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Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

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Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#61

Post by Someone1234 »

johnqpub wrote: post #38
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).…

>I'd welcome an account suspend instead of bill shock. The big question here is what to do with stateful data. Would you accept an immediate deletion of all of your S3 data? RDS instances and snapshots?

I said suspend, not removal.

They could easily cut off public access to those resources while charging you storage fees. Obviously with any kind of ceiling there are certain details that need to be ironed out (i.e. most people wouldn't want configuration information or data to be lost, but they likely would want VPS to be taken offline and other services to be suspended).

Ultimately for most startups, small businesses, and individual developers being able to say "My AWS bill cannot exceed $1000, period" is a powerful tool. Right now if a billing alert fires at 1am, you may not see it until 9am and by then you're already in huge trouble.

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#62

Post by eb0la »

anilshanbhag wrote: post #18

Here is a comparison of $20 instances across DO, Linode and LightSail All have 3TB transfer Linode(Best): 4GB RAM, 2 Core, 48 GB SSD DO: 2GB RAM, 2 Core, 40 GB SSD LightSail(Worst): 2GB RAM, 1 Core, 40 GB SSD I use this exact instance on Linode for my site https://dictanote.co ; that one extra core makes a lot of difference when you want to take a backup of db or something intensive like that.

That makes sense to me.

Lightsail should be a entry-level product to upsell more AWS stuff.

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#64

Post by acejam »

jakozaur wrote: post #2

Just announced on AWS Reinvent Keynote. It's nicely packaged their existing products (EC2, VPC, ...). So you can get Digital Ocean like experience on AWS. You can still tune the underlying services.

It's already too expensive compared to DigitalOcean and Linode. An $80/month instance only gives you 2 CPU cores. For the same money you can get 4 @ DigitalOcean and 6 @ Linode.

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#65

Post by xyzzy123 »

anilshanbhag wrote: post #49
xyzzy123 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but one of those 3 (linode) has been pretty brutally hacked (a number of times, at the control plane level) while DO & AWS have a different security story.

True, but that is a little exaggerated. Yes, they were hacked in the past (over a year ago); one of their small data centers went down. Their US East center has been solid for the past 8 months that I have been using, no hiccups.

As opposed to AWS and DO which have never had comparable security issues. In this case, "never" is what I'd expect versus "yeah it's been a few months since last serious incident".

I wouldn't host an ethereum or bitcoin node on Linode. If I were a PCI auditor I would think pretty hard about compliance on the platform.

That said, blog you don't care too much about -- sure!

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#66

Post by old-gregg »

anilshanbhag wrote: post #18

Here is a comparison of $20 instances across DO, Linode and LightSail All have 3TB transfer Linode(Best): 4GB RAM, 2 Core, 48 GB SSD DO: 2GB RAM, 2 Core, 40 GB SSD LightSail(Worst): 2GB RAM, 1 Core, 40 GB SSD I use this exact instance on Linode for my site https://dictanote.co ; that one extra core makes a lot of difference when you want to take a backup of db or something intensive like that.

Such comparisons are nearly meaningless.

  - What kind of SSD?
  - What kind of "core"?
  - How much are you over-provisioned on the physical hardware?
People are treating cloud resources like they're commodity, but they are not (cloud service providers make it very hard to compare apples to apples). You can have first-class PCIe SSDs on RAID 10 underneath that virtualized storage, or you can have consumer-grade non-RAIDed SATA, but it's all "40GB SSD" to you, the customer.

vCPUs are even worse. Buy a 20-core Xeon box, split it across 60 tenants, each with 2 vCPUs each, or via 40 tenants with 1 vCPU?

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#68

Post by ffk »

akerl_ wrote: post #33
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).…

I don't think that actually holds up. There are certainly some people that want "ironclad guarantees", but the reality of cost here is pretty close: you pay $5/mo max for the server. The things that can cost more are either overages on bandwidth/dns (and here, 1TB of bandwidth on the low end is included, eliminating a lot of the flux from EC2), or things you choose to initiate, like snapshots. It feels like the large…

I personally don't use AWS for personal projects because of the lack of a cap. I would rather see my system suspended rather than continue to pay beyond my budget.

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#69

Post by jknoepfler »

AtheistOfFail wrote: post #23
elevensies wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the landing page they say there will be overages for excess data transfer. In terms of how it is different, I think a lot of people here have probably been using AWS for 5+ years and the jargon etc. is familiar, and we can calculate the price and understand what it is, but for people who are just getting started this will be a product that is directly comparable to i.e. Digital Ocean and can serve as a gateway dru…

That's how they get people on Glacier storage. The storage is cheap as balls but the transfer can fuck you.

The whole point is to service customers with massive storage needs who seldom need to retrieve the data. For example, many companies are compelled by regulation to archive records for decades, but only need to access data in response to lawsuits/etc.

no one with frequent high volume retrieval needs would be advised to use glacier.

Re: Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS

#70

Post by ausjke »

anilshanbhag wrote: post #18

Here is a comparison of $20 instances across DO, Linode and LightSail All have 3TB transfer Linode(Best): 4GB RAM, 2 Core, 48 GB SSD DO: 2GB RAM, 2 Core, 40 GB SSD LightSail(Worst): 2GB RAM, 1 Core, 40 GB SSD I use this exact instance on Linode for my site https://dictanote.co ; that one extra core makes a lot of difference when you want to take a backup of db or something intensive like that.

Exactly, Linode still has _much_ better deal. Been using Linode for 10+ years, no reason to jump based on what Lightsail has.
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