[olug] Amazon EC2

[T. J. Brumfield]

Is anyone on the list using Amazon EC2?

Do you basically get a virtual server of the OS you choose (it looks like my
Linux OS options are SUSE or Red Hat)? If so, do you have full root access
to install whatever you want?

Since there is auto-scaling, does it make sense to pre-pay for any tier
beyond the lowest? Do the listed prices include bandwidth? That wasn't
clear.

When you sign a contract and reserve a spot for a year, you get a massive
discount, but I also see that "spot" hosting is even cheaper. That price
isn't guaranteed to stay that low, but basically you're bidding on unused
resources. But if that is cheaper than the reserved price, and there is no
contract, why wouldn't you want to use that?

What are the best alternatives? Linode says you can have a bandwidth
overage, but I'm worried about massive sudden spikes where I have a
dedicated VM with only 512 MB of RAM and the site just going down. Amazon
EC2 promises to keep the site up and does the auto-scaling.

-- T. J. Brumfield
"I'm questioning my education
Rewind and what does it show?
Could be, the truth it becomes you
I'm a seed, wondering why it grows"
-- Pearl Jam, Education