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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Credit card is billed yearly. (I forget which month though...)
On the 11th of Jan every year, apparently. I just received this year's
invoice. ;-)
I wonder if Amazon works out any cheaper...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I wonder if Amazon works out any cheaper...
It's pretty easy to calculate. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
There aren't any trees on Mars.
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Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> I wonder if Amazon works out any cheaper...
>
> It's pretty easy to calculate. :-)
It is??
I'm still trying to figure out the price structure for EC2. I mean, do
they bill you for how many hours an instance runs for? Or just how many
hours of CPU time it uses? If you get a 4-CPU instance, do they bill you
4x that?
On top of that, how much CPU time does each call to Apache actually use?
I also need to know how many hits I get in a year to compute how much a
year will cost me. Only them will I be in a position to figure out if
it's actually any cheaper.
Currently I'm wondering if EC2 would be any cheaper/faster for running
POV-Ray. But I suspect the answer is going to be "no"...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> It is??
Yep.
> I'm still trying to figure out the price structure for EC2. I mean, do
> they bill you for how many hours an instance runs for?
Yes.
> Or just how many hours of CPU time it uses?
No. Altho that would be pretty cool. :-)
> If you get a 4-CPU instance, do they bill you 4x that?
They have different per-hour prices for different capability machines. Along
with different CPUs, they have different amounts of disk and memory
available. But the price list is right there. It's per wall-clock hour,
rounded up, and counting the time it takes to boot.
> On top of that, how much CPU time does each call to Apache actually use?
Irrelevant, since it's not billed by CPU time. You'd have to guestimate your
I/O bandwidth, tho, yes.
> I also need to know how many hits I get in a year to compute how much a
> year will cost me. Only them will I be in a position to figure out if
> it's actually any cheaper.
I was assuming you had a handle on this. :-)
> Currently I'm wondering if EC2 would be any cheaper/faster for running
> POV-Ray. But I suspect the answer is going to be "no"...
Cheaper / Faster than what? Do a trial trace and see how long it takes on
your current setup and on one of Amazon's. I've noticed it can fluctuate a
bit over time, maybe 10% up and down, presumedly as other users on the
machine use some capacity, but it's pretty minor.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
There aren't any trees on Mars.
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>> I'm still trying to figure out the price structure for EC2. I mean, do
>> they bill you for how many hours an instance runs for?
>
> Yes.
>
>> Or just how many hours of CPU time it uses?
>
> No. Altho that would be pretty cool. :-)
Right. So if you turn on an instance and it doesn't do anything, it will
still cost you hundreds of dollars per month?
Hmm... My interest in this whole idea just evapourated. :-}
>> I also need to know how many hits I get in a year to compute how much
>> a year will cost me. Only them will I be in a position to figure out
>> if it's actually any cheaper.
>
> I was assuming you had a handle on this. :-)
Nope. I guess I might be able to get some useful statistics out of the
management system, but don't hold your breath.
>> Currently I'm wondering if EC2 would be any cheaper/faster for running
>> POV-Ray. But I suspect the answer is going to be "no"...
>
> Cheaper / Faster than what? Do a trial trace and see how long it takes
> on your current setup and on one of Amazon's. I've noticed it can
> fluctuate a bit over time, maybe 10% up and down, presumedly as other
> users on the machine use some capacity, but it's pretty minor.
Faster than my current dual-core AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ 2.2 GHz with
brass knobs on. Cheaper than, say, hiring an ordinary virtual server
from somebody, or just buying a faster PC.
The advantage of a virtual machine, of course, is that it can run overnight.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Right. So if you turn on an instance and it doesn't do anything, it will
> still cost you hundreds of dollars per month?
72 dollars a month, roughly. Why would you turn it on and not have it do
something? The point of being able to turn it on and off is to run it only
when you have something for it to do.
If you want to serve static web pages, use S3, not EC2.
> Faster than my current dual-core AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ 2.2 GHz with
> brass knobs on.
No. Probably slower than that at the low end, potentially faster than that
at the high end. ("Low end" being the $0.10/hour and high end being
$0.80/hour.)
On the other hand, you can turn it on, run it for three hours to do the
render, and turn it off again.
> The advantage of a virtual machine, of course, is that it can run
> overnight.
Yep. And turn off when it's done. Just remember to save the output.
I have code for managing all this I haven't packaged up elegantly, but
that's what it's intended for.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
There aren't any trees on Mars.
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>> Right. So if you turn on an instance and it doesn't do anything, it
>> will still cost you hundreds of dollars per month?
>
> 72 dollars a month, roughly. Why would you turn it on and not have it
> do something? The point of being able to turn it on and off is to run
> it only when you have something for it to do.
If you want to use it just for yourself, sure. If you want it to provide
a service to other people... well, no way to know when those service
requests will arrive, eh?
> If you want to serve static web pages, use S3, not EC2.
S3 only stores data. There's no way of accessing it from the outside
world again. (As far as I can tell.)
I'd actually like to run custom CGI. But paying 72$/month for a server
that gets maybe 4 hits per month seems... excessive.
>> Faster than my current dual-core AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ 2.2 GHz with
>> brass knobs on.
>
> No. Probably slower than that at the low end, potentially faster than
> that at the high end. ("Low end" being the $0.10/hour and high end being
> $0.80/hour.)
>
> On the other hand, you can turn it on, run it for three hours to do the
> render, and turn it off again.
Three hours does not concern me. I have an animation running that's
likely to take about a week to render. But it'll take way longer if I
can only have the machine turned on for a few hours a day. (Especially
since POV-Ray takes about 30 minutes JUST TO FIGURE OUT WHERE IT LEFT OFF!!)
