We use both: Dedicated servers (at rackspace) running a private cloud for our website and shop plus various cloud based systems (EC2, Rackspacecloud, et al.) fo

We use both: Dedicated servers (at rackspace) running a private cloud for our website and shop plus various cloud based systems (EC2, Rackspacecloud, et al.) for testing and non-mission-critical stuff. You can create mission critical stuff on cloud servers, but you must "embrace failure", i.e. build the whole setup with failures in mind. We have an extensive post about our setup in our blog: http://www.paessler.com/blog/2011/11/15/networking-basics/failure-tolerant-online-business-step-1 http://www.paessler.com/blog/2011/11/15/networking-basics/fa...