New type of grid web hosting

[Developer]

There is a new type of hosting available to consumers called Grid Server.

www.gridserver.com

It is from Media Temple, the a web host used by TechCrunch, Sony, Nike and other large companies. For $20 a month you get 100gb disk space, 1000gb monthly bandwidth and the possibility to use up to 100 domains.

The best part about it is it's ability to give seemingly infinite scalability using its proprietry patented grid server technology. Each website is held on hundreds of servers, in similar ways to what the big boys use, but this service is available to the average consumer and is as easy to use as normal hosting.

The hard drives used are all premium 15,000 rpm SCSI drives. With hundreds of servers holding each website there is no problem with huge traffic spikes and hardware failure. If hardware fails then the other servers continue to host the site. Each account has access to multiple routers for the highest possible uptime.

It comes with Linux, Apache, MySQL, PostGreSQL, PHP (4 and 5), Perl, Python and Ruby on Rails, and it also has one-click Wordpress, Drupal and Zen Cart installation.

4 of Media Temple's directors and managers are interviewed on the TalkCrunch podcast:

http://www.talkcrunch.com/2006/10/17...s-grid-server/

It all sounds like a great product and a good deal. If anyone here tries it out then let me/us know what it is like. I might try it out and ditch my dedicated server.

[AnthonyCea]

Grid computing is the wave of the future, distributed search engines are using it now and this seems like spinning the same idea with a bit of a twist!

I would hold off on moving your stuff to this sort of network until you test it with some new sites!

You can test it easy for the price they are offering at $20.00 a month, I think I will test it myself, thanks a bunch, check your user CP, I'm sending some Green your way man!

PS: If I order this will you put up some sites on it?

[Ohiosweetheart]

All that for $20? That's what I'm paying for my shared hosting.
Interesting.......

[Danny Boy]

Color me burned by cheap hosts. But every shared host I've been with burned me in one way or another mostly with downtime.

This seems like a good idea, I may even test it out as soon as those idiots at Google pay me (adsense).

But..

Beware of Cheap hosts!

[Developer]

If you order the deal then I would be glad to help you try it out.

[AnthonyCea]

It's about time man!

This is basically the same thing Google has done for years, just applied to web hosting, these guys are using the same server technology plan that Google uses for their search engine!

More on Google data center technology

[andreww]

hey u guys going ahead with this?

are there restrictions on CPU utilization?

I'm looking for some sites to try splog, er, autoblogging on...

[andreww]

no answer from AC in the last 9mins....
my word.

[AnthonyCea]

This is a giant hosting company Andy, you will not have any problems with this, yes I did order a test package!

PS: I have to sleep too, you hit me at 4:00 AM my time!

[Danny Boy]

Originally Posted by AnthonyCea

This is a giant hosting company Andy, you will not have any problems with this, yes I did order a test package!

PS: I have to sleep too, you hit me at 4:00 AM my time!

Let me know how it works out.. May setup an account to host a few sites.

[AnthonyCea]

Like I said, I don't anticipate any problems with this hosting plan at all, in fact I think the concept is very sound, this is a very large holding company with some great people running it!

I will let you know if there are any problems, but I will not tell the world the sites on the plan as I have too many people that want to write about me personally now days and I have to keep a lot of stuff confidential.

[Developer]

You get given a set amount of disk space (100gb) and bandwidth (1tb), and a certain amount of arbitrary GPUs. GPUs measure the usage of CPU utilization, disks activity and memory usage, when you reach the initial limit of 100 GPUs you will automatically be upgraded. Most hosts would cut you off at this stage and you would be left high and dry. There is no limit to the amount of GPUs you can use, the system is infinitely scalable without having to move servers to upgrade. The system is like a supercharged shared hosting environment powerful enough to compete with dedicated servers.

[andreww]

AC: lemme know if u need stress testers for your acct.


Developer: is there a cost associated to 'upgrading'?

yeah, it's like running your own wolfpack implementation and having a load-balanced server farm, isn't it?

[Developer]

There is always a cost involved with upgrading. Here is an example from their site.

Ruby on Rails has to be run inside a Mongrel container so is seperate from the rest of the system so therefore have a set amount of memory. You get a 64mb container for Ruby on Rails. You will get upgraded to a 256mb container for an extra $25 a month or a 1gb container for $75. Remember this is all usable memory. Compare it to a dedicated server where you can get 1gb memory for between $100 and $200 a month and a large portion of it is taken up by the operating system and other processes.

Using PHP, the amount of memory you get would probably be comparable to the RoR containers but instead of using a container the memory/disk/CPU would be burstable across the grid in a similar way to bandwidth.

[andreww]

Developer: tks for pointing the service out.
I've blogged abt it here: Web Hosting goes the Grid way

Look forward to hear AC's test reports.

[AnthonyCea]

Real great stuff Andy, now that is creative, thanks for the reference!