[GLLUG] Amazon EC2 vs Hetzner dedicated box. Am I missing the obvious?

[JLMS]

On 6 August 2014 20:37, gvim <gvimrc at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 06/08/2014 15:41, Vipul Agarwal wrote:
>
>> Cloud has its advantages when the user doesn't want to undertake the
>> core tasks involved in virtualization and storage. You'll always find a
>> single dedicated host setup cheaper than cloud, but what you miss is the
>> high scalability, ha, easy administration and maintenance free
>> underlying architecture (which is a lot of handle by a one-man team).
>>
>>
> I think I worded it badly. What I meant was the advantages are offset by
> massive price disparities.
>
>
> gvim
>

Cloud servers are not a price proposition, they are a flexibility
proposition, cloud servers are flexible, your collocated server isn't.

If you are not using them you can make them disappear, cost is now 0, with
your server you are out of luck, your next bill will be due regardless,
what about if you need 10 servers now? They'll be ready in minutes. Try
that with physical hardware. This is important, because if you need more
servers and can provision them quickly users won't be playing angry birds
while waiting for one to deploy new servers (a process that with hardware
may take even months if the provisioning process is rubbish, which almost
invariably is).

Lets say you have 2 or 3 users (it could be hundreds, but hey) each earning
£200/day for saying something, if they need one new host and you take 3
days to provision it in hardware how much is that costing you now?
(including your salary :-) ). When thinking in those terms the colocated
server begins to look rather old fashioned.

Somebody will say that that is why you virtualize in house, which is fair
enough, but that is how companies that are not technological end with and
army of technicians inhouse, being distracted from their core business,
whatever that may be. Much simpler if a 3rd party is doing everything else
(building your machine) except the actual configuration of the new system
(and even this can be done automatically).

Pears and oranges really, but people get confused because cloud can act as
a single server if one falls for the hype without thinking about what cloud
is useful for.
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