Cloud Computing Archives

Hosting- Rackspace on steroids and on to WPEngine (for some)

15 December, 2012 by sky Leave a Comment

Oh man, I am asked all the time how to pick a hosting company. And although I do all my hosting in just two places now, the evolution has been interesting, and I don’t have an answer that I completely like yet. I can see that for most people, you have to go with something easy, and the domain registrars provide easy solutions – like Network Solutions and GoDaddy, for instance. But if you’re a geek and can handle your own simple installations, then a virtual private server can be a tempting idea.

Here’s my history of hosting on the Internet. [Read more…]

Nginx may not improve your performance compared to Apache

4 August, 2012 by sky Leave a Comment

The predominant “web server software” used for WordPress sites are Apache and nginx. [1. tech discussion: Apache launches a new thread (a “program”) in server memory for every incoming page and object requested by your site visitors. This can rapidly clog the server’s memory as the number of requests per second increases. nginx initially launches a number of threads and then dispatches page/object requests to them for service—properly configured it doesn’t bloat up and fill memory.] Generally on smaller servers nginx will be more efficient because it doesn’t gobble memory like Apache does. The question of which web server software to use hinges primarily on the CPU power and memory resources that are required on the server side to make your site run properly. [Read more…]

End of an Era – back in the clouds again

30 September, 2011 by sky Leave a Comment

This morning at 12:30am I shut down my last Apple X-Serve — intentionally.

In the early days of the public Internet, I exclusively used cloud servers. Cloud servers in the sense that they were virtual private servers whose location was unimportant. This was the most economical way to set up “your own server” and operate it without having to purchase hardware and colocate it somewhere in Santa Clara or San Jose. Or even L.A.

Then, in the early 2000s I bought Apple X-Serves and colocated them at a little Mac-only ISP called Maccius. I liked their premise and I liked the fact that they were hosting part of Apple’s developer network for Apple. My $3000 X-Serves were good investments, running 24/7 from 2003 until 2011 with only a reboot here and there (maybe once a year). I upgraded storage to RAID, and I boosted their RAM memories, but other than that these machines were real troopers with plenty of compute power. I saved a lot of money by owning my own boxes and just buying electricity and bandwidth from Maccius.

But by 2008 it had become cheaper (and more secure) to purchase computing as a commodity — cloud computing was coming of age. So I started launching virtual private servers again, at Slicehost and Rackspace (and eventually some at Amazon AWS). I could pay $12 a month for a tiny virtual server at Rackspace and not have to worry about some disk drive failing on me. And I could size ’em up or down as necessary.

By 2010 I was paying more for the virtual servers than for the real hardware boxes, but I was hosting far more sites in a more flexible manner. And Apple decided to exit the dedicated server business. So no hope of replacing hardware, and no more server software upgrades.

So in 2011 I shut down my X-Serves, one at a time, until I pulled the last plug (figuratively) out of the wall this morning.

And I’m entirely back in the cloud again.

Top sysadmin tools for iPad

15 April, 2011 by sky 2 Comments

Digital nomads, you can finally and really be the system administrator for your cloud (and other) servers from your iPad. Since December, each time I’ve left town, I have intentionally left my MacBook Pro at home in favor of my iPad. I found that just having a few specific apps allowed me to fully administer my cloud servers from the pad. Please note that a bluetooth (or other) keyboard is required for some of these apps to function fully. But generally I can do everything I need to when I’m on the road. [Read more…]

How will I manage? (the cloud)

14 January, 2010 by sky Leave a Comment

I had a meeting with Alex Polvi (a founder) and Bob Hrdinsky of Cloudkick today. Over a Thai lunch. And then we followed up with a short discussion-demo at their office at the foot of Potrero Hill where I met most/all of their US tech experts.

Cloudkick runs a slick service that lets you manage your Slicehost and Rackspace/Mosso cloud servers (both brands are owned by and housed in Rackspace facilities), providing some data visualization in addition. Of course you could manage your servers using the control panels provided by Slicehost and Rackspace, but Cloudkick’s one-layer-removed management adds some unique extras. And they can “automatically” migrate your Amazon EC2 servers over to Rackspace if you’re interested in that. I have nine virtual servers on S&R (as I’ll call the two services) and signed up for the free Cloudkick services almost three months ago. They were voted Best in Show at Under the Radar (see Cloudkick writeup and video). The company is a little under a year old. It was kick-started by a seed investment by Y-Combinator, and recently obtained an angel round of investment. [Read more…]