Cloud Hosting

[Nighthawk Software]

Our current server is starting to struggle a little, and with plans to hopefully grow a fair bit over the next year, i'm starting to consider options for a new server.

We run a couple of different SaaS sites, one of which has quite a lot of traffic (but unfortunately low revenue). All our solutions are developed using ASP.NET MVC, so for the time being we are tied to the windows platform. Our current Windows Server 2012 server has 4gb of memory, and is giving us frequent alerts that memory usage is over 90%. unfortunately our hosts are unable to upgrade the memory in the machine, and instead insist we move to a new higher spec machine.

If we need to move server, then we might as well consider other options.

I'm leaning towards the cloud, but pricing things up is providing a bit of a nightmare. Our budget is very low at the moment, and from what I can see, cloud solutions from Google/Amazon don't provide much in the way of cost savings - in fact we are falling right between packages - 4gb machines probably wont suffice, but then 8gb is the next step up, for almost double the cost.

SQL server seems to be a stumbling block though. While most normal hosting providers seem happy to throw in SQL Server with their servers for very little, selecting SQL server images on cloud services seems to instantly double the price yet again! Right now we can live with SQL Express, but we'll approach the 10gb limit at some point, so might as well plan ahead if we can?

However, from what I can gather, switching between machines in a cloud based environment is trivial - a couple of clicks, a minutes downtime, and you're up and running on a more powerful machine. Thats certainly desirable to help meet our future growth targets.

So, does anyone have any advice for pricing cloud computing? Any suggestions on what to look for?

 

[nahosting]

Hi,

Cloud hosting can mount up in price quickly as you are discovering and using MS SQL is one of those reasons. We have seen clients move from shared windows hosting to Azure to find that they need to be on a higher tier than expected just to get the same performance they had on our shared platform (we resell managed Azure services too).

So approaching 10GB you are already past the Basic SQL Server tier on Azure. You then need to know the stats of your SQL usage to gauge your potential costs (bit like bandwidth usage for gauging a shared hosting package). There is no shortcut to working out costs apart from knowing your usage stats.

Back to your dedicated server, I am surprised that they won't upgrade the memory as the server can't be too old with 2012 installed on it. From your description a standard Xeon E3 with 16GB of memory should be more than enough to cope with your work load.

Happy to talk you through any options on dedicated servers and cloud via phone or email.

Cheers
Chris

 

[Alan]

Cloud servers are just so flexible.

I'm no Windows expert ( I'm a Linux / Google Guy ) or stand alone hardware ( haven't used a dedicated machine for over 8 years ) but it seems a no brainer.

So based on a little searching, as I haven't purchased a server in years (they used to hundreds of thousands ), so I could be wrong
8G server box, some £3,000 ish
R12 - some £500
SQL Server some £3,000 ish

So £6,500 capital locked in inflexible without backup solutions etc

8Gb SQL server / R12 image 100GB SSD on Google Cloud = £120 per month ish

So that means that you have to run you dedicated server for 4.5 years to get a straight payback - (and if you have it inhouse that is excluding power / air / network / comms room cleaning / fire supression etc )

I looked at Amazon, Azure and Google. I use Google and that is my main expertise but I'm sure the others are similar.

I have moved all my Virtual Servers now to Google Cloud

Advantages
1. Very fast starting / stopping / upgrading / adding disk, seconds in fact
2. Easy to temporarily 'power up' if needed and power down, billed by the minute
2. very fast snapshots (incremental too ) that don't need the server full down to be taken
3. low cost storage options for backups etc
4. command line and API controls, so easy to script
5. performance, latency and network speed better than before
Disavantages
1. some less secure protocols are locked down and you have to work around these ( FTP - junk that and just use gcloud cp / scp ) & email gets a bit tricky for outgoing email but just use mailgun / sendgrid ( I can see why they don't want people to be able to roll up a server in seconds and start blasting out millions of emails )

Costs
I was running large unmanaged VPS across UK and European Data Centres at a cost of
On Google Cloud current bill is about 90% of what I was paying to multiple providers including backup storage.

Also, all the services (Amazon / Azure / Google ) give you some free usage to try - Google is $300 over 60 days.

( just note I am Google Partner, the information above I hope demonstrates the flexibility of Cloud servers rather than promote Google Cloud specifically )

 

[webhostuk]

Obviously google or Amazon Cloud hosting one of the best cloud service you can ask for but in that case cost is something you need to manage for, its the service you pay for. If you have tight budget try upgrading dedicated server with different provider to make things manageable in terms of budget for you.

 

[Idosell Shop]

It is worth to calculate all costs overall. Bundled packages seem to be the most cost effective.
There are providers who offer hosting, merchant solution, technical support- this way you save on in-house software development and can focus on market development. The more complex will be service the better for you, some of them even dropped transaction surcharges and can operate several shops within the same service administration panel. It is up to service provider to keep your stores up and running, deliver the certain level of sales process automation. If they cannot meet the target you can easily swap to another provider.