A friend challenged the notion of using Amazon’s EC2 web service to host a startup’s web-site or service because EC2 would be a single-point-of-failure; and he was right! EC2 by itself is not a good hosting option because, if it fails, you have no alternate host. Having said that, high-availability hosting isn’t EC2’s target market low-cost computing resource is.
But we need alternate hosting because it gives us high-availability systems. In general we need diversity measures to negate the failures in real-world systems. EC2 provides a vast pool of low-cost computing resources but it’s ultimately a single-sourced resource.
Ideally we’d use EC2 with another computing provider. The good news is that other providers exist like Mosso, GoGrid, Microsoft and Rackspace so we can get diverse platforms. Now we need a platform to tie our diverse resources together; specifically we need load balancing, auto-scaling, monitoring and management. RightScale produce a suitable product as do WeoCeo.
We can build high-availability systems based on cloud resources, the key is to understand if you want low-cost resources, high-availability or both. Before you embark on building a cloud computing service ask yourself these questions:
Do I want high-availability?
How much am I prepared to pay?
Can I structure my computing tasks to operate in the cloud?
What happens if my system fails?
November 11, 2008 at 9:42 pm |
Hi Robert,
Good questions you pose here. Choosing a good hosting provider isn’t limited to just Cloud Hosting, you should ask those same questions if you are considering ANY type of hosting. First, some full disclosure here. I’m the Tech Evangelist for GoGrid and ServePath (so thanks for the mention). RightScale is one of our partners, just so that you know.
Concerns about high-availability are important ones to have. Because we are a provider of BOTH cloud hosting and managed hosting, we have over 7 years of expertise for setting up high-availability networks. One of the many unique things that we can offer is what we call “Cloud Connect.” If you need to have a high-end, robust DB solution, for example, that needs managed backups and security, we now allow you to connect managed hosting of these high-end servers with our Cloud offering (GoGrid) for your front end (web/app servers).
In terms of failover or instances failing, this is true with any type of hosting, whether they be dedicated, colo, cloud or shared. You have to dig into the provider and look at their SLA and support structures.
If I can be of any assistance, please let me know.
-Michael
November 12, 2008 at 3:17 am |
You’re still constrained by the necessities of these types of hosting services. Web Hosting Providers