>> The advantage of a virtual machine, of course, is that it can run
>> overnight.
>
> Yep. And turn off when it's done. Just remember to save the output.
>
> I have code for managing all this I haven't packaged up elegantly, but
> that's what it's intended for.
Looks like you'd need to script it to run POV-Ray, run VirtualDub,
somehow copy the data to S3, and then automatically shut down ASAP
before you go bankrupt!
The more I look at this, the more infeasible it looks.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> If you want to use it just for yourself, sure. If you want it to provide
> a service to other people... well, no way to know when those service
> requests will arrive, eh?
Sure. Then it's doing something.
>> If you want to serve static web pages, use S3, not EC2.
>
> S3 only stores data. There's no way of accessing it from the outside
> world again. (As far as I can tell.)
It serves any file there via HTTP, with a URL like
http://s3.amazon.com/mybucket/myfile.zip
or some such.
> I'd actually like to run custom CGI. But paying 72$/month for a server
> that gets maybe 4 hits per month seems... excessive.
There is that. What CGI is this?
> Three hours does not concern me. I have an animation running that's
> likely to take about a week to render. But it'll take way longer if I
> can only have the machine turned on for a few hours a day. (Especially
> since POV-Ray takes about 30 minutes JUST TO FIGURE OUT WHERE IT LEFT
> OFF!!)
That's a pretty good use of it.
> Looks like you'd need to script it to run POV-Ray, run VirtualDub,
> somehow copy the data to S3, and then automatically shut down ASAP
> before you go bankrupt!
Not sure what the virtualdub part involves, but you can log in remotely, you
know. Posting the stuff up to S3 isn't hard either. I can give you a script
that pushes a directory up to S3 if you want, too.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
There aren't any trees on Mars.
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>> If you want to use it just for yourself, sure. If you want it to
>> provide a service to other people... well, no way to know when those
>> service requests will arrive, eh?
>
> Sure. Then it's doing something.
Perhaps you're missing my point. I get charged for running the server
24/7, when it only gets maybe 3 hits per month. That's really expensive, no?
>>> If you want to serve static web pages, use S3, not EC2.
>>
>> S3 only stores data. There's no way of accessing it from the outside
>> world again. (As far as I can tell.)
>
> It serves any file there via HTTP, with a URL like
> http://s3.amazon.com/mybucket/myfile.zip
> or some such.
Interesting. It appears from the documentation that the contents of a
bucket cannot be hierachical...
>> I'd actually like to run custom CGI. But paying 72$/month for a server
>> that gets maybe 4 hits per month seems... excessive.
>
> There is that. What CGI is this?
I have a blog, but I'm not very happy with it. I'd like to write my own
blog engine and run that. (In Haskell, naturally.)
>> Three hours does not concern me. I have an animation running that's
>> likely to take about a week to render.
>
> That's a pretty good use of it.
But would it be cheaper to buy a new Intel Core i7 and run it on that?
(Once I've bought it, I can use it endlessly for nothing.)
>> Looks like you'd need to script it to run POV-Ray, run VirtualDub,
>> somehow copy the data to S3, and then automatically shut down ASAP
>> before you go bankrupt!
>
> Not sure what the virtualdub part involves
Transforming 6,000 frames into a single AVI so I can download it.
> but you can log in remotely, you know.
What, and be charged for 7 hours of computer time when the instance has
finished rendering and is just sitting there waiting for me to tell it
to transcode the video? :-P
> Posting the stuff up to S3 isn't hard either. I can give you a
> script that pushes a directory up to S3 if you want, too.
I guess the fun part is if an instance "fails" during a render.
Apparently it can do that. No refunds...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> If you want to use it just for yourself, sure. If you want it to
>>> provide a service to other people... well, no way to know when those
>>> service requests will arrive, eh?
>>
>> Sure. Then it's doing something.
>
> Perhaps you're missing my point. I get charged for running the server
> 24/7, when it only gets maybe 3 hits per month. That's really expensive,
> no?
I understand your point. :-)
> Interesting. It appears from the documentation that the contents of a
> bucket cannot be hierachical...
URLs aren't either. Put a slash in the name of the file you store in the bucket.
It's a bit more complicated, really.
> I have a blog, but I'm not very happy with it. I'd like to write my own
> blog engine and run that. (In Haskell, naturally.)
So you're talking about the form that takes comments?
> But would it be cheaper to buy a new Intel Core i7 and run it on that?
> (Once I've bought it, I can use it endlessly for nothing.)
Certainly renting is more expensive in the long run than buying. But that's
why it's the *elastic* compute cloud, you see.
>> Not sure what the virtualdub part involves
> Transforming 6,000 frames into a single AVI so I can download it.
Ah, something you can script, then?
>> but you can log in remotely, you know.
>
> What, and be charged for 7 hours of computer time when the instance has
> finished rendering and is just sitting there waiting for me to tell it
> to transcode the video? :-P
You realize that 7 hours of compute time translates to less than a dollar,
right? Even if you let it go that long without checking, and didn't bother
to set it up to send you an email when it finished?
>> Posting the stuff up to S3 isn't hard either. I can give you a script
>> that pushes a directory up to S3 if you want, too.
>
> I guess the fun part is if an instance "fails" during a render.
> Apparently it can do that. No refunds...
I've been running one for a company for something like 2 years. The only
time it "failed" is when they told me a couple months in advance that they'd
be cutting over to a new way of doing IP addressing, and please migrate
anything over to a new machine. I.e., I've never had the machine crash.
I think it's far more CYA - "don't run your database on a machine that might
crash and never make backups then blame us" - than any expectation that any
given machine will fail at any particular time.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
There aren't any trees on Mars.
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