The recent High Scalability article outlining the Stackoverflow and Stackexchange network is worth a read. http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/10/24/stackexch

The recent High Scalability article outlining the Stackoverflow and Stackexchange network is worth a read. http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/10/24/stackexchange-architecture-updates-running-smoothly-amazon-4.html http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/10/24/stackexchange-arc... Joel makes some good points on why they stayed with physical hardware.