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Servers Deleted

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Re: Servers Deleted

#11

Post by mstevens »

bcx wrote: post #7
sramov wrote: post #2

I can only imagine the horror of running a hosting company. If you want to do it properly, there is no end to complexity. Not to mention the money part. I've always dreamed about running my own niche hosting business, running on dead-stripped Slackware custom boxes for actual serving/hosting and OpenBSD for routers/firewalls/spamd daemons (actually I would not deal with email at all as it is a separate business in it…

Running a hosting company was actually a pretty profitable business back in the 90s. (It probably still can be if you have a really solid niche). I should write some blog posts on our experience (there were many positives).

I've been vaguely speculating to myself lately that two good niches might be:

* email * good customer service for a price

Re: Servers Deleted

#12

Post by cmelbye »

ErrantX wrote: post #10

I keep meaning to blog about something like this. After my old web host made me really mad the other month I decided to grab a load of virtual servers and be my own web host (hosting client sites, projects etc.) So now I have DNS, database/web servers etc. all under my control on shares that I can chop/change at will. It's turned out to be phenomenally cheaper! Than having 1 dedicated server and a shard hosting packa…

I'd be very interested in seeing a blog post detailing that. That would be very useful for hosting client projects. I'm working on a project that aims to be similar to Heroku but runnable on a handful of virtual servers from any VPS service.

Re: Servers Deleted

#13

Post by jackowayed »

cmelbye wrote: post #12
ErrantX wrote: post #10

I keep meaning to blog about something like this. After my old web host made me really mad the other month I decided to grab a load of virtual servers and be my own web host (hosting client sites, projects etc.) So now I have DNS, database/web servers etc. all under my control on shares that I can chop/change at will. It's turned out to be phenomenally cheaper! Than having 1 dedicated server and a shard hosting packa…

I'd be very interested in seeing a blog post detailing that. That would be very useful for hosting client projects. I'm working on a project that aims to be similar to Heroku but runnable on a handful of virtual servers from any VPS service.

Phusion Passenger 3 is going to have a feature similar to that: http://blog.phusion.nl/2010/07/01/the-road-to-passenger-3-te...

>Imagine having a directory full of Ruby web apps, e.g. ~/Sites. To deploy an app, just drop your application’s directory into ~/Sites. To undeploy it, remove the application’s directory. The application directory’s name is used as the domain name. No manually signaling the web server for a restart.

Re: Servers Deleted

#14

Post by cmelbye »

jackowayed wrote: post #13
cmelbye wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very interested in seeing a blog post detailing that. That would be very useful for hosting client projects. I'm working on a project that aims to be similar to Heroku but runnable on a handful of virtual servers from any VPS service.

Phusion Passenger 3 is going to have a feature similar to that: http://blog.phusion.nl/2010/07/01/the-road-to-passenger-3-te... > Imagine having a directory full of Ruby web apps, e.g. ~/Sites. To deploy an app, just drop your application’s directory into ~/Sites. To undeploy it, remove the application’s directory. The application directory’s name is used as the domain name. No manually signaling the web server for a…

While that sounds very useful, what I'm working on is more along the lines of Heroku's distributed dyno model. In their terminology, a dyno is a Thin web application server process. When an app needs to be started up, it will be possible to determine how many dynos are needed, and they will be automatically started up across the grid of virtual servers and balanced using a custom load balancer.

Re: Servers Deleted

#15

Post by cullenking »

The expense of going with a cloud solution is huge if you have a complicated deployment stack and large hardware requirements. my startup will easily grow into the single 8gig/1tb quad core box we are colocating, and far exceed it when we start seeing some real traffic. From what I expect to need in hardware, I would be sitting at over $3k a month in expense moving to Rackspace Cloud. Ignoring upfront cost of the servers, around $10k, colocating will only run me about $300 a month. I understand you don't have to worry about hardware issues, but I could literally hire a sysadmin to worry about hardware issues for that kind of money. It just doesn't make sense outside of well funded startups or established businesses.

Re: Servers Deleted

#16

Post by ErrantX »

cmelbye wrote: post #12
ErrantX wrote: post #10

I keep meaning to blog about something like this. After my old web host made me really mad the other month I decided to grab a load of virtual servers and be my own web host (hosting client sites, projects etc.) So now I have DNS, database/web servers etc. all under my control on shares that I can chop/change at will. It's turned out to be phenomenally cheaper! Than having 1 dedicated server and a shard hosting packa…

I'd be very interested in seeing a blog post detailing that. That would be very useful for hosting client projects. I'm working on a project that aims to be similar to Heroku but runnable on a handful of virtual servers from any VPS service.

