5 ms·

Yeh, but if that $243 was your "base" price, it'd only cost $72 or what ever to add a new server, or of course you could just use it for a few hours when needed

by ashleyw 18y ago

Yeh, but if that $243 was your "base" price, it'd only cost $72 or what ever to add a new server, or of course you could just use it for a few hours when needed. Elasticity REALLY is the strong point of EC2, with the ability to create your application to automatically scale (and de-scale) on its own, and only pay for what you use. You can cancel a Slicehost server at any time, but you pay for a day if you only use an hour, and the refund is credited to your account as far as I know -- if you need 100 servers for an hour, even 256 slices, its going to cost you $2000, with $1934 credited to your account afterwards, compared to $10 on EC2. If you have money to splash around (your not really spending $2000 for 100 server hours, but you still need it), you'd proberly be better with Slicehost (or some other VPS host), but if you don't, EC2 is a very good option for scaling on the cheap.

axod 18y ago
"EC2 is a very good option for scaling on the cheap." Until you start using serious bandwidth. Then it's extremely expensive. As you say, if you have a massive spike for an hour or something due to the nature of your service, maybe AWS makes sense rather than paying for the full day, but I think that's an extremely rare usecase. Also if you're using a language/setup that isn't too efficient, then AWS may be a second best option to switching language/framework etc.
- ashleyw 18y ago
  Sure, but that bandwidth is very flexible also; you GET 800GB bandwidth mentioned in the above plan, but what if you just need 400GB...or 1600GB? AWS will scale from your launch day till the day you go IPO, or at least are at the stage when you can buy terabytes of bandwidth in bulk, cause you know you'll use it. Really don't agree with the last part though...unless your code is really slow, a rewrite is only going to waste your time and focus your attention on the rewrite rather than developing your business. Defiantly improve as you go...most of us are geeks, we'd have a massive grin on our face if we saved a few milliseconds from each request, but you should only do it if it's actually worth it! :)
  - axod 18y ago
    I'm more meaning that changing architecture/language may mean you can run the entire thing on a single server, rather than 10. Doing that sort of optimization helps a lot with scaling later on.
    - blasdel 18y ago
      Not if that sort of optimazation means that you can ONLY run it on a single server!
- ivankirigin 18y ago
  "Also if you're using a language/setup that isn't too efficient, then AWS may be a second best option to switching language/framework etc." What? The monthly cost of a server is equivalent to a few hours of dev time. That's money better spent on making new things, not premature optimization. I'm all for easy fixes that speed things up, but you rarely need to switch language/framework to do it. Doubly so because slower languages like Python and Ruby make it easy to plug in bits of fast C. More likely than not, someone has already done that, and you just need to start using a better library.
  - axod 18y ago
    It depends what you're making. Some webapps might need 10 servers if you write it in php or ruby on rails, but may only need 1 server if you write it in c/java/something else. For example, I could probably run Mibbit on around 50 servers if I just used apache/python/php/ror. And as far as I know that's pretty much what Meebo did. They had the money to throw at hardware. The alternative though is to re-architect and optimize at the early stages. It's a longer term investment. I've spent a lot of time in my case, but I've saved a lot of scalability headache and cost, later on.
    - figured 18y ago
      "Some webapps might need 10 servers if you write it in php or ruby on rails, but may only need 1 server if you write it in c/java/something else" @axod, this statement is completely out to lunch. I don't even know where to start.
      - axod 18y ago
        You don't believe a custom written lower level implementation would be more efficient than using a general purpose framework stack?
        njharman 18y ago
        I think he believes network or disk i/o becomes the dominate factor long before cpu for 99% of webapps.
- adamt 18y ago
  Where do people get the notion that EC2 bandwidth is expensive from? Pricing is $0.17 per GB for first 10,000 GB and drops after that. $0.17 per GB is actually pretty cheap, and unless your shipping large amounts of high quality video, you are unlikely to rake up a big bandwidth bill. Slicehost (which I am a customer of and have absolutely nothing against) seems cheap if you look at the bundled bandwidth, but they can do that on the basis that most people (e.g. me!) don't use anything like their quota. If you want more on top, their FAQ says that pricing for extra bandwidth starts at $0.30 per GB.
  - axod 18y ago
    And linode is $0.10 per GB.

by ashleyw 18y ago

axod 18y ago

"EC2 is a very good option for scaling on the cheap." Until you start using serious bandwidth. Then it's extremely expensive. As you say, if you have a massive spike for an hour or something due to the nature of your service, maybe AWS makes sense rather than paying for the full day, but I think that's an extremely rare usecase. Also if you're using a language/setup that isn't too efficient, then AWS may be a second best option to switching language/framework etc.

ashleyw 18y ago
Sure, but that bandwidth is very flexible also; you GET 800GB bandwidth mentioned in the above plan, but what if you just need 400GB...or 1600GB? AWS will scale from your launch day till the day you go IPO, or at least are at the stage when you can buy terabytes of bandwidth in bulk, cause you know you'll use it. Really don't agree with the last part though...unless your code is really slow, a rewrite is only going to waste your time and focus your attention on the rewrite rather than developing your business. Defiantly improve as you go...most of us are geeks, we'd have a massive grin on our face if we saved a few milliseconds from each request, but you should only do it if it's actually worth it! :)
- axod 18y ago
  I'm more meaning that changing architecture/language may mean you can run the entire thing on a single server, rather than 10. Doing that sort of optimization helps a lot with scaling later on.
  - blasdel 18y ago
    Not if that sort of optimazation means that you can ONLY run it on a single server!
ivankirigin 18y ago
"Also if you're using a language/setup that isn't too efficient, then AWS may be a second best option to switching language/framework etc." What? The monthly cost of a server is equivalent to a few hours of dev time. That's money better spent on making new things, not premature optimization. I'm all for easy fixes that speed things up, but you rarely need to switch language/framework to do it. Doubly so because slower languages like Python and Ruby make it easy to plug in bits of fast C. More likely than not, someone has already done that, and you just need to start using a better library.
- axod 18y ago
  It depends what you're making. Some webapps might need 10 servers if you write it in php or ruby on rails, but may only need 1 server if you write it in c/java/something else. For example, I could probably run Mibbit on around 50 servers if I just used apache/python/php/ror. And as far as I know that's pretty much what Meebo did. They had the money to throw at hardware. The alternative though is to re-architect and optimize at the early stages. It's a longer term investment. I've spent a lot of time in my case, but I've saved a lot of scalability headache and cost, later on.
  - figured 18y ago
    "Some webapps might need 10 servers if you write it in php or ruby on rails, but may only need 1 server if you write it in c/java/something else" @axod, this statement is completely out to lunch. I don't even know where to start.
    - axod 18y ago
      You don't believe a custom written lower level implementation would be more efficient than using a general purpose framework stack?
      - njharman 18y ago
        I think he believes network or disk i/o becomes the dominate factor long before cpu for 99% of webapps.
adamt 18y ago
Where do people get the notion that EC2 bandwidth is expensive from? Pricing is $0.17 per GB for first 10,000 GB and drops after that. $0.17 per GB is actually pretty cheap, and unless your shipping large amounts of high quality video, you are unlikely to rake up a big bandwidth bill. Slicehost (which I am a customer of and have absolutely nothing against) seems cheap if you look at the bundled bandwidth, but they can do that on the basis that most people (e.g. me!) don't use anything like their quota. If you want more on top, their FAQ says that pricing for extra bandwidth starts at $0.30 per GB.
- axod 18y ago
  And linode is $0.10 per GB.