Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#101

Post by xyzzy123 » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 5:32 PM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #88

Someone1234 wrote: post #3

Just to be clear: This service is offered by Amazon/AWS themselves, it isn't a third party. That's a question I had when I first clicked, which is why I am answering it here. One big "gotcha" for AWS newbies which I cannot tell if this addresses: Does this set or allow the user to set a cost ceiling? AWS have offered billing alerts since forever. They'll also occasionally refund unexpected expenses (one time thing).…

It would be nice if they offered an option of adaptive bandwidth throttling, so that once you're past 75% of your allotment it starts slowing you down such that you never reach your entire quota, and never get charged for overages. The Zeno's paradox in action - once you reach half your limit, the speed is cut in half. "Zeno" throttling if you will. :)

Or imagine if they just bundled a flat rate in the service? You're effectively specifying a burst policy.

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#102

Post by ralmidani » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

A quick look at the pricing shows these are plagued by the same problems as DO's offerings: only RAM scales linearly with price, while CPU, storage, and data transfer do not.

Linode and OVH, while not as prestigious as AWS and DO, offer much more fair pricing when you need more resources.

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#103

Post by dschulz » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

I don't see anything disruptive here. I already have roughly the same cost/benefit with Linode.

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#104

Post by r1ch » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 5:34 PM UTC

N0RMAN wrote: post #67

tl;dr Only available in us-east-1 (N. Virginia)

Wish this was more obvious. Signed up only to find out during creation that this was the case. Was hoping to see how the Seoul location routing was as I'm looking for a cheap VPS with low Asia-EU latency (ie not across the US).

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#105

Post by stupidcar » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 5:34 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #3

Just to be clear: This service is offered by Amazon/AWS themselves, it isn't a third party. That's a question I had when I first clicked, which is why I am answering it here. One big "gotcha" for AWS newbies which I cannot tell if this addresses: Does this set or allow the user to set a cost ceiling? AWS have offered billing alerts since forever. They'll also occasionally refund unexpected expenses (one time thing).…

What are these "various" ways you're talking about?

The only overage charge I see is for data transfer. This isn't ideal, I'll grant you, but it's not the same as "various".

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#106

Post by Domenic_S » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 5:34 PM UTC

CaveTech wrote: post #97

geerlingguy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $0.005/hour That's $3.60/month... seems similar to mail-in rebates—many people forget, and accidentally give Amazon some (mostly) free money. Also, from later in this thread: > FWIW, bandwidth overages at Linode and DO are $0.02 per GB, LightSail is $0.09. It's these seemingly-tiny (but not-so-tiny when I'm running 60-70 VPSes) costs that kill when you get your first bill after a large traffic event.

It's not exactly free money because Amazon will surely reserve that IP for your use at any time. By sitting on Static IPs you are using AWS resources. Yes, operationally it costs them nothing, but there is an opportunity cost.

> but there is an opportunity cost

Is there?

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#107

Post by STRML » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 5:34 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #48

Worth noting: $0.09 per GB for bandwidth overages. So, your $5 server with 1TB out becomes a $95 if you have 2TB out.

Yet, this is the same cost on EC2 for the first 10TB, except you don't get 1TB for free with EC2.

So essentially you're getting $90 worth of egress traffic for $5. It's even more obvious now that EC2 egress pricing is ridiculous.

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#108

Post by St-Clock » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

They advertise a 99.95% EC2 SLA. Does that mean that an instance in a single AZ can go down anytime for any length of time?

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#109

Post by fooey » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

desireco42 wrote: post #32

I meant to say that it was about time someone comes up with something like this, but seems that in the details AWS complexity can still bite you. Is there a service, that you know of, that would simplify AWS so that we can just use it with predictable expenses and ability to grow? Maybe I am asking for too much.

Heroku? They've basically just a usability shell on top of AWS.

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#110

Post by RUG3Y » Wed, Nov 30, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

vinay427 wrote: post #80

ajkjk wrote: post #25

I'm amused by the model they have in their banner: a bearded, tattooed man wearing what appears to be a .. cape? We've come a long way since the stock photos of 'smiling super-normal people wearing ties, huddled around a computer'.

Not to mention the man is wearing on-ear headphones and is using a smartphone in front of his laptop, which seems more common today than ever.

Do on-ear headphones carry a negative connotation? I wear them because earbuds make my ears hurt after a while.