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Cloud Servers?
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Cloud Servers?

airwallairwall Member
edited March 2013 in General

Wikipedia didn't explain anything so what's the difference between a cloud server and a regular server?

Comments

  • shovenoseshovenose Member, Host Rep

    cloud server is a VPS with high availability and instsnt scalability.

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    It's a billing model.

    Honestly, that's all it is. Under the covers, AWS is Xen and Azure is...I forget, probably Hyper-V.

    With AWS you can buy by the hour. With a typical VPS provider, you buy by the month.

    Big cloud providers also offer lots of other "big enterprise" features - e.g., SAN snapshots (like S3), load balancers, application cache, georedundant storage, database services, support for BYOL enterprise products, etc.

    That's IaaS (infrastructure as a service). Platform as a Service (non-VM Azure, etc.) or Software as a Service (Salesforce.com) is different.

  • tommytommy Member

    @airwall said: Wikipedia didn't explain anything

    and please write that yourself after doing some research :)

  • RobertClarkeRobertClarke Member, Host Rep

    As people have mentioned already, it just means it's easier to scale, highly available, and has advanced snapshot features, or other things, depending on who you buy from. These days it's confusing the average American though: http://www.webpronews.com/americans-think-cloud-computing-comes-from-actual-clouds-2012-08

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    Depends on who you ask. In the real world it can be as little as a marketing term or as much as a fully redundant setup that isn't particularly machine or location dependent.

    In the end, the word "cloud" is ruined by so much misuse, it becomes extremely difficult for the average person to determine just what the heck someone means when they say "cloud." Real definition of the word is almost irrelevant in the face of so much misuse.

  • Azure is...I forget, probably Hyper-V.

    Amazon's cloud is AWS (Amazon + Web + Services)
    Microsoft's cloud is AMWS (Azure + Microsoft + Windows = Shit)

    what's the difference between a cloud server and a regular server?

    cloud server = high availability, redundancy, something you can count on for your mission critical business websites, apps, infrastructure, and services

    regular server= some idiot babbling about murphy to explain their 24 hours of downtime, something that's good for gameplayers, hobbyists, and abusers but not something you'd want to rely on for your business's websites

    Real definition of the word is almost irrelevant in the face of so much misuse.

    There's a pretty good explanation (and diagram) here http://www.cloudcontrols.org/cloud-standard-information/cloud-definitions/

    Here's a spreadsheet with a list of risks of cloud computing and questions you should ask your cloud provider download link

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @DomainBop said: pretty good explanation

    Problem is that the end user can barely tell what's actually cloud and what is just marketing fluff from the front end. That's what I mean by irrelevant. The word "cloud" can't be trusted to mean what it really means. Unfortunate turn of events for sure, but sadly reality.

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @DomainBop said: Microsoft's cloud is AMWS (Azure + Microsoft + Windows = Shit)

    I wouldn't call Linux VMs shit.

  • prometeusprometeus Member, Host Rep

    @raindog308 said: I wouldn't call Linux VMs shit.

    did you use Azure for some production project? I know several people using amazon services, but none so far using Azure.

  • @airwall said: what's the difference between a cloud server and a regular server

    An avalanche of marketing bullshit.

  • A "regular server" is a physical thing. You can pick it up and hold it in your hands.

    A "cloud server" is virtual, it's not a physical entity.

  • wdqwdq Member
    edited March 2013

    @matt_securedspeed said: A "cloud server" is virtual, it's not a physical entity.

    Unless you go ahead and let's say, pick up a few datacenters.

  • Awmusic12635Awmusic12635 Member, Host Rep

    @prometeus

    Ironically Apple uses Azure partly for iCloud.

  • If everything is virtual, where is the data being stored?

  • @airwall said: If everything is virtual, where is the data being stored?

    Depends on the 'cloud'. OnApp simply utilizes large storage SANs, AppLogic uses local storage for 'storage pools' I believe, where the data is replicated across 'the cloud'.

    If you're browsing WHT and come across some 'cloud' hosting offers, often times it's just some kid with 'CloudLinux' installed thinking his single VPS w/cPanel and CloudLinux is somehow cloud. In that case, run.

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @prometeus said: did you use Azure for some production project? I know several people using amazon services, but none so far using Azure.

    $DAY_JOB we do use it for a variety of things. Not in-house but a lot of partners have apps that run on it, and then to customize them or interact at them at a lower level, we sometimes write Azure code.

    Azure as a PAAS is...interesting. It's a great idea but no one wants to port all their code which is why it never took off.

    As IAAS it's really just more of the same. I can't think of anything that Azure does that AWS doesn't.

    Linux VMs are kind of new - I think they were only released last fall and they're still in "Preview" mode.

    Actually I wrote an article on using Linux VMs on Azure for the February 2013 issue of Linux Journal. Unfortunately you have to be a subscriber to see it and it's not past the lock-up point where I can republish under Creative Commons yet. Long story short, there are still a few rough parts to the templates they use (e.g., swap is configured but not enabled by default, small stuff like that) but otherwise it's very similar to AWS. The Azure portal is beautiful, though I don't know that it really provides anything that the AWS portal doesn't.

    http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/february-2013-issue-linux-journal-system-administration

  • goexodusgoexodus Member
    edited March 2013

    VPS on demand

    A "cloud server" is virtual, it's not a physical entity.

    What are you talking about. Ghost servers ... :)

  • I'm pretty sure most people calling Azure shit have never tried it. The stigmata of 'Everything Microsoft does is shit' is rather mind boggling.

    It's fine for what it is, just like every other IaaS provider anyway.

  • @goexodus said: What are you talking about. Ghost servers ... :)

    Brilliant!

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