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Install on a cloud?

Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2013 12:56 am
by jim_frey
I can't say enough good things about OpenEMM, and I've had it installed on dedicated machines for many years now. I've been hosting my servers with http://www.serverbeach.com and they are pushing the "cloud" stuff over at https://www.zunicore.com

Has anyone ever installed OpenEmm on this cloud stuff? I've never even tried a cloud account, I'm not exactly sure how it all works (although someone is calling me to explain/sell me next week) Is it a good idea for OpenEMM? I do like the idea of never having to worry about hardware failure.

Re: Install on a cloud?

Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2013 12:30 pm
by Anton
I hope you are getting insanely good service for those prices... But the question, as always with moving to the cloud, is do you need to? What is causing you pain at the moment? Not enough memory? Disks too slow at peak traffic times? Email broadcasting is definitely a 24/7 affair so you will need something that is always up. If you are happy with how things are at the moment then you should think seriously before changing.

You will also want to make sure that you IPs follow you - if you are changing the IPs you are sending from regularly then there will be heaps of extra work making sure you get them warmed up properly and not taking them over from someone who was sending out rubbish. ISPs like stability for everything and unless you know you are in excellent company with your fellow hostees, I'd say you are taking a risk.

Hardware failure is definitely an issue to consider but your backup strategy should take that into consideration. There is also no such thing as 100% reliability - Amazon was kind enough to show us that with a few mass outages over the last couple of years - yes, entire data centres also go down...

Have a look at the prices/service over at OVH http://www.ovh.com/us/dedicated-servers/. They currently have almost everything as "Sold out" because they are far too popular with their own clients (no contracts, so you upgrade to a cheaper/better option whenever you want) and are searching for a better model. They should be back before year's end. They have been around for many years and have over 150k servers running, so you can rely on them. If you can get dedicated servers at those prices, you can just get 3-4 and have hot backups for what you are currently paying!

Re: Install on a cloud?

Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2013 6:25 pm
by jim_frey
Thanks for the tips. I don't have any pain at the moment, but I wear many hats in my small company. I like the idea of being able to leave on vacation for a while and not having to worry about a hardware failure. Not that it happens often, but if the cost is about the same, it's one less thing for me to worry about. Of course I also like the idea of being able to expand easily, as all business owners always hope to do- I've always got my fingers crossed on projects :mrgreen:

I also don't think it'll be cost effective, but I'm curious if anyone has ever even done it? I've got multiple servers doing different things, not all OpenEMM, that this cloud stuff might tie together.