[Ruby] MediaTemple GridServer Experiences?

[Ezra Zygmuntowicz]

Hi ~

On Dec 1, 2006, at 11:18 AM, Michael Judge wrote:

> I see what you mean about EngineYard being expensive: $500 a month
> minimum.  Ouch.
>
> On Dec 1, 2006, at 12:31 AM, Jesse Proudman wrote:
>
>> MTs grid was at first an interesting concept primarily because
>> they're one of the first movers with the technology.  But once the
>> technology that powered their systems was made public, it's
>> uniqueness and excitement didn't hold as much water in our book.  If
>> anything, from the rails perspective, EngineYard is a more
>> interesting concept.  They've just unfortunately priced themselves
>> out of the reach of smaller rails developers.  It's also been our
>> experience that most Rails developers want more control over the
>> actual box than a web GUI can give them.   Grid/Clustering is the
>> wave of the future, particularly for rails apps, but I don't
>> necessarily think the MT offering is quite ready for Rails prime-time
>> yet.  Keep your eye on EngineYard and other companies that offer  
>> grid/
>> clustering options (We're launching one in early '07) designed
>> specifically for rails apps.  That's where the future will lead.
>> --
>>
>> Jesse Proudman,  Blue Box Group, LLC
>>
>>


	Hey I thought I would chime in to correct a few misconceptions about  
Engine Yard. The minimum monthly account is about $200. But we do  
recommend going with more then one slice so you get redundancy but  
not everyone needs or can afford that. So a 3 slice setup is the  
optimial configuration. It allows two nodes for redundant production  
app and one node for staging that is identical to the production env  
so you know stage -> prod will work.. On top of our architecture,  
what we are really selling is customer service. When you sign up for  
an account you give us read access to your svn repo and a list of  
gems and other dependencies. We take this and then go configure your  
entire private cluster for you and then we write custom capistrano  
tasks  to get the app deployed including whatever custom tasks your  
app needs. When we hand you the keys to your account, your app is  
already running in a production cluster and a stage slice. All you  
have to do from then on is rake remote:deploy. We are fully managed  
and that is why our price is higher. We take care of all security and  
software updates/upgrades and monitor your slices for you, as well as  
offer advice about optimizing your applications. So we are really  
outsourced rails IT. Development teams can focus on writing the app.  
We will take care of the entire deployment process for you and  
continue to maintain it as you grow.  Once your first cluster is  
setup and configured for GFS shared filesystem, we can add up to 16  
nodes to your cluster all sharing the same filesystem serving the  
same app on the fly . This means we can add capacity to scale on demand.

	We will have a web gui for doing most things you would need to do  
for a rails app but users always still have ssh access to their own  
slices. And we will grant them sudo for installing their own gems  
etc.. So we aren't trying to compete with plain web hosting  
companies. We are targeting customers who want to not have to deal at  
all with their deployment situation.
	
	I really don't want to sound like a commercial here so I apologize  
if I am out of place... We have a redesign of our website that  
explains all this stuff a lot better then the current site. But I  
just wanted to tell you what Engine Yard is really about. I don't  
think our current website reflects this message very well.

	I am also more then happy to explain our architecture in more detail  
if anyone is interested, just contact me offlist and I will reply.

Thanks-
-- Ezra Zygmuntowicz 
-- Lead Rails Evangelist
-- ez at engineyard.com
-- Engine Yard, Serious Rails Hosting
-- (866) 518-YARD (9273)