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ijuma
30th November 2007, 14:51
Hi,

Flexiscale looks like a great product. I haven't tried it myself yet, but do intend to do so.

As has been said a few times, it side-steps many of the problems of its best-known competitor Amazon EC2/S3 (static IP, reliable storage system, load balancer, etc.).

There are 3 items where things aren't so good:

- CPU. I am aware that a solution for this is in the works. It's still worth mentioning that Amazon's story has been a bit clearer in this respect since the large and extra large instances were launched. They now have the concept of a EC2 Compute Unit (equivalent CPU capacity of a 1.0-1.2 GHz 2007 Opteron or 2007 Xeon processor). For each instance type they specify the number of virtual cores as well as the number of EC2 units for each virtual core. It will be interesting to see how Flexiscale solution compares.

- Pricing. Flexiscale is generally more expensive, but it also provides more. This may or may not be a problem depending on how much CPU power is provided by each instance type. I have yet to test this, so I cannot make a judgment at the moment.

- RAM. Flexiscale provides 4 options: 0.5 GB, 1.0 GB, 1.5 GB, 2.0 GB. This seems quite low when compared to Amazon's 1.7GB, 7.5GB and 15GB. It also seems strange that the maximum is 2GB when DB servers are named as one of the usages where Flexiscale is better than EC2 due to its non-temporal storage system.

Regarding the CPU, I am willing to test the performance of my application as well as wait for Flexiscale's solution for ensuring a minimum cpu level.

It's the RAM aspect that I would like to ask about. Are there any plans to improve things somewhat in this respect? It seems to me that something like 1GB, 1.5GB, 2GB, 4GB would make more sense or perhaps 0.5GB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB. It would also be nice to have a 8GB option (to compete with the 7.5 GB option from Amazon), but 4GB would already be a nice improvement over the current maximum.

Of course, this brings up the question of price. I would hope that the increase would not be linear unless the CPU power is also improved. In fact, this brings up another question, do the different instance types have different levels of CPU power?

Best Regards,
Ismael

james
30th November 2007, 15:59
Hi,

I will pass your comments onto managment to get back to you regarding the future plans for the cpu/ram and pricing models.

Regarding the level of RAM in the server, we have customers testing servers upto 16GB where the operating system supports it, if you wish to be included in this please contact our sales department.

Regards

James

tonylucas
30th November 2007, 16:30
Hi,

Flexiscale looks like a great product. I haven't tried it myself yet, but do intend to do so.

As has been said a few times, it side-steps many of the problems of its best-known competitor Amazon EC2/S3 (static IP, reliable storage system, load balancer, etc.).

There are 3 items where things aren't so good:

- CPU. I am aware that a solution for this is in the works. It's still worth mentioning that Amazon's story has been a bit clearer in this respect since the large and extra large instances were launched. They now have the concept of a EC2 Compute Unit (equivalent CPU capacity of a 1.0-1.2 GHz 2007 Opteron or 2007 Xeon processor). For each instance type they specify the number of virtual cores as well as the number of EC2 units for each virtual core. It will be interesting to see how Flexiscale solution compares.

- Pricing. Flexiscale is generally more expensive, but it also provides more. This may or may not be a problem depending on how much CPU power is provided by each instance type. I have yet to test this, so I cannot make a judgment at the moment.

- RAM. Flexiscale provides 4 options: 0.5 GB, 1.0 GB, 1.5 GB, 2.0 GB. This seems quite low when compared to Amazon's 1.7GB, 7.5GB and 15GB. It also seems strange that the maximum is 2GB when DB servers are named as one of the usages where Flexiscale is better than EC2 due to its non-temporal storage system.

Regarding the CPU, I am willing to test the performance of my application as well as wait for Flexiscale's solution for ensuring a minimum cpu level.

It's the RAM aspect that I would like to ask about. Are there any plans to improve things somewhat in this respect? It seems to me that something like 1GB, 1.5GB, 2GB, 4GB would make more sense or perhaps 0.5GB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB. It would also be nice to have a 8GB option (to compete with the 7.5 GB option from Amazon), but 4GB would already be a nice improvement over the current maximum.

Of course, this brings up the question of price. I would hope that the increase would not be linear unless the CPU power is also improved. In fact, this brings up another question, do the different instance types have different levels of CPU power?

Best Regards,
Ismael

Ismael,

Thanks for your comments, they are appreciated.

As James mentions, we are currently testing a variety of cpu and memory configurations with customers, and if you wish to use more than the 2gb of Ram, please contact your account manager and they would be happy to arrange this for you.

The pricing at the moment scales exactly the same as the current structure, as we do also increase the computing resources available to you as well. We are currently testing a combination of ram and cpu possibilities, as we intend to offer a 'matrix' of configurations in the future (so you can choose the combination you need).

I would expect a typical 2gb virtual server with us to get more CPU resources compared to Amazon, but until we have the statistical data to back that up I'm sure you can understand us not wanting to make false promises.

I look forward to your opinions as you test out the platform and if you have any further questions please let us know.

Regards,

Tony Lucas
Chief Executive Officer

ijuma
2nd December 2007, 15:31
Hi Tony,


As James mentions, we are currently testing a variety of cpu and memory configurations with customers, and if you wish to use more than the 2gb of Ram, please contact your account manager and they would be happy to arrange this for you.


Great, that's useful.


The pricing at the moment scales exactly the same as the current structure, as we do also increase the computing resources available to you as well. We are currently testing a combination of ram and cpu possibilities, as we intend to offer a 'matrix' of configurations in the future (so you can choose the combination you need).


If computing resources are also increased, that makes perfect sense. Also, I am happy to hear that you plan to offer a matrix of configurations. It's always nice to have the flexibility.


I would expect a typical 2gb virtual server with us to get more CPU resources compared to Amazon, but until we have the statistical data to back that up I'm sure you can understand us not wanting to make false promises.


Of course.


I look forward to your opinions as you test out the platform and if you have any further questions please let us know.


Thanks. It all looks very promising. Just need to verify now. :)

Regards,
Ismael