Dan Larsen
Systems architect, developer and entrepreneur.
Tags: #PHP #C/C++ #Ajax #iPhone #Debian #Cloud
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Cost of Clouds vs Dedicated Servers
Yesterday, one of my clients, needed me to advice them on which servers to pick, for a project that needs scaling cabilities.
In that connection, I wanted a better overview of some of the providers out there.
I haven't included expensive managed solutions like Rackspace's dedicated servers, as these don't fit in this category (they are managed).
The reason for this comparison, was to get a less know factor into the equation, when deciding whether to choose a dedicated server or a cloud server.
The question that I wanted answered was: "What is the comparable price, for self-managed servers?".
Some of the cloud companies are professionally vaque in describing, what they are giving you.
To make things even more difficult to compare, in reality they aren't even giving you the same product.
Amazon allocates CPU for you, while Rackspace Cloud limits you if necessary.
This can make a Rackspace Cloud machine VERY much faster, as it will have acces to something like dual quad core 2GHz CPUs.
What makes this an uninteresting fact for me - actually close to a negative point, is that you can run a test a 100 times at one point, but the result is completely useless, as you can not tell, if this will hold at a later point of time.
Amazon allocates a certain amount of EC2 Compute Units (ECU), which they describe as:
One EC2 Compute Unit (ECU) provides the equivalent CPU capacity of a 1.0-1.2 GHz 2007 Opteron or 2007 Xeon processor.
If this isn't vaque enough for you, then try out this description from Rackspace:
Each cloud server has 2 quad core processors that are at least 2Ghz+. The 256MB plan will get 1/64 of the CPU allocation, the 512MB plan will get 1/32 of the CPU allocation, and the 1GB plan will get 1/16 of the CPU allocation. The 2GB plan will get 1/ 8 CPU, the 4GB plan will get 1/4, the 8GB plan will get 1/2, and the 15.5GB plan will get all CPU allocation in the server.
Which fortunately is comparably vaque to Amazons description, as the calculation gives you 1+GHz pr. 1GB RAM :-P
The worst of them all, I am sad to say, is definitely Media Temple.
I have had servers hosted at Media Temple several times.
The service is good, customer support fine and pricing reasonable - but... They are the vaquest "cloud" hosting service of them all.
The only way, I could do some comparison, was by checking out their "nitro" product, finding out, what that server was physically, then assume the "dedicated virtual" servers was running on the same hardware. Finally I calculated the CPU like Rackspace Cloud does - by dividing.
There is a lot of different factors, not calculated into this little experiment, like:
- Which hard drives, how many and how much capcity
- Backed up or not
- How many CPU cores
- Connection to the internet - but: clouds generally has massive connection, while dedicated are more diverse
- General hardware: server-grade or not? I.e. consumer CPUs or server-grade? etc.
Also, traffic is an important factor - especially for the cloud services, as these are "pay-as-you-go".
I chose to calculate 200GB of traffic into the price.
The traffic is spread as: 25% traffic from client to server, 75% from server to client.
Anyways... Here it is! The pretty little chart, that roughly gives an idea, of the cost for 1GHz CPU + 1GB RAM + 200GB data pr. month.
There are a different amount of point pr. provider - these are different configurations.
Amazon and Rackspace Cloud has an amazingly consistent price!
Just a couple of final reminders:
Most of us already knew, that clouds were more expensive, than dedicated servers.
But this gives an idea of how much.
Cloud servers are not directly comparable to dedicated servers, as dedicated servers has ALL resources allocated for you.
Cloud servers is influenced by being managed by virtualization softwaree, sharing resources with a lot of other servers, sometimes not having real disks, etc.
The upside of cloud servers is, that you can start / stop them at any time, dedicated servers is usually paid pr. month or more + it can take days before it's up.
It's always a good thing, to have your servers physically close - with clouds you can start i.e. 100 servers for 2 days and then shut them down again, while maintaining all of the goodness of physical closeness, if your other servers are in the cloud.
Hope this helps a couple of decission makers! :-)
