Pie In The Sky - Comparing Current Offerings
February 21, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Comparing Current Offerings
Amazon:
- Very Inexpensive (+1)
- Very powerful (+1)
- Recently had its first major downtime event (-1)
- Very flexible in terms of OS, applications, etc (+1)
- S3 storage service provides a good platform for archive storage (+1)
- Bring your own Machine Image is a good thing, use what you’re familiar with (+1)
- You cannot upload and download files using FTP/SFTP as with standard web hosts (-1)
- You’re probably going to need an outside management firm unless you’ve got a very smart admin on staff already. (-1)
Score: B, the biggest loss here is the usability factor, it’s not usable for your everyday web hosting needs. If there were a control-panel and management provided by Amazon this would be an A.
Mosso’s Hosting Cloud:
- Higher starting price point (-1)
- Very fair overage fees (+1)
- Multiple smallish downtime incidents have been reported (-1)
- Being a startup, they’ve got heart (+1)
- Usability is high with their easy to use control panel (+1)
- They haven’t been able to truly solve RoR scaleability (null)
- Reseller friendly, if you have an account you can sublease your resources to friends and clients very easily, including billing (+1)
Score: A-, Mosso has gotten closer than anyone else to being what I would consider a true cloud computing provider. The get bonus point for being usable and for being around more than a year or two. I hope they can implement a plan with a lower starting price point, and someone has to figure out RoR, hopefully it’ll be these guys.
MediaTemple:
- Low starting price point (+1)
- High overage fees (-1)
- Recent significant downtime, both scheduled and unscheduled (-1)
- “Container” technology and usage is effective, and usually efficient (+1)
- Beta (cs) Cluster Server is in the works that promises to ‘fix’ many of the problems with the current (gs) Grid Server (+1).
Score: B, MediaTemple is attacking the lower end of the clustered server hosting arena and are doing a good job of it too. Much of their early success is attributed to being featured on the popular TechCrunch site right after launch. MediaTemple is where my own sites are currently hosted and I’m very happy with them.
Others:
There are other cloud and utility computing providers out there, see Monday’s post for more information but I do not have direct contact or experience with them like I do the above providers. I encourage you to take a look at the others in the field, which are mostly on the enterprise (higher) level than any of my current projects.
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Pie In The Sky is a weeklong blog series by Jonathan Coffman - Convergence Journalism Specialist and New-Media Evangelist examining the state of the web hosting business and the potential for cloud computing. Visit Jonathan’s blog all week for expert commentary, insight, and vision.
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An Outline of How Cloud Computing Should Work
February 12, 2008 by Jonathan · 2 Comments
I do a lot of investigating and research on web hosting, it’s always been a business that interests me and the economics of the industry are very dynamic as well. Let’s just say that the entrepreneur in me has been ‘planning’ the best web host out there and you know what, it’s all about cloud computing now, we need ubiquitous web application servers now.
So here’s what I think the ideal cloud computing web host looks like:
- Large amount of on-demand storage, I’d like to not only host my files and my web sites and applications, but also keep backups of my personal files in the pie in the sky. I do want to pay for that space, I know that unlimited storage is certainly not unlimited, the market says that just cannot be so.
- Fast, speed is really what counts here. I need to be able to tell that my site is up, running, and extremely fast. A lot of this is up to me to develop sites that are light weight and use resources efficiently…. but let’s just check and double check that the hardware and pipes connected to that hardware isn’t what’s slowing the web down.
- Standards Based, I’m not saying software should be free, but the ability of open source software to evolve and change, and be enhanced is just too powerful to ignore.
- Easy to use control panel. I currently use several Media Temple servers to host various web projects and am very happy with them. One the reasons for that is that their control panel is very easy to use yet provides enough control to keep experienced developers happy.
- Transfers to and from the service need to be simplified. This is where Amazon has lost out, they only support a limited number of transfer methods. For cloud computing to truly catch on and be powerful enough for us all to tap into it needs to operate like a ‘normal’ web host or server does. Simple FTP, SFTP, and SSH access is a necessity. Without that, you loose the ability to signup young, inexperienced developers, and you loose the ability for peaceful migrations from other platforms.
