I use Rackspace dedicated server for my site right now… I’m considering moving over to their Cloud Sites in the near future for their instant scalability. Kinda steep though. $150 a month? It is a one button install though.
http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/sites
setting up my first cloud site now… really went together fast. and it comes with ssl and email server already. had a bit of an issue with low timeout settings and low max file settings in php. But over all, really fast and stable.
Nevermind… that ssl cert was $20 a month… geeez
@buddypresslost hi there out of curiosity what about storage space and how is this charged to you via the cloud at rackspace?
This is why i decided to abandon using the cloud and build a good old infastructure of servers, let me give you an example, what if your website is intended to be media rich with allowing posting of mp3s and video etc via plugins such as rtmedia = only as an example) how would you cope with the cost of having a never ending and expanding media library via the cloud?
To me this is the biggest downfall the cost of storage in the cloud if users post lots and lots of media, i know its arguable about dedicated server costs each time you add another medi server but in this respect you can add tons and tons of storage to them alot cheaper (as long as you have them in a decent raid setup for backup purposes and failure), also you know the exact cost of adding extra hardware each time you do and you would only do it when its sustainable to do so.
This is why i asked the question here, i am trying to get a few opinions in on the matter, i mean how would You cope with a media rich websites storage space when you cannot determine via the cloud just how much it will cost each month if your userbase grows and grows all posting media? it has to be stored somewhere.
Anyone else got any advice on this before i commit to my next step?
P.S can i please ask people who read this to forget about bandwidth use and traffic as a whole for the time being and help me concentrate on the media storage solution in terms of growth as a kind of what if situation? thx for any opinions in advance
Oh and to explain a little more to the people who are actively using media rich plugins within their buddypress sites they have just setup, ask yourself what will you do when you have no space left for users to upload files to? how will you tackle the situation? will you resort to deleting all your members previously posted media because no-one can post any more and your server crawls to a halt? or will you then take action by putting your site in the cloud and then face the way overpriced storage solutions offered by the cloud? and what if your site is not making enough to pay for the masses of media users are posting? without an advance solution this seems like alot of websites that allow media posting are setup to fail.
Hope you guys are starting to understand why this question was asked now 🙂
I’m actually planning on a lot of media too… and it worries me. there’s noroof on it… Google, Facebook, they have massive datacenters all over the world to host that stuff… And so does Rackspace. The time it takes me to personally run my dedicated servers vs the time to run these cloud sites? lots of time saving…
If you’re using rtmedia you’re still paying for bandwidth. Plus don’t forget about energy, you have to pay to cool and run all those systems, and you’ll need to be able to handle demand. what if 10,000 people want a video at one time? what about 200,000?
Now if you’re not going to be huge? but you’re going to have a lot of media? then I say it’s a better idea…. because it will be sitting most of the time.
For my site, I’m thinking of charging to host video and giving embed away for free. Youtube has tons of servers and will pay you for views. Imagine turning all your videos into youtubes and then playing them through embedding on your site.
I would suggest going slow… host yourself. buy a server. see how it goes. then start adding more. How many visitors do you have now?
Here’s those prices you asked about.
Host unlimited domains on a single account for $10.00 per.
Sub accounts that they have built in billing so you can be a host.
Get 50GB of storage, 500GB of bandwidth, and 10,000 compute cycles for $150/month.
$2/GB for storage and 18¢/GB for bandwidth as you go over.
$5 for every hundred megs of Mysql.
My site is really geared toward promising never to delete anyone or anything (within reason)… so it’s a big worry for me.
@buddypresslost i really appreciate the input your giving, the reason i said forget bandwidth for now is because the bandwidth fees can be set as a set price per month if you negotiate with the isp and give yourself plenty of room for excessive traffic spikes, the concern for me really is all about the storage and handling of the media itself.
I will figure this out! haha, and i plan on creating a very good safety net for growth before i launch, the charging for media uploads is a good way of bringing the income in like you said , but are people willing to pay for uploading when lots of sites don’t charge, im not 100 percent convinced on this yet.
I allready have a dedicated quad core zeon server with 32gb ddr3 ram and 4tb hardrives in raid, but this is why im thinking of getting 2 more and using 1 for load balancing, and one for a database server at first then i would plan on having 2 custom servers built just for media in a raid configuration, this would allow me to add another 20tb storage space cheaper than the cloud.
I am trying to figure out this exact configuration yet but im now also questioning the cloud root before i commit to these purchases and task of setting all this up!
right now I would say you’re very cost effective on size vs cost. And I agree people don’t want to pay for anything… much less something so simple as a video of their own that they’re going to give to you.
then think about the viewing of videos… how many go viral? not many percentage wise. So like you said, storage is most important for 90% of the media.
At rackspaces prices you’d be paying $2000 per month for the storage you have now.
2k per month for the server disk space i already have? See that’s what i was getting at about truly sustainable expansion environment in the cloud will cost an immense amount of money if your website went viral. i do realize if it did go viral you would someway or other have to be bringing in the income to cover costs from it too, but why pay 5x 10x 20x more for storage in the cloud for a media rich website.
Damn for 2k a month i can easy double the specs i gave you above!
This is why i believe although the cloud is great, it just cannot compete with you having properly configured hardware for your needs in the terms of space needed, although it can give you as much storage space/cpu/ram as you need on the fly, how much is someone willing to pay?
The cloud is perfect for websites that delete media when not needed etc or for websites that concentrate on traffic alone without serving any kind of files etc. What would happen if you had a website that suddenly went crazy and you got 50x more traffic than any month previous and they all joined and uploaded media and you get landed with a bill you cannot afford?
I may have mentioned it earlier, but also tech support told me today that it’s a shared IP… I don’t think Google likes shared IP’s with thousands of crappy websites on them.
@buddypresslost hmm, id always rather have my own dedicated ip address, so whats your verdict so far after using the cloud for a day? do you think it will be the correct route for yourself?
I think im definitely sticking to the route i mentioned tbh, i would love for you to keep me updated on your progress with your venture to see if it works out good for you using a media rich site in the cloud, have you already got a strong user base for your site or is it a new venture?
Maybe in a few months time of us both running these very different setups we could compare the pros and cons, When i have finally got this all setup and working as i intend i might even post an how to for reference, showing what steps i took to configure it all, I have done weeks worth of reading and watched hours upon hours of videos now about how to set wordpress up to be scalable via the combining of servers route, that and my knowledge about server administration in general should help me achieve this kind of setup, I feel i have got my head around most of the steps needed to achieve this kind of setup now, No doubt i will run into a few hiccups and problems at first but i’m willing to put the time into it.
well i think i just lost a ton of writing… I’m not writing it again. bbPress needs autosave draft like phpBB.
Short and sweet, I will keep up with you on our growth or lack of and how our systems handle it. I prolly won’t stay with cloud and what do you think of these?
VideoRobot
VideoPress
MediaPress
Im a big fan of buddydevs work and think he has some really good plugins, and i have no doubt that mediapress will be an amazing plugin once out of beta stages, there are a good few issues that still need addressing and i just hope brajesh doesn’t get sidetracked because he has so many plugins to try and keep on top of that he often does, I think once he fixes the lightbox issues ive already pointed out to him then it will be useable, it is alot lighter than rtmedias plugin thats for sure!
videopress looks interesting ive seen it before but havent tried it yet, and im not sure about the one on codecanyon at all.
