Amazon EC2; risky hosting?

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?

Computing resources’ ‘Tectonic Shift’

Summary: Cloud computing represent a fundamental change in software costs and scale. Amazon’s Web Services are a cloud-type resource available now.

As developers deep-down we have a map of our computing terrain. Our maps help us make decisions about the viability of ideas and how we implement them. Crucial elements of our map is the cost and scale of the computing resources we use.

Cloud computing is the art of delivering computer resources when they are needed usually priced per hour of use. Cloud Computing changes our computing map, not by adding new hills or rivers, but buy shifting the underlying tectonic plates of our computing terrain.

For instance Amazon’s web-services change our cost and availability constraints. Linux servers now come at, a very low-cost, 10 cents/hour and with no limit on the number of servers that can be used. Amazon’s web-servcies are an excellent example of how a factor-of-ten cost reduction produces a game-changing service.

Take a look; cost-out your latest design using Amazon’s web-services. Then compare the cost of using Amazon’s services versus your current solution. Write me a comment; did you get a factor-of-ten cost reduction?