I believe that these things are possible, and the technology is largely here already (look at the major Content Delivery Networks). And the final thing that needs to be worked out for cloud computer? The Pricing. It’s an entirely new way to bill and invoice customers, only charging for what they need.
However, I would also offer standard plans similar to what we have in the industry now. You get X amount of space and X amount of cpu time for $Y per month. There is definitely something to say about knowing exactly what you’re going to pay each month for hosting.
Coda for Coding
February 1, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
We’ve decided to all use Panic software’s Coda to do a lot of the hand work that will go into design and code for the foundation of Contributr. It’s a very cool application that has the power of Transmit (the best Mac FTP program out there!) with code finishing, error checking, and lots of other cool features.It’s changed my code workflow in last month or so that I’ve had it on my machine and now the whole development team
Coda for Coding
November 29, 2007 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
We’ve decided to all use Panic software’s Coda to do a lot of the hand work that will go into design and code for the foundation of Contributr. It’s a very cool application that has the power of Transmit (the best Mac FTP program out there!) with code finishing, error checking, and lots of other cool features.
It’s changed my code workflow in last month or so that I’ve had it on my machine and now the whole development team has a copy!
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2007-11-13
November 13, 2007 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
- Troubleshooting Coda with the Panic people, I think we’re back on track, Coda is the BEST ftp+ app around #
- At a late-night meeting of the minds #
- Overheard @jenleereeves people who have real computers, refresh your screen #
- Updating my iPhone to 1.1.2, so far so good #
- Morning Twitterville! #
- When building a web application, does the technology and framework come first or the design of the UI? #
- @deanpence I don’t think I’ve encountered that one yet, but it’s always syncing goofy because of my iPhone checking all the time too #
- @TVMediaAG taco salad day pretty exciting I take it? #
- @guykawasaki hmm, I having a hard time justifying your 3 vans as cool! #
- Congrats @garyvee! although they should really be linking out to those sites. #
- Check this site out, very cool: Thanks @JustinKownacki https://www.thepoint.com/ #
- @deanpence, that’s a good thing, Mail does insist on downloading all the spam and ‘all mail’ folders, I keep manually stopping it #
- Reading about the cultural and legal ramifications of contraception in colonial America, not very exciting yet. #
- @chrisbrogan, very good post, and the ubiquity of @garyvee serves him well, he’s extremely approachable and accessable #
- What has caused Wrestling Entertainment to loose numbers recently? New-media? other social methods? #
- What are your personal favorite ways to self-market? Are they effective for you? #
- Contemplating organizing an unconference #
- Checking Email/Twitter/Blogs then scheming on a new project #
- Eric Schmidt’s Serenity Prayer: http://tinyurl.com/2bftq6 #
Coda - Holy Coderz PHP Man!
September 12, 2007 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Coda is a new application from Panic (the fabulous people behind such Mac OSX programs like Transmit, the best FTP app out there!).I first heard about Coda from Mike Chambers one of the people behind and in front of Adobe AIR in the Adobe Labs. He highly recommends Coda, and he doesn’t recommend very many apps. Neither do I for that matter, I happily use my education discount whenever I can but rarely do I invest in commercial software unless key technology players endorse it.This seems slightly counter-intuitive to my gadget and web nerd persona, but alas budgetary constraints keep my software library slim. Coda however, has just been moved to the top of my wishlist.I’m a huge fan of Transmit, it does everything a web developer needs in terms of FTP access. I manage a large number of web sites and Transmit handles all of my transfer needs with ease. I have a feeling that Coda follows closely in Transmit’s footsteps.Apparently, Coda is a dream come true, it offers CSS stylesheet design, code color-coding, troubleshooting and bugfinding, FTP services, and oh so much more.If there is a kind reader out there I’d love to get my hands on Coda, and if you have the means, I’d surely appreciate a donation to cover the cost!
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