Archive for the ‘Hosting’ Category

AWS CloudFront Now Does True-Streaming

Friday, December 18th, 2009 by Francois

AWS_LOGO_RGB_300pxAmazon Web Services (AWS) recently announced that CloudFront now supports Flash streaming (RTMP) in addition to progressive downloads (HTTP). Live streaming is also expected to be rolled out at some point in 2010.

This is all being made possible by Amazon’s decision to deploy Flash Media Servers (FMS) at its 14 edge locations. The decision to go with FMS over Wowza Media Server is somewhat surprising given the fact we’ve been streaming off AWS for quite some time using Wowza Media Server for EC2 .

Even though we were really happy with the quality of service we eventually got out of this, setting it up was not a pleasant experience.

Given what I’ve just said why did we go down this route when there are plenty of content delivery networks (CDN’s) we could have used for this?

Bottom line, pricing and flexibility.

Put simply, using a CDN for true streaming (RTMP) more often that not is out of reach for low-volume publishers due to cost, long-term contracts and minimum commitments.

Hence, our decision to stream off of AWS using Wowza.

Now that CloudFront has deployed FMS we will certainly be reassessing our current set-up.

Using Amazon CloudFront for true-streaming offers low-volume publishers like us the following benefits:

  • high performance
  • reliable delivery
  • global coverage
  • ability to leverage other streaming protocols such as RTMPT, RTMPE, RTMPTE
  • no up-front commitments
  • no additional platform or licensing fees
  • no long-term contracts

We will definitely be testing CloudFront for streaming and will report back on our findings in the New Year.

Tags: , , , ,
Categories: Cloud Computing, Hosting, Online Video
Comments: No Comments »

AWS Economics Center Releases New Cost Comparison Calculator

Sunday, December 13th, 2009 by Francois

Amazon Web Services Logo

Amazon Web Services Economics Center provides access to information, tools, and resources comparing the costs of Amazon Web Services (AWS) with alternative IT infrastructure.

The tools AWS have provided really help quantify the cost/benefit of cloud computing as you can model certain usage patters and determine the likely cost/benefit of each approach to meeting these infrastructure requirements.

The latest of these tools, Amazon’s EC2 Cost Comparison Calculator, is perhaps the most informative as it helps determine the annual costs of EC2 vs. co-locaton vs. on-site hardware.

It is easy to use and can be modified to reflect your specific requirements. You can download the spreadsheet here.

The AWS Simple Monthly Calculator which seems to have been around for ages includes all of the services and regions on offer but due to the fact it is geared towards a monthly estimate it is less useful for analysis purposes. That said, the customer samples are interesting, and cover the primary scenarios we would suggest using AWS for.

The point is even before you speak to a specialist I would suggest playing around with these tools.

They won’t make a decision for you but they will indicate whether or not you should be investigating AWS further.

Tags: , ,
Categories: Cloud Computing, Hosting, Tips
Comments: 1 Comment »

Hosting: Are you getting your money’s worth?

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 by Francois

ServersThe truth is some hosting providers are great, and some are downright awful.

We primarily use Amazon Web Services (AWS) for our hosting requirements.

Even though AWS works for us, it isn’t a suitable option for everyone. So we often have to deal with other hosting providers on behalf of our clients and friends.

Whenever I have to deal with a hosting providers’ sales reps’ it dawns on me how hard it must be for people with limited technical experience to get their money’s worth.

I recently reviewed a client’s hosting set-up. Their requirements were straightforward and would have been fulfilled by a decent Virtual Private Server (VPS) costing around £50-60 per month.

When I pointed out that paying in excess of £200 per month was over the top the client responded with the stock line, “you get what you pay for”.

To which my response was; “yes, but how much of what you’re getting are you actually using”.

And this is the crux of the problem I have with hosting providers in general.

There is a massive disconnect between the interests of a non-technical customer and those of a sales rep or engineer.

The customer wants piece of mind, the sales rep wants to hit their targets.

The result is that non-techncial clients more often that not end up spending far more then they should be.

Of course this can often work the other way – AIM-listed companies on shared hosting plans spring to mind.

