Category: AWS

Linux vs. Windows and AWS vs. Windows Azure Questions

Windows Azure & Amazon Web Services
Windows Azure & Amazon Web Services

A few weeks ago I blogged about sputtering Windows Instances (not just Windows Azure). I’ve since expanded my query and research to http://www.serverfault.com and http://www.stackoverflow.com to see if I can dig up more information and others’ prospectively experiencing the same issues.  I’d really love to find some solutions, which currently don’t seem to exist.

Linux vs. Windows
Linux vs. Windows

My serverfault question is “Linux & Windows Boot Up Times in Amazon Web Services and Windows Azure“.  (yes I know, horribly phrased question, I’ll do better next time)

My stackoverflow question is “Deploying Projects on EC2 vs. Windows Azure“.

Please feel to leave a comment or two here, or on either of the questions.  I’d love to get more hard facts about how exactly Windows boots in these environments.  Especially how Windows boots versus Linux, because it seems Linux performs about 10x better than Windows in this regard.

#wp7/#wp7dev + Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Windows Azure

I got to mess around with the Windows Phone 7 SDK finally over the last few weeks (Twitter hashtags #wp7 and #wp7dev).  The first few things I noticed was that there are a lot of missing parts to it.  Namely the calendar control I fussed about well over a month ago in Windows Phone 7 Calendar Control.  Even with the missing elements I kept wondering what I could build that would be useful and might be a good open source project?  I finally stumbled on the idea that I’d roll a few of my points of study together into one;  Windows Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Windows Phone 7.  With that stumbling notion I navigated straight over to Codeplex and rolled a new project!

With that written, I hope I can get some of you cloud afficionados and gurus to put in a few hours a month to help build a rockin’ open source mobile admin app!  If you’re interested please e-mail and I’ll get you setup on the project ASAP!  🙂

Here are my first few user stories just to get things started.  If you think of other functionality, please feel free to add that to the comments below or to the tracking section on the Codeplex Project.

http://wp7cloudadmin.codeplex.com/

Sputtering Windows Instances

I had a concern about Windows OS being used for cloud computing.  The instances in Windows Azure take a significant amount of time to boot up.  In Amazon Web Services the Windows EC2 Instances also take a long time to boot up.  Compared to Linux, Windows takes 2-4x longer to spool up in the cloud.  (Compare a boot time of about ~1 minute for Linux in EC2 vs 8-15 minutes for Windows)

Before today, this just seemed like it might be a problem I was experiencing.  I tend to believe I’m doing something wrong before I go on the warpath, but today that concern that I’d done something wrong has ended.  RightScale posted a blog entry about the difficulties of Windows in EC2.  They’re seeing the same issues I was.

Another issue that they noticed, which I too noticed, was the issues around the clocks being off.  This is a similar problem to Windows being used with VMWare and setting up images.  The clock just doesn’t ync the first time, or subsequent times.  Usually a few manual attempts need to be made.

In another entry I caught another list of issues with Windows that Linux just doesn’t have.  None of these are work stoppage issues, but they are all very annoying and would push one toward using Linux instead if at all possible.

Putting Windows Azure and Amazon Web Services EC2 side by side Network World has found them to be on a collision course.

Boiling it Down, Where Does Windows Stand?

After some serious analysis by individuals of Windows running in Cloud Environments it appears that Windows just isn’t as suited to running in virtualized environments as Linux.  A number of friends have pointed out to me how much friendlier Linux is in virtualized spaces such as VMWare’s ESX Environment.

Also based on hard analysis of VMWare versus Hyper-V, the later doesn’t appear to be as sophisticated or capable of virtualized hosting.  Is this going to cause a price point issue for Windows Azure versus AWS EC2?  Just from the perspective of requiring more hardware for Hyper-V Virtualization versus VMWare & Amazon’s AMI Virtualization it makes me ponder if this could be a major competitive advantage for Linux based clouds.  Already there is the licensing price points, so how does MS own up to that?

I would be curious to see what others have experienced.  Have you seen virtualized differences that cause issues hosting Linux vs. Windows in VMWare, Hyper-V, or AWS?  Do you foresee any other problems that could become big problems?

AWS, WordPress, Windows Azure, Clouds, and More… (UPDATED)

A few weeks ago I published a comparison between hosting a WordPress Blog in Windows Azure vs. Amazon Web Services (AWS).  A major new feature at AWS has made the price shift even FURTHER into the Amazon’s Favor.  The release of micro-instances now makes it even cheaper, even on a pay as  you go setup.

The basic price difference is now about $100+ a month on Windows Azure and about $5-10 a month on AWS.  If you’re as wowed by getting the awesomeness that is cloud computing featuresets and technology as I am for a measly $5-10 a month go check it out yourself.

Amazon Release Micro-Instances

AWS, WordPress, Windows Azure, Clouds, and More…

I’ve been looking into getting a blog, specifically WordPress, into the cloud.  Of course the first two I take a look at are Windows Azure and AWS.  This is what I’ve found so far.

Windows Azure

Windows Azure is easy enough, sort of, but distinctly limits the control and abilities of the actual blog.  This is primarily because of the way one has to host a blog, and the software just isn’t really built to take advantage of the platform specifically.  In other words, WordPress isn’t really built around horizontal scalability.  Also one has to run WordPress in a CGI Instance, not exactly ideal either.  It works, and really does work well, but there are just options that aren’t available in this situation.

The other issue is that a single running CGI Role is going to run you around $100 bucks a month.  I’ve checked and if you push off the entries into a Windows Azure Table Storage area, that’ll easily break past that $100 bucks into the $110-200 range or higher.  It all really depends on how many transactions and views your site is getting.  If you really necessitate Table Storage vs. a traditional relational data store for your blog, I seriously doubt a couple hundred bucks will be an issue.  In all reality, if you’re using the Table Storage you most likely should be in the traffic range that would run you about $1000 bucks a month or more, in each geographic area.

Amazon Web Services

AWS is however a different beast altogether.  First, running an EC2 instance you can get everything running that you need.  The data store for the entries and also gain access to a level that allows you to add plugins and all the other features of WordPress.

The pricing on Amazon gets a lot better too.  One can get the reserved instance for $350 bucks a year (or $227.50 for Linux/UNIX).  That enables one to install WordPress with total control for about $30 bucks a month.  Considering the redundancy, uptime, and general availability and performance of the cloud that is a really decent price.  Even if one gets some heavy bandwidth usage, the cost for that shouldn’t go above a few dollars.

Summary

At this time, if you want some cloud computing power behind your blog, AWS is the clear winner in price and performance!

A few reference links: