A Linode 4096, where you're sharing CPU and disk IO with all the other users on the physical server, is $159.95/mo.
For $159/mo you could rent a Xeon 3230 quad core, 4GB RAM, 2x250GB HD server from Softlayer with more than 4x the bandwidth allotment and a better data center with a larger support staff.
I inherited this setup, so to me it looks like the servers are overpowered. Also, the customer service is terrible, which is the primary reason for wanting to leave them. I want a service where I can easily requisition and kit out new servers quickly in an "a la carte" fashion.
I have 3 servers running on EC2 already using micro instances. They're mostly to handle minor services (email list subscription/requeuing for all the web properties, payment processing postback handling, etc.) They've been up for nearly a year without any problem.
I've been leaning toward EC2, but I wanted to hear what else is out there.
Have you considered just using Amazon S3, especially now they offer full 'httpd'-like functionality (no more bucket XML listings if you try to visit the root of the domain).
http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2011/02/host-your-static-website-...
If you are running a CDN in front to stream the content, this sounds like the best solution to me. You could probably get away with Reduced Redundancy Storage too if you have backups.
I pay £15/month per VM, which is probably $15-30/month each depending on where the exchange rate is.
> I've run all my personal services (email
If you use a half-decent provider who quickly investigates any unusual traffic on their network then I can't see it being a problem.
On a side note, it was AWS getting blacklisted that I was remembering hearing about (though it was at least a couple of years ago).
My experience with EC2 is that you get more RAM for the buck when compared to Rackspace and others, but IO to disk and CPU is sub-par. As a result, I tend to prefer Rackspace who are also big players in the open source space.
Keep in mind, regardless of any advertising, there is no such thing as guaranteed performance in the cloud. Ever. Every provider oversubscribes ... they do not expect and cannot handle 100% utilization by their subscriber base. Behind the scene, a VPS is sharing all of its resources, always. If your provider does its job right, you'll never experience a drop in performance. Everything will be consistent. But there is no way for that provider to guarantee that. They can experience an unexpected jump in resource usage at any time.
With dedicated hosting, that's not a possibility. It's your hardware. You're the only one using it.
Seconding this. And I'd recommend a hybrid solution if it's possible. Dedicated db server with some cloud webheads for your front end. I really think that's the best bang for your buck. Has anyone tried the Amazon RDS or the RackSpace R2 servers? I'd really like to know if they provide any advantages over just straight up hosting your database on another cloud instance.
The benefit here is that you can exchange data between servers/VPS's via the private LAN - low latency and potentially no bandwidth costs.
If you go with an Amazon based solution then you don't have this benefit due to the NAT-like way Amazon works and the fact they either own their own datacenters or at least don't allow any private routes between other servers in the same DC.
(I don't know whether every Amazon availability zone is in a wholly operated Amazon datacenter)
root@linode:~# uptime
13:50:03 up 118 days, 5:10, 1 user, load average: 0.09, 0.10, 0.13
May I ask what you are running in those servers? Are your services bound to CPU, bandwidth or memory? All three?
I've had good times with 100tb.com, but the price is prohibitive for me (The dollar is not my "native" currency and I have to work my day job very hard to reach the 200usd it costs)