Anyway the point of this post was to say if you’re a techie please offer a helping hand (and no that doesn’t mean becoming a reseller) and if you’re a client, please accept it.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/philschatz/312633642

Tags: ,
Categories: Hosting, Tips
Comments: No Comments »

Using Amazon Web Services To Deliver Online Video

Saturday, April 25th, 2009 by Francois

AWS_LOGO_RGB_300pxAfter much research and testing we have settled on two approaches for delivering video content from Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Each approach uses a different delivery protocol.

By progressive download (HTTP) using CloudFront or S3

HTTP delivery sends the entire video file upon request meaning the video arrives with the same quality at which it was encoded. However, the user will receive it only as fast as their network connection will allow.

You can get around this to a certain extent with PHP-streaming or pseudo-streaming but this still relies on a traditional web server rather than a streaming server.

By steaming (RTMP) using Wowza Media Server for EC2

When a file is streamed via a media server such as Wowza Media Server a measured stream of data is delivered to users as the video plays. Priority is given to timely delivery over aesthetic quality ensuring that the data stream continues uninterrupted, even if it means reducing quality.

Excellent or poor performance can be achieved with either delivery protocol. And in most cases, the user cannot tell whether the video they’re watching is downloading or streaming.

Why set up both on AWS?

HTTP:

  • is what S3 and CloudFront are all about
  • is suitable for videos of a short duration
  • is suitable for delivering high-bit rate encodings
  • is suitable if end-users need/are allowed to keep a copy of the video on their own computers

RTMP:

  • we had the in-house technical resources to configure and set this up
  • we needed a suitable delivery protocol for longer form content
  • we wanted to enable interactive functionaliy between the playback client and media server
  • we wanted greater statistical granularity
  • we wanted greater control over access rights to videos

We would never stick out our neck out and say that one delivery protocol was better than the other.

But we will say that they each have their own pro’s and con’s and having the option to choose between the two was critical for us.

There is no doubt that HTTP is a doddle to set-up.

Wowza for EC2 is amazingly well supported via the Wowza forums but it is still a bit of a challenge.

So our advice would be if your looking for the best of both worlds definitely look into the approaches outlined above but if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to offload your video delivery (or any other heavy assets) stick to S3/CloudFront you won’t be disappointed.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Categories: Cloud Computing, Hosting, Online Video, Reviews, Tips
Comments: No Comments »

Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) Reserved Instances Now Available In Europe

Sunday, April 19th, 2009 by Francois

AWS_LOGO_RGB_300pxAmazon Web Services (AWS) recently announced that Reserved Instances for Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) are now available in Europe.

For those not in the know EC2 is a virtual computing environment meaning you can customise and launch virtual servers how and when you want. You pay for this by the hour and there are no long-term commitments.

Those of you who regularly have to deal with dedicated server providers will no doubt appreciate this infrastructure-as-a-service model.

With the announcement of reserved instances you now have the option to make a one-time payment for each instance you want to reserve and in return you receive a significant discount on the hourly usage charge for that instance.

For example, we will be paying our $325 up front-fee meaning our small instance should cost around about 20-30% less if we run our instance, as we expect to, full-time.

In a nutshell this means that those of you out there with predictable usage patterns should be able to reduce your operational costs of running an EC2 instance.

As usual Europe was a little behind the US in terms of roll-out and so far only Linux/UNIX-based instances are available.

The only things that have made us think twice about signing up for a reserved instance are:

  • the up-front fee is non-refundable and you are locked-in to the computational pricing at the time you reserve your instance.
  • the AWS customer service agreement states that Amazon “may terminate the Reserved Instance Pricing program at any time.”

Having considered the above we can’t see  them terminating the program any time soon but we can see them reducing their EC2 pricing in Europe over time.

That’s why we’ve decided to reserve an instance for 1 year only.

Tags: , , ,
Categories: Cloud Computing, Hosting, Our News, Reviews
Comments: No Comments »

Hello VPS

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 by The BCM Team

ServersI have decided to say goodbye to the shared hosting once and for all and finally moved all of my personal sites and blog to a virtual private server (VPS) running CentOS 5.2 and Plesk.

