For this kind of case where the traffic is pretty much predictable, would it be possible to schedule the scaling to accommodate the traffic beforehand, assuming that what you currently have is definitely not going to be enough when high traffic is coming? For instance, would it be possible to have an extra web server set up only during certain time and disable it otherwise?
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smklein
Sure, you could, but this still have problems which are nonexistent while using elastic cloud computing. What if your prediction of traffic is wrong? What will you do with the server when you don't need it? The fixed cost of servers which are only used < 10 % of each year will most likely outweigh the cost of ec2.
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selena731
To summarize the problem, since web traffic to some sites can depend on certain times of the year/month/week,
1) if you try to accommodate the times where the traffic is at its peak, you would face the cost of having those extra servers during times of moderate/normal traffic. Example: extra (physical) storage space + energy costs
but
2) if you try to accommodate the "bare minimum", a.k.a. normal traffic, you would face problems during peak times.
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jhhardin
As @woojoonk says, traffic can be pretty predictable in some cases, but I think @smklein is right in saying that elastic cloud computing is a good solution in terms of cost effectiveness. Still, it seems best to have some physical servers that support traffic at low periods, and then use elastic cloud computing on top of that to overall reduce the cost. For the case with the holiday shopping season, you might even rent servers for just a few weeks each year and that would be the cheapest option. It also might be useful to be able to anticipate very brief spikes that need to be supported, as ec2 instances take a while to become available.
For this kind of case where the traffic is pretty much predictable, would it be possible to schedule the scaling to accommodate the traffic beforehand, assuming that what you currently have is definitely not going to be enough when high traffic is coming? For instance, would it be possible to have an extra web server set up only during certain time and disable it otherwise?
This comment was marked helpful 0 times.
Sure, you could, but this still have problems which are nonexistent while using elastic cloud computing. What if your prediction of traffic is wrong? What will you do with the server when you don't need it? The fixed cost of servers which are only used < 10 % of each year will most likely outweigh the cost of ec2.
This comment was marked helpful 0 times.
To summarize the problem, since web traffic to some sites can depend on certain times of the year/month/week,
1) if you try to accommodate the times where the traffic is at its peak, you would face the cost of having those extra servers during times of moderate/normal traffic. Example: extra (physical) storage space + energy costs
but
2) if you try to accommodate the "bare minimum", a.k.a. normal traffic, you would face problems during peak times.
This comment was marked helpful 1 times.
As @woojoonk says, traffic can be pretty predictable in some cases, but I think @smklein is right in saying that elastic cloud computing is a good solution in terms of cost effectiveness. Still, it seems best to have some physical servers that support traffic at low periods, and then use elastic cloud computing on top of that to overall reduce the cost. For the case with the holiday shopping season, you might even rent servers for just a few weeks each year and that would be the cheapest option. It also might be useful to be able to anticipate very brief spikes that need to be supported, as ec2 instances take a while to become available.
This comment was marked helpful 0 times.