Comments on: Cloud Computing vs Dedicated Server

By: Erik Howard

Erik Howard — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 06:20:10 +0000

Hard to say when you should migrate to the cloud, depends on a lot of factors. At the minimum, I would start to collect baseline performance statistics from your VPS solution and install some type of monitoring solution if you haven’t already. When performance starts to go below your baseline metrics, then it’s probably time to start thinking about upgrading your VPS solution or moving your infrastructure to the cloud.

By: Clive Rudd Fernandez

Clive Rudd Fernandez — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:00:12 +0000

I’m launching a social network and at the moment I have a VPS solution, but we have only around 300 registered users and it works ok so far.

When do you think that I should move to a cloud based solution ? My server admin skills are very basics.

Best regards,
Clive

By: Mihai Spanoche

Mihai Spanoche — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 06:15:43 +0000

I must say I’m using both of them at this moment.
I have a dedicated with iWeb Canada and a Linode instance in London UK. Initially iWeb impressed me, very good uptime, dedicated hardware, good price. However…. I was only using less than 5% of the server’s resources so I went for the cloud at Linode.
I pay 60% less now, I have not experienced any downtime yet (3 months now) but I must say it’s a pain in the back to configure it if you’re not a Linux geek.
Persistent storage, ability to go up & down with hardware in a few seconds is a plus for cloud hosting. However I would have remained with iWeb dedicated if they had a Data Center in Europe.

By: Tunrayo

Tunrayo — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 17:07:36 +0000

Hi Erik.

Thanks for this article.

I am trying to choose a hosting. CPU and ram are important for my proposed application. I prefer a dedicated server but cloud server offering is tempting with far better CPU. I have offers from 2 companies: a) Cloud Server with Xeon E5520 2.26Gh and 1GB Ram for $48 a month compared with b) Dedicated Server with Antom D510 1.8Gh with 3Gb Ram for $44.21. CPUbenchmark Passmark for Xeon E5520 is 4326 while for Antom D10 is 671.

Which offer is better?

Thanks

By: Cloud Computing vs Dedicated Servers « The Tech Tutorial

Cloud Computing vs Dedicated Servers « The Tech Tutorial — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:32:04 +0000

[...] http://www.erikhoward.net/cloud-computing-vs-dedicated-server/ [...]

By: Path

Path — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:04:10 +0000

Thanks Erik

It is really helpful article and helped me to understand the concept.

By: Yorkshire Web Design

Yorkshire Web Design — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 01:20:21 +0000

Thanks Erik,

Useful info from someone else who is dithering between cloud or dedicated hosting!

By: James R-Australia

James R-Australia — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:21:48 +0000

Hi Erik,

I just chatted to a friend who was seeking some secure dedicated server to offer online training and certification. Instead of his original plans of dedicated servers hosted and an in-house Dev team, he went to the cloud and hired some developers in the Phillipines and he saved 70% on his projected forcast using the cloud!

I’m going to research some more. Keep up the great articles.

James

By: Erik Howard

Erik Howard — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:11:17 +0000

James,

Thanks for your great comment. I have production systems in the cloud and I also have dedicated servers.

I wouldn’t advocate anyone jumping into cloud or utility computing unless they truly understand the strengths and weaknesses of dedicated servers vs servers hosted in the cloud.

Most people make the mistake at only looking at what an instance will cost them. They fail to calculate the cost of bandwidth, static IP’s, reserved disk space. That $.20c per hour instance quickly rises to an $.60-$0.70 cents per hour instance.

Thanks again for the great comment.

-Erik

By: James R-Australia

James R-Australia — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:18:55 +0000

Thanks Erik, great article.

There is a lot of confusion around the cloud with public, private and hybrid flavors and most have seen much success with the likes of salesforce.com and amazon.com etc.

For a business looking for value and reliability, I would personally stay with dedicated servers. I did a quick comparison. I could get a computer in the cloud for around $0.90c per hour. Approx $21 a day. Sounds cheap. Over a month that is $630.

Now, on the flipside for instance, we offer on our virtual server platform a server (1vcpu, 2gb RAM and 40GB disk) for approx $250 per month. For Windows a MS SPLA license adds about $20. Hosted on tier 1 hardware, high available data centre facility, server cluster, SAN, VSS Snapshots, redundant internet etc. etc.

That is a big difference in price. Maybe I am old fashioned but I prefer knowing where my server is housed.

I have concerns about security, accountability, compliance and regulations surrounding server infrastructure such as PCI DSS. How well are these enforced in the cloud? I know some cloud providers state this but what measurement and stop/checks are used? Up time and support contacts is another area to consider.

I think different applications/companies need different platform depending on their specified requirement, where some applications are suited to the cloud some are just more suited to a dedicated server environment.

James Righetti