No more downtime, no more unused resources wasting away, etc etc.

Its really cool.

[bds]

I think a Rackspace (whether Cloud or just a normal box) would be a little too much for us. I checked out Rackspace's prices for their dedis and holy SHIT they're a lot (compared to my OVH dedi). I mean I get that you pay for Rackspace's sweet lines and network and stuff, but still, I'm not sure that we've got the cash to drop.

EDIT: Sorry. didn't quite read your post -- you weren't really suggesting Rackspace.

A cloud would be really cool, but I still think we'd be paying too much, really. Especially because we're not likely to really hit those bumps in usage. IMO all we want is a dedi that's powerful enough to get search and some other functionality back up, and with enough backbone to be fast globally.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I think a Rackspace (whether Cloud or just a normal box) would be a little too much for us. I checked out Rackspace's prices for their dedis and holy SHIT they're a lot (compared to my OVH dedi). I mean I get that you pay for Rackspace's sweet lines and network and stuff, but still, I'm not sure that we've got the cash to drop.

EDIT: Sorry. didn't quite read your post -- you weren't really suggesting Rackspace.

A cloud would be really cool, but I still think we'd be paying too much, really. Especially because we're not likely to really hit those bumps in usage. IMO all we want is a dedi that's powerful enough to get search and some other functionality back up, and with enough backbone to be fast globally.

It depends on what resources we would need for the base image. Generally, over the past six months or so, cloud solutions are generally competitive in cost. If you have spikes, its generally cheaper. Either way, you get the redundancy due to having no specific physical hardware (ie memory, disk, CPU can blow up without affecting the site).

A dedicated server might work best for us, but without hard numbers on bandwidth, CPU and memory I can't really say.

[Triple Zero]

A dedicated server might work best for us, but without hard numbers on bandwidth, CPU and memory I can't really say.

The numbers of the Hetzner.de dedicated server are a bit further back ITT.

Hard numbers about usage, I don't know, it's just Faust that has access to them.

But do you have any price quotes for non-US based cloud hosting providers, if they're really competitive we ought to check it out.