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I have some clients who host at Rackspace. They have old-school monolithic web-app architectures (single web server that also runs the application code, and a d

I have some clients who host at Rackspace. They have old-school monolithic web-app architectures (single web server that also runs the application code, and a database server). They're never going to rebuild these legacy application -- the codebases are decades old, and comprise hundreds of thousands of line of code. The support at Rackspace has really cratered, and it's hard to have much faith in their technical capabilities anymore either. I'm no sysadmin, so I don't know if it's realistic to port this kind of architecture to AWS or Azure. Also, some are contractually obligated to host at a facility that offers "managed hosting" (although I suppose the exact wording could be weaseled) with uptime guarantees and staffing levels. I'm trying to figure out where I should recommend they move. It doesn't seem like a common use-case anymore.

ElevenLathe 4y ago
Assuming the application code is mostly stateless (it pulls all the data it needs from the database on every request), this kind of app is usually not a big deal to containerize and put on some cloud platform (AWS, GCP, Azure should all be about equivalent) and even get more 9s and scalability almost for free. This is essentially the Wordpress architecture, which every infra engineer (née sysadmin) in the industry has been asked to move from on-prem to cloud sometime in the past ten years. If the application code has non-disposable state in-memory then it's bit harder but can usually be done, especially if it's low-traffic enough to comfortably live on single Rackspace dedi now. Edit: I should also mention that if you're looking for somebody to do this kind of work for you, there are contact details in my profile. ;)
- angst_ridden 4y ago
  I'll have to look into the web-server customizations. One of them has a custom Apache module for talking to a 3rd party mainframe, but that should theoretically be movable too (if it's the correct platform architecture). Of course, an Apache module's just C code, so how hard could it be to port to another architecture? But in all seriousness, I suspect it's a relatively simple UDP socket communication interface, so it is probably portable. Thanks for the mention of Wordpress. It is a similar architecture. I'll read up on how to move a Wordpress install, and use that as a model for testing one of these apps.
mgkimsal 4y ago
Why is this not a common use case? Linode, DigitalOcean, Vultr, EC2/Lightsail and many many other companies lease dedicated servers and VPS. Lease an app server, lease a DB server, move the data and port the code. Yes, no doubt there's some other 'devil in the details', but if it's already "old school legacy" architecture, why not just replicate that some place else that offers better service (and likely better value for money)?
- angst_ridden 4y ago
  All good recommendations. I think the difference is in the contracts (I'm reporting second-hand, since I don't have access to the actuals). With Linode, anyway, I do a lot of hosting in VPSes, but these clients have contracts stipulating the hosting company manages/maintains/monitors the OS. I guess if I were smart, I'd get the actual contractual requirements from the clients. That'll be my next step.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    Cloudways is a provider that does 'managed' on top of various cloud providers, and "Regular Security Patching" is one of their checklist items. There are no doubt others. Good luck to you.
    - angst_ridden 4y ago
      Thanks for the recommendation!

ElevenLathe 4y ago

Assuming the application code is mostly stateless (it pulls all the data it needs from the database on every request), this kind of app is usually not a big deal to containerize and put on some cloud platform (AWS, GCP, Azure should all be about equivalent) and even get more 9s and scalability almost for free. This is essentially the Wordpress architecture, which every infra engineer (née sysadmin) in the industry has been asked to move from on-prem to cloud sometime in the past ten years. If the application code has non-disposable state in-memory then it's bit harder but can usually be done, especially if it's low-traffic enough to comfortably live on single Rackspace dedi now. Edit: I should also mention that if you're looking for somebody to do this kind of work for you, there are contact details in my profile. ;)

angst_ridden 4y ago
I'll have to look into the web-server customizations. One of them has a custom Apache module for talking to a 3rd party mainframe, but that should theoretically be movable too (if it's the correct platform architecture). Of course, an Apache module's just C code, so how hard could it be to port to another architecture? But in all seriousness, I suspect it's a relatively simple UDP socket communication interface, so it is probably portable. Thanks for the mention of Wordpress. It is a similar architecture. I'll read up on how to move a Wordpress install, and use that as a model for testing one of these apps.

mgkimsal 4y ago

Why is this not a common use case? Linode, DigitalOcean, Vultr, EC2/Lightsail and many many other companies lease dedicated servers and VPS. Lease an app server, lease a DB server, move the data and port the code. Yes, no doubt there's some other 'devil in the details', but if it's already "old school legacy" architecture, why not just replicate that some place else that offers better service (and likely better value for money)?

angst_ridden 4y ago
All good recommendations. I think the difference is in the contracts (I'm reporting second-hand, since I don't have access to the actuals). With Linode, anyway, I do a lot of hosting in VPSes, but these clients have contracts stipulating the hosting company manages/maintains/monitors the OS. I guess if I were smart, I'd get the actual contractual requirements from the clients. That'll be my next step.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  Cloudways is a provider that does 'managed' on top of various cloud providers, and "Regular Security Patching" is one of their checklist items. There are no doubt others. Good luck to you.
  - angst_ridden 4y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation!