tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773144963927368838.post4694913397457292997..comments2022-11-06T20:45:13.094-08:00Comments on hackerdashery: Scaling at 2am with EC2Steven Hazelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16132606068051543995noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773144963927368838.post-86823153332694675162010-01-18T10:50:02.579-08:002010-01-18T10:50:02.579-08:00Any creative idea how do you scale down if there i...Any creative idea how do you scale down if there is existing data on that instance?trungsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17137296207331662047noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773144963927368838.post-13959786730851763292008-03-10T07:11:00.000-07:002008-03-10T07:11:00.000-07:001000x traffic sounds impressive but as you said it...1000x traffic sounds impressive but as you said it was still a modest amount in total. I'd be curious to hear what that number was.<BR/><BR/>I think EC2 is vastly over-rated, because people are simply used to bloated shared server environments with 1,000 other customers on the same machine. You get yourself a dedicated server and it can handle a lot more than you would expect. I have a $1500 server that handles almost 10 million hits per day to Apache/PHP. <BR/><BR/>I don't need no stinking EC2 :PHappy Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13931874524315310265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773144963927368838.post-30618727127491735542008-03-08T23:41:00.000-08:002008-03-08T23:41:00.000-08:00If you can use a fraction of a machine-month, can ...If you can use a fraction of a machine-month, can you use 10% of a machine for a month?<BR/><BR/>I was under the impression that EC2 billed for whole machine-months or fraction thereof.<BR/><BR/>Can I run a teeny app for a teeny price on 1% of a machine for a month and pay 1% of the monthly price?<BR/><BR/>This would be nice for testing and staging. Also demos.Your Correspondent https://www.blogger.com/profile/17440467058108985654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773144963927368838.post-16477609239056066462008-03-08T13:23:00.000-08:002008-03-08T13:23:00.000-08:00Todd:I'm using all small instances, which cost $0....Todd:<BR/><BR/>I'm using all small instances, which cost $0.10/hr (plus bandwidth). The time I spent with 10 instances running probably cost me between $25 and $50.Steven Hazelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16132606068051543995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773144963927368838.post-45593888603972368982008-03-08T13:12:00.000-08:002008-03-08T13:12:00.000-08:00Thorsten:Do you have a source on that 3x-10x range...Thorsten:<BR/><BR/>Do you have a source on that 3x-10x range for variance? That's good info. In conversation about this entry last night, the point came up that diurnal cycles should have lower amplitude for sites with a more international user base, since their users aren't all sleeping at the same time. But only down to a certain level, because of the effect of the size of the Pacific Ocean!<BR/><BR/>The load-based rules that both you and toons allude to are of course what I'm planning to implement.Steven Hazelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16132606068051543995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773144963927368838.post-42930708995711791892008-03-08T13:03:00.000-08:002008-03-08T13:03:00.000-08:00I was wondering if you had a number on the cost of...I was wondering if you had a number on the cost of spinning up all those instances?Todd Hoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01729396972174536460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773144963927368838.post-65383431469886348592008-03-08T07:55:00.000-08:002008-03-08T07:55:00.000-08:00Very cool post Steven, and congrats for surviving ...Very cool post Steven, and congrats for surviving the traffic onslaught! Scripting the whole boot process through getting the app running and tied into the deployment is definitely the way to go. As toons mentioned (thanks), <A HREF="http://www.rightscale.com" REL="nofollow">RightScale</A> is all about making this easier through a web dashboard and extensive scripting and server template support. And most of it is actually free...<BR/><BR/>Regarding your question about scaling up and down with load: almost all web sites have a 3x-10x variance between peaks and troughs. But you need enough traffic to require more than 1-2 machines at peak, else there's not much to scale down. Looking at your use-case, the way we'd implement it in RightScale is by controlling the scaling from the monitoring data. We'd write a rule that says "if >50% of your execution servers have >50% cpu busy time, then launch 2 additional execution servers". A similar rule can be used to prune the number of servers when they become mostly idle. This could definitely save you a pile of money.Thorsten von Eickenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15032395730075455179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773144963927368838.post-77960714631504860612008-03-08T06:59:00.000-08:002008-03-08T06:59:00.000-08:00As soon as a site becomes big enough to run across...As soon as a site becomes big enough to run across more than one instance (which isn't really *that* much), this can definately bring benefits if you have a flexible system for adding and removing servers.<BR/><BR/>Nobody's quite got automating it right just yet (RightScale is doing interesting things with EC2 in that respect), and we (at FlexiScale) are planning on releasing this functionality for our own platform later this year.<BR/><BR/>It can however be done relatively easily on an individual basis if you have taken scaling into account in your application, by setting up something simple to watch the load on the servers and use the relevant API to launch or shutdown servers.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08052862503569064994noreply@blogger.com