I originally used Rackspace SliceHost which was acquired and integrated into Rackspace for cloud hosting since 2010 and have had absolutely no issues. The services is easy use and rock solid with many advanced features. But then again it is a premium service and cost prohibitive. In Feb 2012 In 2010 I switched to KVM based hosting using vServer Center and still use it today.
Recently, though I still have vServer Center because of the great cost factor, I have started using Microsoft Azure Cloud hosting.
Gen 3 Cloud
Currently (Dec 2016) evaluating cloud services and techniques,
- Microsoft Azure
- Amazon Cloud
- Google Cloud
The key advantage of the cloud services is infrastructure as code, but let's start with just the minimal hardware, bandwidth requirements. Note I've upped the memory requirements having switched to LXC and also now have a sense of bandwidth utilization (but noting that BonsaiFramework is not searchable yet).
| Comparison Point | Amazon Cloud | Google Cloud | Microsoft Azure | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product Name | t2.small EC2 Reserved Instance Descriptions very unclear. | Virtual Machine Baisc | ||
| Calculator Website | Useful Links: | Useful Links: | ||
| 2 GB of Memory | 2 GB | 1.75GB | ||
| 1 CPU | ||||
| 50 GB of Disk Space (currently at 33GB) | None must buy EBS (Elastic Storage Blocks) but adding 50GB of General SDD did not seem to increase price | 70 GB | ||
| Bandwidth ~7 GB/Month UnMetered | $0.09 / GB past 1GB = $0.54 | 7 GB/Month without Exposing BonsaFramework website to search engines. | ||
| Download at 20mbps | ||||
| Static IP Address | IP4 | |||
| Monthly | $13.14 | $31.66 (in West Central US) | ||
| Yearly Upfront | $151 |
Gen 2 Self-Serve Virtual Hosting
Log
Aug 2018
Lots of Low End Box, and there are more - I have not looked closely yet.
Note these often use OpenVZ ... which previously had trouble with Java now (Aug 2019) it's better and depends on the hosting provider setting limits on memory / not overselling too. Also restricted to Ubuntu supported by OpenVZ base image which is 16.x at the moment.
Container technology and Docker does not work due to older kernel.
Here are the offers:
2GB-SSD-VPS
| 3GB-SSD-VPS
| 6GB-SSD-VPS
|
These are very inexpensive prices and there's further discount if you pay for the full year up front! However, keep in mind this is VPS hosting which can end up oversubscribing resulting in a very slow system.
Feb 2012
I spent some time to look for cheaper alternatives. My main criteria wereThis is still best bang for the buck despite Gen 3 Cloud services.
Main criteria,
- 1024GB of memory
- Allow Ubuntu OS Custom Install
- Decent bandwidth 2GB or higher / month
- Allow adding more additional IPs
- Provide console Console access
- Preferably hypervisor Hypervisor based
- Nice to have ability to do full image backups and restores
...
http://www.vservercenter.com/
web management: https://vcp.vservercenter.com
support email: support@cybercon.net
KVM hosting at $29.95/Month with life-time discount using http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1102906 code WHTVDSKV20A (last used Feb 2015) and it goes down to reduced to $9.95/Month which provides,
- 2 GB of Memory
- Ubuntu OS
- UnMetered 20mbps bandwidth
- 50 GB Hard Disk
- One dedicated IPv4 IP Addresss
Unverified discount code WHTVDSKV20 from http://www.domainpromocodes.com/coupons/vserver-center/
$9.95/month for KVM with Mem = 1GB, BW = Unmetered at 10mbps = 1000GB, Space = 20GB
Using wget downloaded at 1.28M/s grabbing a Confluence download.
Using browser to download from Apache same file averaged 1.2M/s.
| Info |
|---|
Vservercenter has doubled their hardware specs for the basic server package |
| Note |
|---|
Since then Jan 2012 I noticed vServer has now upgraded their bandwidth to 10mbps so re-run tests. |
...
- Address
- Web Terminal
- Allow Custom Installation of number of Linux OS including Ubuntu
Purchased additional IP for $1/Month.
To allow install of your own OS, during purchase select,
| Panel |
|---|
Operation System Installation Type: Custom Self Install via vServer Center Control Panel (free) |
...
The following chart outlines the top level pros and cons,
| Technology | Pros | Cons | Implementations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hypervisor |
|
| Xen, KVM and VMWare |
| Container |
|
| OpenVZ, Virtuozzo (based on OpenVZ), Solaris Zones and recently LXC |
| Ephemeral Container (better name find) | Docker |
Java with Container Based Virtualization
...
- 50 GB Disk Space
- 3,000 GB Bandwidth
- 1024 MB RAM
- 2048 MBBurst RAM
- Equal CPU (1 core min.)
Rejected
YardVPS
| Panel | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Purchased a server. Got no email notification that the server was setup. The console was very confusing, booted and got error. Not bothering as the console was not very good. |
...
Web chatted with a customer support rep who was quite knowledgeable. Here are the highlights of the conversation,
| Panel | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||
You can add more bandwidth at $7/mo per 1TB. $.10 per GB if you went over your max. cPanel is the more popular option and is feature rich, but uses more memory than DirectAdmin. DirectAdmin uses less memory, however is slightly harder to navigate through. They generally have the same features however. Can I use directadmin to do a full image backup? Kenneth O [agent] Yes, I believe this is possible - probably on a per account basis It will not do a full VPS image backup But you can use the Quick Backup function which will do this. |
Very negative review - http://www.the-best-web-hosting-service.com/virpus-review.php - Virpus wiped their system no backups, downtime.
Another negative review - http://www.hostcult.com/2010/03/review-virpus-hosting.html - Downtime
Consolidated Reviews of Hosting Sites
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