Comments on: Amazon load balancing and server monitoring enhances stack

By: Zack Steinkamp

Zack Steinkamp — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:51:02 +0000

In Pound, we configure it to look at the Host: header and route to specific backends for certain specific hosts. Most of our webservers serve many virtual hosts, but there are a couple that are specialized (e.g. blog.dipity.com routes to one instance running WordPress).

It’s not impossible to move the existing config to Amazon’s new deal, but it may not save us as much $$$ if we have to pay for multiple load balancers to have things work “as they should”.

By: Sami Hoda

Sami Hoda — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:50:48 +0000

Good article. I read something similar in CIO Magazine recently. However, in their tests they still found cloud computing to be as expensive as in house systems. Again, all this depends on your current setup and where you are headed. I’m interested in this area, but will probably wait till 2010 before making any moves. Security in the cloud, as Cisco’s CEO mentioned, is gonna be a major nightmare. So there are other considerations besides cost.

By: brian

brian — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:40:28 +0000

@Zack – I couldn’t agree more (and I hope I didn’t contradict myself above even if I didn’t address it directly) on your quality and distraction points. I hear a lot of people who think of cloud computing at 10c/hour as a way to drastically cut costs. I don’t think that’s the benefit of cloud computing. I think the benefits are exactly what you described: no hardware capex, theoretically “better” infrastructure and less time spent on infrastructure (again, theoretically). If the cost is within a reasonable percentage of what you’re spending today, it’s a no-brainer to move. Services like they added today are only making it easier and easier to do so.

Re: their load balancer; how many of the fancy bells and whistles in pound are you using? We do pretty standard availability checking and least-connection routing with keepalived.

By: Zack Steinkamp

Zack Steinkamp — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:48:21 +0000

Good stuff Brian.

For Dipity, we also run a pair of load balancer instances for HA reasons. However, they’re mostly idle. Amazon’s load balancer may be a good way to address this, though I’m guessing it doesn’t have the configuration flexibility of our pound daemon. The $150/month savings may be worth it though.

I do think that it’s not unreasonable to see how Amazon can provide this service cheaper than you can and still make a profit. The nature of their systems is quite different (multiprocessor hardware, huge storage racks) than something you would or could (afford to) do yourself. They’ve got an ops staff, and industrial grade hardware — so what they’re offering lis likely *better* than what you or I would build.

There are advantages not only in capital outlay, but in the time you spend troubleshooting issues. For instance, if you own the disks that are running your database, a failure in one (not uncommon) can mean a trip to the store, a trip to the colo, and crossed fingers that you’ve found the problem. With a big cloud solution, we do not worry about disk storage any more. The dollar outlay is similar, but the time and reliability aspect is a big win.

When you’re a small shop, any time diversion from your core business is costly.