I didn’t do this because I was unhappy with my former shared hosting provider as they had good up-time and the support was fast and helpful. I did it because I needed greater access to my hosting then shared hosting can provide; e.g. tweaking the server, installing custom software and controlling the versions of software installed on the server (e.g. symfony and subversion).

The switching process took a little more than a week. A little slow I know, but it wasn’t a full time gig. But at last I can announce that my switchover to a VPS set-up is complete.

Now here’s hoping my new host does not upset me with frequent downtime :)

Just in case you were curious, my shared hosting was with A2hosting and I highly recommend them if you are after shared hosting. They also offer VPS hosting but I have not tried their offering yet.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/philschatz/312633642

Tags: , , , ,
Categories: Hosting, Operating Systems
Comments: No Comments »

Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) Now Available In Europe

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 by Francois

AWS_LOGO_RGB_300pxAt last the moment we have all been waiting for. Amazon Web Services (AWS) has just announced that Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) is being rolled out in Europe.

This is great news for us as we’ve been playing with EC2 while it was only available in the US. But now there’s a fully-fledged European data centre we can really get going with what we’ve been planning to do for quite some time.

Let me explain:

We believe that every client has their own unique hosting requirements. That’s why we’ve never resold hosting or entered into any affiliate relationships.

This mindset has given us the opportunity to test and use a wide range of hosting set-ups and providers.

From virtual private servers (VPS’s) to managed dedicated servers we’ve toyed with them all.

We aren’t particularly keen on adding to all the hype but we are genuinely excited by what Amazon Web Services has to offer.

Now that EC2 has finally landed in Europe we will be upping our testing of AWS by deploying our own live site on EC2.

Yes, yes, I can hear your wails of derision. Why do this when you could get a dedicated server for a similar price? Why would you deploy your live site on an untried platform? Etc, etc, etc.

Well of course many of these assertions are valid but here’s the thing: we’ve guesstimated the risk and believe we can derive far greater value from migrating now and learning from the experience.

Having looked at server logs over the years it is clear that numerous people and companies overpay for underutilised server capacity. And in these cases it is clear that using a service such as AWS would offer numerous operational benefits.

What’s more we don’t particularly feel comfortable advising clients to use something if we have no “real world” experience of using it ourselves.

So in a nutshell the potential benefits AWS could provide, in certain circumstances, is to compelling to ignore.

Irrespective of the outcome this is something we are certainly looking forward to and deep-down I have a funny feeling we won’t regret this one.

Tags: , ,
Categories: Cloud Computing, Hosting, Our News
Comments: No Comments »

Use Google Apps mail with A2Hosting

Friday, October 3rd, 2008 by The BCM Team

Once you’ve set up your account with Google, you can then add the MX entries needed through your cPanel. To do this, go to the ‘MX Entry’ icon under cPanel’s mail section. Then enter the first of the MX entries needed and click Change. Next click on ‘go back’ and enter the next MX record and then click Change again, which will add a new MX entry. Continue this until all the MX records you need are added. You will also need to delete the original MX record which points to your own domain name with priority 0. Finally, under the ‘Always Accept’ column at the bottom, click on ‘Set to No’.

Here is the list of MX entries you need to add:







Priority
Mail Server




10
ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.




20
ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.




30
ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.




40
ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.




50
ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Categories: Hosting
Comments: No Comments »

Installing FFmpeg on CentOS 5.x

Thursday, August 21st, 2008 by The BCM Team
  1. Configure RPMForge so the installation passes GPG key check. See RPMForge website for more details
  2. Create a new repo difinition with: nano -w /etc/yum.repos.d/dag.repo
  3. Insert the following into the newly created file: 
    
[dag]
name=Dag RPM Repository for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el$releasever/en/$basearch/dag
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
  4. Install ffmpeg: yum install ffmpeg

Tags: , , , , ,
Categories: Hosting, Online Video, Operating Systems, Software
Comments: No Comments »

Send emails from your local development Linux server

Monday, April 21st, 2008 by The BCM Team

If you are having troubles with sending out emails from your local development Linux server, as a quick fix, I suggest using Exim4

You would need to install the following packages: exim4, exim4-base and exim4-config

After they are installed -> run exim4-config to set configure it.

Tags: , , , ,
Categories: Hosting
Comments: No Comments »