I see the main advantage of ec2 is that you only pay for what you use. For example, if your site is normally not busy but gets seasonal spikes and you have something set up where it load balances and scales out automatically. Or you need to move it from a normal instance to a large or high cpu instance during peak periods.
Otherwise, if you have more or less the same traffic all year, a regular isp will probably be a better deal. For example, a normal ec2 instance is around $70 a month if you leave it running the whole month. You can find many hosting providers for less than that per month. (Note that you pay for your instance whenever it's booted and running, even when it's not doing anything.) I was at the Google I/O conference and their app server does sound very appealing, but as others have pointed out, you have to program to their proprietary api, but which should be expected considering what they're doing for you. It could be worth it if you have traffic spikes and don't want to manage the load balancing stuff your self. According to Google it automatically scales out like crazy and it's completely transparent to your application. Morten Matras wrote: > Thanks for the precise answer and not least the warnings. > > Setting up the virtual machines seems to be a rather large project. I'm > currently trying out the cloudfoundry project that makes it very easy to > setup a basic apache-tomcat-mysql system with 1-* machines. I'm not sure > whether this works well with my apache-tomcat-hibernate-mysql setup. It > hides away some of the difficulties of setting up a system, but hiding > sometimes leads to things not really that good. Let's see. > > I'll keep you posted and hope that other people out there will post back > their experiences. > > > Regards > > Morten > > 2009/9/17 Yakov Zhdanov <yakov.zhda...@gmail.com > <mailto:yakov.zhda...@gmail.com>> > > Hello, > > I have rather big experience with AWS and can tell a few words about. > This is a convenient service if you plan to scale your app quickly, > but there are some problems that threaten the use of the service in > production systems. They are as follows. > > 1. Instances sometimes may be inaccessible due to network > problems at the Amazon. > 2. Instance performance suddenly may slow down. This is quite > unpredictable and, probably, happens due to virtual nature of > instances. > 3. The backup of files and databases causes some problems. > Instance may "die" with data loss and there is no opportunity > to recover. We had to backup the desired data of the instance > and upload the archive to a remote storage server to recover > the system state if needed. Sometimes Amazon sends > notification to you indicating that your instance with id=ID > experiences a problem and would be replaced soon. The > notification also asks you to backup data. More often the > Amazon does not send any notification. > 4. Amazon AWS agreement and EC2 SLA don't guarantee the efficient > and active support to the customer. > 5. It takes significant time to prepare instance image, same or > even more as if you will tune the dedicated environment. > 6. The price of EC2 hosting is almost the same as if you use the > dedicated hosting. > > Again, you will set up your cloud (cluster) manually, setting all > the specifics regarding load balancing, DBs and other issues. > Probably, It will be better for you to rewrite the application using > special cloud frameworks for a particular platform or take a look to > Terracotta or other architetectural changes without changing the > platform, but it is only you who can decide on what really suits > your needs. > > Thank you. > > -Yakov > > > 2009/9/8 Aaron Porter <aa...@mongus.com <mailto:aa...@mongus.com>> > > Hi Morten, > It all depends on what your goal is. I have a little experience > with EC2 and Google App Engine so I'll try to give some insight > concerning those. > > EC2 is very powerful but besides hardware isn't much different > than a dedicated server. You will still need to do admin type > maintenance. > You may experience hardware issues but you don't have to fix. > You just have to bring up a new instance. > Amazon can handle whatever load you're going to throw at it. > There are companies that will handle load balancing and > maintaining the right number of instances but the ones I've seen > are fairly expensive compared to raw EC2. If you don't go with > those companies you'll need to either maintain nodes manually or > come up with some automated system. There may be open source > systems out there for managing your instances, I don't know. > I don't know what you're paying now so it's hard to compare. The > cheapest you'll pay with EC2 is probably around $50/month for > reserved instances. > I can't say much about the speed around the globe but you can > use Amazon's CDN, CloudFront, for fast access. > You can run MySQL on EC2. > > > Google App engine is the opposite end of the spectrum. You write > your web app according to Google's standards and publish it, > Google takes care of the rest. > You shouldn't even notice hardware failures as long as it isn't > the whole datacenter. > Google handles the scaling for you. The rules they impose are > designed to make your web app scalable in their system. They > automatically bring up the number of nodes needed for your load. > Prices for me so far have been unbeatable - free! They estimate > that you can handle about 5 million page views/month without > having to pay anything. > It should be fast around the globe but I haven't seen any > benchmarks. > As I said above, Google handles the scaling for you so you don't > have to worry about it. > The biggest struggle for me is working with BigTable instead of > a relational database. > Stripes from the repository does work on Google App Engine. > Stripersist works with BigTable but it's kind of awkward because > of the limitations on transactions. > > You won't be able to use SSL with Google App Engine unless > you're using the app spot domain name > (https://myappid.appspot.com). You can use SSL with EC2 with > your own domain name. > > I'd recommend giving both a try and see which one you like. > Right now, I think Google App Engine is in a category by itself > but there are lots of competitors for EC2 because it's basically > virtual private servers with some nice features on top. > > You can also go with a hybrid approach, keeping your servers as > is but putting all your static content on Amazon's S3 and > possibly making it available via CloudFront. S3 has the ability > to create temporary URLs to your content so when you sell music > you can send a link that expires in an hour for example. > > Aaron > > Morten Matras wrote: >> Our Stripes - Hibernate - MySQL application: >> http://www.redantenna.com is running on a "normal" >> windows/tomcat based dedicated server. It is causing some >> problems and we're ready to move to a cloud based environment >> to achieve: >> >> - No more hardware issues >> - Scaleability >> - Low prices (At least compared to the prices we get now) >> - Fast download from around the globe >> - Tools for handling our deployment process automatic. >> >> I've looked into amazon EC2 and have seen others like >> gigaspaces and google app engine offer similar services. >> >> Now please advice on how to move on: >> >> - How do we move from MySQL to a cloud based environment? >> - How do we utilize the cloud stuff in a nice way instead of >> just using the architecture we are used to? >> - What tools should we use? >> - What service should we choose? (Any experience?) >> >> >> Thanks >> >> -- >> Morten Matras >> Consultant >> Blob Communication ApS >> Svendsagervej 42 >> DK-5240 Odense NØ >> P: (+45) 76 6-5-4-3-2-1 >> W: http://www.blobcom.com >> E: morten.mat...@gmail.com <mailto:morten.mat...@gmail.com> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal >> Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, >> integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, >> core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal >> Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Stripes-users mailing list >> Stripes-users@lists.sourceforge.net >> <mailto:Stripes-users@lists.sourceforge.net> >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/stripes-users >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports > 2008 30-Day > trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - > and focus on > what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with > Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july > _______________________________________________ > Stripes-users mailing list > Stripes-users@lists.sourceforge.net > <mailto:Stripes-users@lists.sourceforge.net> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/stripes-users > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Come build with us! The BlackBerry® Developer Conference in SF, CA > is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your > developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and > stay > ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9-12, 2009. Register > now! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconf > _______________________________________________ > Stripes-users mailing list > Stripes-users@lists.sourceforge.net > <mailto:Stripes-users@lists.sourceforge.net> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/stripes-users > > > > > -- > Morten Matras > Consultant > Blob Communication ApS > Svendsagervej 42 > DK-5240 Odense NØ > P: (+45) 76 6-5-4-3-2-1 > W: www.blobcom.com <http://www.blobcom.com> > E: morten.mat...@gmail.com <mailto:morten.mat...@gmail.com> > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Come build with us! The BlackBerry® Developer Conference in SF, CA > is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your > developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay > ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9-12, 2009. Register now! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconf > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Stripes-users mailing list > Stripes-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/stripes-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Come build with us! The BlackBerry® Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9-12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconf _______________________________________________ Stripes-users mailing list Stripes-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/stripes-users
