The goal of this article is to guide you through the steps necessary to build a server that can handle considerable volume of traffic as well as deliver content blazingly fast. A few not so obvious pitfalls to encounter on the way will be discussed and illustrated.
Aws Web Server Architecture
Aws Web Server Architecture
The following figure provides another look at that classic web application architecture and how it can leverage the AWS Cloud computing infrastructure.
An example of a web hosting architecture on AWS
- DNS services with Amazon Route 53 – Provides DNS services to simplify domain management.
- Edge caching with Amazon CloudFront – Edge caches high-volume content to decrease the latency to customers.
- Edge security for Amazon CloudFront with AWS WAF – Filters malicious traffic, including cross site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection via customer-defined rules.
- Load balancing with Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) – Enables you to spread load across multiple Availability Zones and AWS Auto Scaling groups for redundancy and decoupling of services.
- DDoS protection with AWS Shield – Safeguards your infrastructure against the most common network and transport layer DDoS attacks automatically.
- Firewalls with security groups – Moves security to the instance to provide a stateful, host-level firewall for both web and application servers.
- Caching with Amazon ElastiCache – Provides caching services with Redis or Memcached to remove load from the app and database, and lower latency for frequent requests.
- Managed database with Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) – Creates a highly available, multi-AZ database architecture with six possible DB engines.
- Static storage and backups with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) – Enables simple HTTP-based object storage for backups and static assets like images and video.
Aws Vs Dedicated Server Cost
How Much Does a Server Cost? You want the best solution for your business, but you’re working within a budget. In short, you need to decide between cloud vs. dedicated server, and you want to ensure you’re making the decision that gets you the best value for your money.
From the perspective of pure operating expenses, the price tag each month on a cloud service is likely to be lower for many use cases, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the cloud is the right fit for your workload.
Evaluating dedicated vs. cloud servers solely on monthly cost alone is a mistake. There are other factors that should shape your decision. There are both hard and soft costs that can impact the total cost of ownership (TCO) and overall client experience.
We can compare dedicated and cloud server pricing through the lens of eight different considerations:
- Server Set-Up Timeline
- Compliance Requirements
- Configuration, Management, and Support Needs
- Workload Input/Output Considerations
- Demand Consistency
- Anticipated Upgrades
- CapEx vs. OpEx Pricing Needs
- Talent-Related Costs
Dedicated vs. Cloud Pricing: How Much Does a Server Cost?
A recent analysis by SherWeb put the average monthly cost of a cloud server at $313.90 vs. a dedicated, on-premises server at $1,476.31. This estimate took into account the technology refresh rate, scaling needs, and the indirect cost of system administration staffing.
While this analysis gives you a ballpark comparison range, you’ll want to make a more detailed estimate based on your organization’s needs.
When deciding whether cloud or dedicated server resources are the best match for your organization, it’s important to consider factors such as timelines, compliance requirements, the consistency of your workload demand, internal staff talent, and more. Read on for insider analysis of the factors that can really impact the cost of data hosting options, and how to tell which is best for you.
1. Server Set-Up Timeline
Cloud resources are best know for their on-demand capabilities. If you need to provision a server within minutes, virtual resources are likely to be your best bet–if you have expert cloud staff in-house.
While a leading data services vendor can provide expedient service to help you meet a fast turn-around for dedicated server setup, there’s almost always a longer timeline associated with this option.
2. Compliance Requirements
Your industry, data, workload, or compliance needs may dictate the adoption of a dedicated server instead of shared cloud resources. Depending on your organization’s regulatory requirements, the costs associated with non-compliance can be immense.
As one example of regulatory risk, the General Data Protection Act took effect in late May 2018. GDPR-impacted organizations found in non-compliance may be subject to penalties “up to €20 million, or 4% of the worldwide annual revenue of the prior financial year”–whichever is higher.
3. Configuration, Management, and Support Needs
Workloads that require constant fine-tuning for continual scaling, provisioning, and frequent management may be better served by cloud resources. In contrast, workloads that are more stable are overall better fits for dedicated servers.
However, these two factors are not absolutes and largely depend on the workload, the expertise of your organization’s information technology and cloud staff, and the responsiveness of your data vendor.
With dedicated servers, organizations are reliant on vendor support to perform management and provisioning updates. With a highly-responsive vendor, these updates can be immediate. If your organization lacks skilled cloud staff in-house, outsourcing your data can provide superior performance, security, and cost optimization to using cloud resources.
With the wrong vendor, you may find your organization waiting at length for necessary updates to server configurations. The key here is carefully vetting prospective business partnerships to ensure you select a data provider who meets your needs and expectations.
4. Workload Input/Output Considerations
For certain types of workloads, such as the high input/output (I/O) workloads associated with large databases, a dedicated server may be the cheaper option. In-depth calculations published on Rackspace demonstrate that heavy utilization costs with a popular cloud host can exceed the costs of dedicated servers over time.
If your organization’s workload is consistently or frequently high-demand, as opposed to occasionally high-demand, it may be cheaper to maintain dedicated servers instead of using cloud resources.
5. Demand Consistency
Around 2010, computer science researchers proposed that the majority of business workloads are candidates for virtualization, or being moved to shared cloud resources because they generally use “fractions of a CPU or a few gigabytes of RAM.”
For the times when workloads hit a peak, virtualized environments enable these organizations to quickly scale up resources as needed. For organizations with consistently high demand, dedicated server capacity is likely the more cost-effective option.
6. Anticipated Upgrades
An additional factor to consider beyond pure cost is the quality of service, and its potential impact on customer satisfaction, availability, business reputation, and related factors. Downtime can have a devastating impact on business productivity and client churn.
If your workload has particular demands on a server, your needs may be best matched with a dedicated server that can be upgraded and configured to meet the needs of high-demand workloads, such as high-volume video streaming or high-traffic websites.
While these upgrades are rarely cheap, you can maintain control and quality by performing upgrades such as increased memory, added network cards, or the addition of non-volatile memory disks.
7. CapEx vs. OpEx Pricing Needs
Cloud servers are billed at a monthly rate, which is largely predictable. This pricing structure is known as an operational expenditure, or OpEx model. Dedicated servers have a significant upfront cost, which is followed by lower monthly costs of maintenance and service. These fit into the category of capital expenditures or CapEx.
While the benefits of CapEx vs. OpEx are rarely enough to sway an organization in one direction when selecting between cloud vs. dedicated servers, it’s one factor to consider.
Organizations may prefer to spread expenses out over time as opposed to initial investments with the OpEx model of the cloud or use the depreciation write-offs associated with a dedicated server. Obviously, if you’re in startup mode, an OpEx model may work best as you are preserving capital for other aspects of your business.
8. Talent-Related Costs
Regardless of whether your organization selects a cloud or dedicated server, you’ll need to create a plan for migration, provisioning, testing, and ongoing maintenance. This will include some reliance on a third-party vendor, to a greater or lesser extent depending on how much virtualization or data talent your organization has in-house. Your ability to optimize by cost here depends on existing talent and vendor relationships.
With either path–cloud or dedicated servers–the wrong vendor partnership can lead to talent and time-related nightmares. Data and cloud talent is short, and hiring expert staff could prove extremely challenging.
If your new vendor’s support isn’t as promised, you may struggle to adjust your workloads to meet needs. In contrast, fully outsourcing your workloads to a dedicated server with a trusted local vendor with an excellent customer service record could ease internal talent woes during a tech talent shortage. The key is being realistic about your internal talent competencies and smart vendor selection processes.