EC2 works for a lot of models, but one that it does not work for is
small traffic apps that need to be available 24/7. If you have a small
instance (AWS term) running full time with a fixed IP, it costs about
$75 a month. If you turn it on for 2 hours a day, it costs about
$15/month. A large instance is about $325.

Now where it gets interesting is if your app needs a large instance,
but only run a few hours a month, you might be able to run a micro
instance that is set to start a large (or ???) instance on demand, and
run the whole thing for peanuts.

Cary

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:10 PM, Roy Tennant <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I'd also be interested in getting some real world cost information. I
> installed an app on EC2 that went mostly unused for a couple months but
> meanwhile racked up over $300 in charges. Color me surprised.
> Roy
>
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:00 PM, David Uspal <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>
>> Erik,
>>
>>   We did a study a few months ago to evaluate the Amazon EC2 as an
>> alternative host to both physical and virtual server spaces managed in
>> house.  Won't go into too much detail on it (unless people are interested),
>> but our benchmark tests showed the performance of the EC2 consistently beat
>> the performance of our in-house servers.
>>   The only big issue we had was cost, where our estimation of the price of
>> running our servers off the EC2 would make actually doing so prohibitive.
>> There were also some confusing fees built in the payment model, the one off
>> the top of my head being "x cents per million I/O operations". As someone
>> who went with the EC2 and is running one currently, could you comment quick
>> on your monthly costs (though I understand though if you don't want to
>> release that information.)  Thanks.
>>
>>
>> David K. Uspal
>> Technology Development Specialist
>> Falvey Memorial Library
>> Phone: 610-519-8954
>> Email: [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
>> Erik Mitchell
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 6:22 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Any libraries have their sites hosted on Amazon
>> EC2?
>>
>> Hi Nate
>>
>> When I was at Wake Forest University we moved a large chunk of our web
>> services to Amazon and it worked out well.  We chose Amazon because at
>> the time they were the clear leader in IaaS stuff but since then a
>> number of providers (Linode and Rackspace are two) have emerged as
>> alternatives.
>>
>> As for why we moved that is a long story :)
>>
>> Erik
>>
>> On Feb 21, 2012, at 10:40 PM, Nate Hill <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> > Apologies for cross-posting.
>> > If yes, I'd love to hear why you chose to and how that is working out for
>> > you.
>> > Thanks!
>> >
>> > --
>> > Nate Hill
>> > [log in to unmask]
>> > http://www.natehill.net
>>



-- 
Cary Gordon
The Cherry Hill Company
http://chillco.com