| Why is cloud hosting so special and is it really more | | | | experienced a 38 hour outage in March. According to |
| reliable? | | | | Datacenter Knowledge, this outage stemmed from a |
| A new buzz word has been floating throughout the | | | | corruption in one of the clusters storage arrays which |
| web hosting industry for a couple of years now. That | | | | lead to a physical crash of another drive in the same |
| buzz word is cloud hosting and it offers great | | | | cluster. This outage forced 3000 clients to be down |
| promise to technology geeks and anyone else who | | | | while data was recovered from these arrays and |
| has been seeking a no downtime solution that is | | | | while data validity was being checked. This brought |
| scalable and cost effective. | | | | even more critics of the cloud concept to the |
| In a nutshell, cloud hosting is extreme virtualization. In | | | | surface with many Media Temple clients starting new |
| virtualization you have a virtual machine like (Xen, | | | | blogs and websites devoted to the incident. In |
| VMWare, Virtuozzo, etc) running on top of your base | | | | addition, other social networking tools such as |
| operating system. This virtual machine interfaces | | | | Twitter, Facebook and MySpace were used as |
| between the physical hardware and operating | | | | venues for people to vent their frustrations. |
| system and the virtual realm. The virtual machine also | | | | There is an old adage that says "the bigger they are |
| interfaces with another piece of software which is | | | | the harder they fall". This is especially true with Cloud |
| usually part of the same distribution as your virtual | | | | hosting providers. In most cases each "cloud" hosts |
| machine for cluster management. From this control | | | | numerous customers who use the resources of |
| panel you configure the total amount of physical | | | | those "clouds" to power hundreds and thousands of |
| resources and then you can partition out the physical | | | | websites many of which are high bandwidth or |
| resources as if they were all part of one physical | | | | extremely busy sites. When clouds go down like in |
| server into different virtual servers. No longer is 1 | | | | the case of a deleted cloud or an extended outage |
| physical server considered 1 physical server. It could | | | | you have many people who are not going to be |
| be 3 different servers all with separate OS's. | | | | happy. One has to really think if this is another case |
| Sound confusing? In someways it really is complex, | | | | of hosts over promising. |
| especially when you get into configuring servers | | | | At the heart of any network setup is the hardware |
| within servers and deploying firewalls which previously | | | | and the hardware will make or break the quality of |
| were only considered physical devices. Cloud | | | | that network. A major problem with some cloud |
| computing forces you to look at everything in a | | | | providers is that they use bargain equipment in order |
| completely new light and gives a lot of flexibility to | | | | to reduce costs. With cloud hosting the concept is |
| developers, content delivery networks, web hosts | | | | that you do not need any multi core multi processor |
| and other industries that have a high demand on | | | | systems since you can simply stack multiple single |
| resources and capacity. | | | | processor machines. However at a very basic |
| Cloud hosting is touted as being less expensive per | | | | component level these individual servers still play a |
| unit, extremely reliable and infinitely scalable. In a | | | | major part in the big picture. |
| cloud hosting environment networks are self healing | | | | Having been in the hosting industry for almost 11 |
| and have built in fail-over. To anyone in the industry | | | | years I have learned that you should invest in your |
| this is the dream of most any provider as second to | | | | hardware. It does the bulk of the work 24 hours a |
| reliability the most important thing is to be able to | | | | day to keep your valuable data online. It is amazing |
| scale and provision new equipment quickly and cost | | | | that in many cases hardware doesn't die faster than |
| effectively. With cloud hosting you can create a | | | | it really does. |
| database server or a web server or firewall without | | | | A network that utilizes single servers that are |
| having to buy specific hardware and can be | | | | configured correctly can in fact be more reliable than |
| provisioned within minutes. | | | | a cloud configuration. We have seen some setups go |
| Some key players within this market segment include | | | | for over 2 years straight with ZERO downtime. |
| Mosso by Rackspace, Media Temple, and Amazon. | | | | Instead of relying on inexpensive hardware, you can |
| There are also several smaller cloud hosting providers | | | | invest in enterprise grade equipment such as chassis |