Done: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1498399

If there is anything else you want to know about it, well.. you know the drill :)

Re: Servers Deleted

#17

Post by bcx »

cullenking wrote: post #15

The expense of going with a cloud solution is huge if you have a complicated deployment stack and large hardware requirements. my startup will easily grow into the single 8gig/1tb quad core box we are colocating, and far exceed it when we start seeing some real traffic. From what I expect to need in hardware, I would be sitting at over $3k a month in expense moving to Rackspace Cloud. Ignoring upfront cost of the ser…

Could you elaborate more about why you needed to spend $10K up front? And how you take advantage of your one giant server?

Are you using Xen to virtualize a bunch of servers on it?

I've always figured colocation + System Admin ends up costing more than a cloud solution. Especially when you need to have enough redundancy so that you don't fall over if a single server fails. In the cloud if a single server fails, it's their problem. In physical space it's your problem or your system admin's problem. How much time can you spare?

Re: Servers Deleted

#18

Post by mmt »

cullenking wrote: post #15

The expense of going with a cloud solution is huge if you have a complicated deployment stack and large hardware requirements. my startup will easily grow into the single 8gig/1tb quad core box we are colocating, and far exceed it when we start seeing some real traffic. From what I expect to need in hardware, I would be sitting at over $3k a month in expense moving to Rackspace Cloud. Ignoring upfront cost of the ser…

Ignoring upfront cost of the servers

Assuming perfectly spherical cows..

Actually, I agree with you, being the sysadmin you mention. Unfortunately, the up-front cost seems to be a barrier to many a startup founder. To me, this suggests a lack of good leasing options, though it could be that's because it's not worth making a business out of it.

I understand you don't have to worry about hardware issues

I've always found this assertion to be misleading at best. One still suffers the consequences of hardware failure (both inherent and human error), yet one has very little, if any, ability to prevent them. You're at the mercy of the providers.

It just doesn't make sense outside of well funded startups or established businesses.

I'm not sure it makes sense inside them, either. I've found that the break-even point for buying versus cloud is consistently around 10 months. The rule of thumb for when the transition from cloud to colo makes sense for a startup that doesn't yet have any of their own hardware is about $10k/mo, assuming they're growing at a rapid clip.

The only situation where it would make sense is compute-heavy (but light on memory and I/O) loads that peak much higher than the average. I have yet to encounter such a one, since it's tough to meet the parenthetical requirement, thereby bypassing the Deutsch distributed computing fallacies.

Re: Servers Deleted

#19

Post by cullenking »

mmt wrote: post #18
cullenking wrote: post #15

The expense of going with a cloud solution is huge if you have a complicated deployment stack and large hardware requirements. my startup will easily grow into the single 8gig/1tb quad core box we are colocating, and far exceed it when we start seeing some real traffic. From what I expect to need in hardware, I would be sitting at over $3k a month in expense moving to Rackspace Cloud. Ignoring upfront cost of the ser…

Ignoring upfront cost of the servers Assuming perfectly spherical cows.. Actually, I agree with you, being the sysadmin you mention. Unfortunately, the up-front cost seems to be a barrier to many a startup founder. To me, this suggests a lack of good leasing options, though it could be that's because it's not worth making a business out of it. I understand you don't have to worry about hardware issues I've always fou…

I agree with your points. I've never been a fan of the cloud concept, and am planning on sticking to colocated hardware for what we do.

Re: Servers Deleted

#20

Post by cullenking »

bcx wrote: post #17
cullenking wrote: post #15

The expense of going with a cloud solution is huge if you have a complicated deployment stack and large hardware requirements. my startup will easily grow into the single 8gig/1tb quad core box we are colocating, and far exceed it when we start seeing some real traffic. From what I expect to need in hardware, I would be sitting at over $3k a month in expense moving to Rackspace Cloud. Ignoring upfront cost of the ser…

Could you elaborate more about why you needed to spend $10K up front? And how you take advantage of your one giant server? Are you using Xen to virtualize a bunch of servers on it? I've always figured colocation + System Admin ends up costing more than a cloud solution. Especially when you need to have enough redundancy so that you don't fall over if a single server fails. In the cloud if a single server fails, it's…

My wording wasn't too clear, sorry. I didn't mean I have spent that money, just that my planned hardware buildout will cost somewhere around $10k to start. Our single server was about $2k to put together 1.5 years ago. We use it for everything - mysql, redis, pool of unicorns, nginx proxying to unicorn pool and a handful of background workers (resque). I have already dealt with drive failures, but I loaded up the 8 hotswappable bays with drives, so it wasn't too scary. However, I am scared for other hardware failure, which is why I want some more machines.

I am not using Xen. I can see the benefit for some stuff, but I don't believe it's beneficial for my use case. However, I will make that decision in a more informed manner when I am actually in a position to expand our hardware (money and need).

I don't think the colocation costs more. Seriously, I have had great use out of my current server. I figure with a colocated set of 4 servers, $10k initial expenditure + $300 a month for 2 years is $17200, or I can go with rackspace and pay $3000 a month for 2 years, and be $72,000 in the hole. Oh, and after that two years, I don't even have spare hardware to play with!

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