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Ask HN: cloud computing options?

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Re: Ask HN: cloud computing options?

#11

Post by st3fan »

tzury wrote: post #5

AWS is not expensive, not at all. However, you can combine GAE and AWS where serving all HTTP from GAE and doing the "rest" on Amazon - that will make it some cheaper

Depends what AWS service you talk about. Having one slow EC2 instance online 24/7 for a month will cost you roughly 60 dollars. I don't think that is very expensive but considering the available options I also don't think it is cheap. At Mosso you get a similar host for 1/6th of the price these days for example. Charged by the hour.

Anyway, it depends on the specific AWS service.

Re: Ask HN: cloud computing options?

#12

Post by jensv »

If you're just looking for storage and have access to extra machines then Tahoe allows you to store your files reliably for little to no cost.

You can learn more here: http://allmydata.org/~warner/pycon-tahoe.html You can download it here: http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe

EDIT: How do I create proper hyperlinks?

Re: Ask HN: cloud computing options?

#13

Post by Tichy »

rarestnews wrote: post #2

Are you sure you REQUIRE a cloud? Phrase "Amazon is too expensive" suggests that it might be not the solution you're looking for. Maybe you could be a little more clear on what you need, because it's hard to imagine what are your requirements that fall in-between of "Google App engine is too limited" and "Amazon is too expensive"? Also the phrase "I'm not much of an admin" makes it all sound really confusing... Rarel…

I was assuming that operating with virtual images would already count as "moving into the cloud". At the moment, I am experimenting with several small projects and technologies. For example, I consider prototyping a CouchDB project, but I don't think I can install CouchDB on my existing root server in addition to the services it is already running (it is very old).

I don't have a scaling problem atm, but if publishing things to the cloud is easier than going the traditional "set up a server" route, I thought it might be worthwhile to use "clouds" from the beginning (also to feel safe about potential traffic spikes). For example, using Heroku recently was pure bliss, because I really don't want to bother with configuring web servers, databases, firewalls, backups and so on for each of my projects. I would probably manage somehow, but admin stuff is not my main skill. Unfortunately Heroku does not do everything I need in other projects (ie more frequent cron jobs, other tech than Rails).

I suppose having a virtual image for every project would be perfect.

Edit: Re "Amazon is expensive": my projects don't earn money yet, so I am trying to save. My existing root server costs 20€/month, I think Amazon would cost quite a bit more, so it feels expensive. But of course my root server is old and can not handle much more modern stuff atm.

Re: Ask HN: cloud computing options?

#14

Post by davidw »

Tichy wrote: post #13
rarestnews wrote: post #2

Are you sure you REQUIRE a cloud? Phrase "Amazon is too expensive" suggests that it might be not the solution you're looking for. Maybe you could be a little more clear on what you need, because it's hard to imagine what are your requirements that fall in-between of "Google App engine is too limited" and "Amazon is too expensive"? Also the phrase "I'm not much of an admin" makes it all sound really confusing... Rarel…

I was assuming that operating with virtual images would already count as "moving into the cloud". At the moment, I am experimenting with several small projects and technologies. For example, I consider prototyping a CouchDB project, but I don't think I can install CouchDB on my existing root server in addition to the services it is already running (it is very old). I don't have a scaling problem atm, but if publishin…

Ah, ok, then what you want is linode (or slicehost, although it's more expensive). You get images that you can expand or contract (in terms of memory, disk, cpu) as you need. That won't take you into the territory of horizontal scaling, but it should be good enough to get started without spending too much.

Re: Ask HN: cloud computing options?

#15

Post by bayareaguy »

If all you want is VPS that is cheaper than AWS then Slicehost may be the thing for you - http://www.slicehost.com

EDIT: I forgot about Linode since I haven't used them myself. Here's a comparison between the two from last November: http://journal.dedasys.com/2008/11/24/slicehost-vs-linode

Re: Ask HN: cloud computing options?

#16

Post by tzury »

listic wrote: post #7
tzury wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get VPS for $6/m? Those are usually shared once, aren't they?

http://www.prgmr.com/xen/ , it's run by http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lsc or, you can pick something on http://www.lowendbox.com/ , but be careful - their primary concern is price i.e. they list hosting services that are cheap, but not all of them are reliable.

thanks allot, although, too cheap is a bit risky.

Re: Ask HN: cloud computing options?

#17

Post by delano »

Paying for machines by the hour opens new opportunities (ad-hoc staging environments, for example). We can do things now that we could never do before.

You may not be ready to move production to the cloud but there is an opportunity for you to improve your development process.

Re: Ask HN: cloud computing options?

#18

Post by Tichy »

davidw wrote: post #14
Tichy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was assuming that operating with virtual images would already count as "moving into the cloud". At the moment, I am experimenting with several small projects and technologies. For example, I consider prototyping a CouchDB project, but I don't think I can install CouchDB on my existing root server in addition to the services it is already running (it is very old). I don't have a scaling problem atm, but if publishin…

Ah, ok, then what you want is linode (or slicehost, although it's more expensive). You get images that you can expand or contract (in terms of memory, disk, cpu) as you need. That won't take you into the territory of horizontal scaling, but it should be good enough to get started without spending too much.

That sounds perfect, thanks!

Re: Ask HN: cloud computing options?

#19

Post by listic »

rarestnews wrote: post #6
tzury wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get VPS for $6/m? Those are usually shared once, aren't they?

Firstvds.ru (they have US branch at minivds.com). VPSes are never "shared", but they are on "shared" server. I.e. you have root access to your own VPS as root, nobody has access to it (1), but there are many VPSes on one physical server. (1) ...except for the provider, but even Amazon has access to your files on EC2... (Tin-foil hat time.)

I wonder what kind of virtualization technology are they using? They don't advertise it anywhere on the site. I would speculate that they use different virtualization technology for Linux and FreeBSD, because on 'BSD installed software doesn't count towards disk quota: http://minivds.com/technology/software/index.html

  Pre-installed FreeBSD OS will not occupy your VDS disk space. Our experts will update all the pre-installed software regulary.

  Pre-installed Linux OS takes up disk space allocated to your VDS. And we will not update the software - you will have to do it yourself.

Re: Ask HN: cloud computing options?

#20

Post by listic »

olegp wrote: post #8
rarestnews wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstvds.ru (they have US branch at minivds.com). VPSes are never "shared", but they are on "shared" server. I.e. you have root access to your own VPS as root, nobody has access to it (1), but there are many VPSes on one physical server. (1) ...except for the provider, but even Amazon has access to your files on EC2... (Tin-foil hat time.)

Looking at the Russian version of the site, you can get the same type of VPS for $4.44 a month instead of $6, although you get 25GB of traffic instead of 30. Cloudkick should support this provider.

The more the merier, but I would vote for http://www.prgmr.com/xen/ The guy has been doing this thing since 2005, writes here and on his blog about how he is going about setting up his servers (http://wiki.xen.prgmr.com/xenophilia/archives.html) and writes a book about Xen (http://nostarch.com/xen.htm). The FirstVDS/MiniVDS on the other hand, go very dry official on their site, I'm not sure which virtualization technology they use and whether or not they are going out of business real soon (miniVDS forums are a ghost town).
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