are cloud servers better for large Elgg communities?...

On another thread member 'cim' posted this . can anyone provide some more insight on why going with cloud servers for hosting Elgg? 'cloud computing' is still very 'nebulous' to me...

thanks in advance!

Ana

the post was in response to someone wanting to have 1,000 users doing stuff that burdens the server (like running ajax applications, having rss etc etc):

"maybe you can give cloud servers a try? either go by monthly or pay as you go.

http://www.rackspacecloud.com/cloud_hosting_products/servers

Pricing for Cloud Server starts at $10.95 per month or 1.5¢ per hour plus bandwidth. Since you can pay by the hour, it's really easy and affordable to spin up a new Cloud Server when you need the additional cloud computing power for testing or development–and then simply remove it when you're done.

  • "Cloud Computing" as a general commercial offering is still pretty much in it's infancy. Rack's Cloud package is laughable (I chatted with their Tech Support and they could barely answer my questions;-) 1&1 (where I host my dedicated servers) also has Cloud Pkgs.. but not for me ! Amazon's EC2 is most probably the most matured commercial Cloud, though I have *not had a chance to play with that yet.

  • Are cloud servers better for large Elgg communities ? Yes, better than shared hosting and might be VPS.

    The cloud servers Cim mentioning from the rackspacecloud, I believe is just a new form of hosting technology, its like between dedicated and VPS.  Dedicated is harder to set-up and VPS usually have limited resources (like 512 M  - 1 G of RAM ). Cloudserver is the solution that lives in between (you can resize the RAM to almost 15GB) . So its not really a cloud computing technology.

    In my opinion it would be better if one goes with the VPS for starting the community, as it will be easy to add ram and diskspace and wont use the budget too much. 

  • @elHayze

    ;-)

    Are you speaking from your experience or research ?

    Yes, technically "Cloud Computing" has much to offer. Since the mid-1990's there have been cloud-oriented networking (e.g. academic instituions asking ordinary users to allow their home PCs to be networked into a super-cloud to enable each home PC to contribute 10% of their horse-power towards a mega-powered-cloud). Nowe *that was true Cloud computing raw-power. The current commercial offerings at the moment do not live up the truism of the promise.

    Most ISPs are merely souping-up their "shared" plans, most likely using load-balancers.. and then call their pkgs "Cloud", but in reality they're not for real.

    For now.. my "Cloud" consists of 3 dedicated boxes (mix of Linux & Windows S/W), I'm quite happy so far to maintain those 16 hours per day ;-). If my "cloud" needs more power -- I'll most likely just go and but yet another linux box and... image-server, load website code, data, DB to /vhosts and let's rockNroll ;-)

  • @Dhrup I noted the cloud server hosting statement from Cim, which is true just a highlevel vps.  Not the cloud computing.  I thought it will clear Ana's question. 

    Btw, I sent you an email about the hosting ;-)

  • @ElH

    ;-) I'm just making academic statements re: "Cloud". I have no real life experience with the current crop of commercial offerings, though I'm tempted to try out Amazon's EC2 because there has been some positive comments re: Amazon/EC2 here @ Elgg Comm. That said.. I do know what I expect from "Clouds". Ergo I said Rack's "Cloud" **is laughable. 1&1's "Cloud" is laughable. Amazon most likely comes close enough. I'm *not quite promoting them, but they *seem to measure up to the specs.

    PS:
    I will be respomding to yr EMail sometime soon-ish..