| that are attempting to make a mark in the industry. | | | | that have redundant cooling fans and power supplies, |
| Some of the larger players like Mosso have bought | | | | utilize SCSI hard drives in RAID configuration, utilize a |
| up smaller virtualization providers in hopes of | | | | high quality backup solution to store data outside of |
| integrating their technology to gain a competitive | | | | the same server, choose higher processor and |
| advantage and offer a unique product to increase | | | | memory amounts based on the quantity of sites you |
| their features and value. | | | | will host that will be custom coded applications, and |
| It can be an exciting time in this industry for those | | | | ensure that they have redundant NIC cards. |
| that are on the ground level of cloud hosting as well | | | | Addressing these few items covers pretty much the |
| as for providers looking to harness this technology to | | | | extent of downtime most hosts experience either |
| propel their own businesses forward. However with | | | | because of hardware failure or server overload. On |
| any new technology there are bound to be bugs and | | | | top of that, for those that really need a fail proof |
| glitches as each company works to refine their | | | | solutions, these servers can then be mirrored or load |
| offerings and their infrastructure. | | | | balanced with additional servers for added |
| Do you want to be the guinea pig in testing this new | | | | redundancy, even across separate data centers. |
| technology especially when you have paying clients | | | | Keep in mind, using premium hardware and even the |
| expecting things such as reliability? Is cloud hosting | | | | best practices of data storage and redundancy, |
| really as reliable as the promise? I would venture to | | | | technology can simply fail. The main point, however, |
| say no to both at this time. | | | | is that cloud hosting promises 0 downtime and great |
| Many of these key players have already experienced | | | | redundancy, so it is even more surprising when I |
| extended outages, some even experiencing data loss. | | | | have seen single server setups be online for 2 years |
| For instance on March 5, 2008 Mosso experienced a | | | | without an outage or reboot, yet see continual |
| loss of a MySQL cluster. It was reported on the blog | | | | outages from cloud configurations which are |
| ElasticVapor that Mosso also experienced 7 outages | | | | supposed to offer no downtime. With all of these |
| in about 8 days back in November 2008. Back in | | | | promises that new technology provides it seems that |
| August of 2008 The Register a UK based blog | | | | it may be better to resort to still using tried and true |
| reported about an engineer at Flexiscale, another | | | | solutions that have proven track records, and not put |
| cloud computing provider, who accidentally deleted an | | | | all your eggs in one virtual basket. |
| entire cloud. Boy did that create some rain. The | | | | If you are still leery about being hosted on a single |
| WHIR reported on Halloween 2008 that Flexiscale | | | | server setup you can always opt for a load balanced |
| had another outage that lasted between 18 and 24 | | | | solution with good hardware that can be setup with |
| hours. The WHIR also relayed a story in January | | | | automatic fail-over. A solution like this is a true high |
| 2009 about SaaS pioneer who uses a cloud based | | | | availability setup, unlike cloud hosting, however this |
| setup for their network experiencing a 40 minute | | | | will not go for $20-$100 a month. I have seen many |
| downtime. Although this outage was only 40 minutes, | | | | such users go to cloud hosting expecting to never |
| that was 40 minutes that SalesForce clients could not | | | | have downtime and save money at the same time |
| access valuable data clients pay to have as part of | | | | and be let down severely, or incur losses with any |
| their CRM software. This event also brought general | | | | outages greater than any savings. |
| criticism of cloud hosting out to the forefront. | | | | In the end being down is still being down regardless |
| Analysts are now questioning the validity, reliability | | | | of the circumstances that lead up to it. However |
| and longevity of this new technology. In fact if you | | | | there is a stark difference between a single hosting |
| do some Google searching you will find many people - | | | | server hosting 100 or so sites going down versus a |
| industry professionals and potential cloud clients - | | | | whole cloud that hosts 1000 sites and applications |
| scratching their heads wanting to see how long cloud | | | | under the premise that unique technology makes |
| hosting will really last. | | | | down time impossible. |
| To add fuel to the fire, Media Temple's Grid-Service | | | | |