I see a few questions surrounding this topic, but none of them answer this question specifically. I am working with a client on a high traffic web site (major fashion brand) and there is discussion about web fonts installed locally on our server, vs google web fonts loaded through their service.
While faced with the decision of using the free service offered by the GoogleApi and it's web fonts service, vs purchasing the distribution licenses needed for various protectd fonts (or subscribing to a service which covers this for us) the cost issue is know... Google wins because it is free.
HOWEVER... when faced with the bandwidth/latency issue of loading the fonts from our server vs using the google service I am not certain which would be a better option.
So... Is it true that the google service would have a higher latency as compared to a font served up from our server locally?
I'm sorry I do not have more information on the servers we have set up, but we have numerous servers set up to handle the bandwidth required to maintain the load we receive daily. As I said we are a global fashion retail company.
Related
Sometimes when I access my windows azure website, the initial response time is very slow. After the first page load the website is fast. Some background: The website is not that often visited at the moment. Further, I am using a keepalivecontroller to keep the website running and the website is running in shared mode. I am wondering: are websites that are not that active removed from memory in windows azure? Or is it just that background tasks on the operational level of windows azure are interfering sometimes? It is not transparent for me what is happening, so is there some sla of something for windows azure websites?
There is now a new feature available for Windows Azure Websites in 'Reserved' mode that will keep your website warm. You can now turn on "Always-on" under the "Configuration"-tab on your Azure Website. As explained in this blog post:
When the new “Always On” feature is is enabled on a site, “Windows
Azure will automatically ping your website regularly to ensure that
the website is always active and in a warm/running state,” Guthrie
writes. “This is useful to ensure that a site is always responsive
(and that the app domain or worker process has not paged out due to
lack of external HTTP requests).”
Easiest way to keep a website warm is to call it regularly using the Scheduler feature in Windows Azure Mobile Services.
You simply write a script in the Scheduler that pings your website every x minutes.
Here's a post covering how to do that: http://fabriccontroller.net/blog/posts/job-scheduling-in-windows-azure/
The Windows Azure Web Sites are still in preview, so there is currently no SLA with that service.
The Web Sites do idle out when in free or in Shared mode, which is likely what you are seeing. When the site idles out it actually is removed from memory, and indeed the IIS process host running the site is shut down. This is how they can get the density of hosting 100 sites on the same VM.
You can find a lot of info on the Channel9 site about why this is the case, or, as a shameless plug, here is an article that talks about how the process is handled.
Now, you mentioned that you were using a keepalivecontroller, but what exactly do you mean by that? I use pingdom.com to contantly request data for one of my websites, and that seems to do pretty well. It is still possible that a request doesn't come in and the idle time is met which then cycles the site. It is also possible that even if you always have the site running that the VM the site sites on needs to have the underlying OS updated, in which case Azure would then move the site process to another VM, which could also cause the slow start up on the next request.
I'd start logging your application start ups and then look through your logs to see how often that is happening.
If you only need to warm it up once (vs keeping it warm) and are mostly trying to prevent your customers experience page cold starts, I believe the correct tool is IIS Application Initialization. You can configure it with a list of urls to hit before it deems the app ready for action.
My site is suffering from page cold starts and that is severely magnified in Azure Websites (even on an S3), but it is absolutely speedy after its served that first time thanks to several layers of caching (our inefficient use of Umbraco's dynamic nodes query language creates a lot of database churn--which we're cleaning up opportunistically).
From what I've read and my own web.config attempts this is still not available in Azure Websites. I've asked Microsoft for it here: MS IDEA: Application Initialization to warm up specific pages when app pool starts. Please consider voting for it.
For each service/site you need to go to "Configure", then switch "Always On" to ON. Also make sure you click Save; it took my website about 2 minutes before noticing the change.
Why this is not the default is kind of mind boggling, because my setup on HostGator was running much faster than Azure. I guess Microsoft is figuring if nobody is accessing your site, it's okay if it has a long load time.
I have no experience with VPS's. Over the past year or two I've been getting more and more into web development, as a hobby and for work. I'm currently managing one wordpress site, a codeigniter app, a node.js/mongodb app, and various other personal projects. They are currently all hosted seperately (misc LAMP hosting, heroku, etc.).
I'm looking for a solution that will enable me to do the following:
Host Static/PHP Sites/Apps (so a LAMP stack)
Node.js/MongoDB/Redis
capable of other stacks (django/yesod/RoR/etc.)
Would a Linode VPS be capable of handling all of this? None of these sites get large amounts of traffic. The web apps are private, business management apps, used by 2-10 people at a time. The public sites are small business websites and my portfolio. I would like to be able to host future work on the same VPS as well (same types of small sites/apps).
I have no experience managing multiple domains on the same server. Is this easily done (or possible) with a single Linode VPS?
EDIT
I'm looking at the Linode 512MB/1GB VPS's, $20/$40 respectively.
Of course.
Especially after the massive Linode NextGen upgrades, a Linode VPS can easily handle this kind of workload. Since it's a VPS and not merely shared hosting, you get root access and therefore full control over the system.
In addition, Linode includes features such as advanced disk image management that allows you to clone and resize disk images as required and quickly boot into different images, as well as an out-of-band shell that allows direct access to the server's console in the event you cannot access it via SSH. A Linode 1024 (1GB) plan is more than enough for this sort of workload.
There are lots of different VPS providers out there. Rackspace is very expensive but probably has the highest level of reliability (100% uptime SLA with 5% refund per 30 minutes downtime) and outstanding "Fanatical Support". For less critical needs, there are loads of smaller VPS providers that offer cheap rates, but often with only minimal resources and fewer features. Some provide super-fast SSD storage for disk-intensive applications. You should shop around and do your research so that you find a VPS provider that meets your requirements.
I suggest that you may look into a shared hoisting plan on a reputed hosting companies like hostgator since there isn't much traffic.I also suggest you also buy a cpanel for managing tools.Cpanel has a web interface with which you can control every tool using your mouse & keyboard.
On the other hand linode has a CLI interface and their support expects you to have some descent knowledge about managing VPS servers.
I have a project and I'm planning to start the web app as an Azure Web Site and then migrate it to an Azure Cloud Service (also called Hosted Service) if it is needed as a scale strategy.
The decision is because I read that Azure Web Sites are more simple and fast to develop with almost no Azure-specific configurations or code. So starting fast and simple is a good starting point for the project.
But, is that a good starting point for you?
Is migrating an Azure Web Site to an Azure Cloud Service the same as you were migrating a normal ASP.NET Website to an Azure Cloud Service?
Would you start with an Azure Cloud Service right from the beginning? If yes, why?
Thanks for your time.
There are benefits to both deployment models, it will eventually come down to what you are trying to achieve and ultimately the success of your application.
Below I've outlined the Pros and Cons of each of the models to ensure that you're making the right choice for your applications goals.
Windows Azure Web Sites
You have properly identified that Windows Azure Web Sites is a great starting point for an application, however you could also consider that Web Sites does offer enough scalability for many solutions.
Pros
10 Free sites during preview [Free for 12 months]
Easy Deployment (use Git, TFS, Web Deploy or FTP)
Quick Scalability (You can move to your own dedicated cluster [aka reserved standard])
Simple Development (Supports Classic ASP, ASP.NET, Node.js, Python & PHP)
Persistent Environment (most people are used to this)
Cons
No SSL Support on Custom Domains
in Preview (currently no SLA)
Windows Azure Cloud Services
Cloud Services (formerly known as Hosted Services) is definitely the vision for the future of Web Applications. It is built with resiliency in mind to keep the cost of applications affordable by scaling to meet demand, and dial back capacity when your traffic slows.
Pros
Increased control over the cost of your application (if architected correctly)
Flexibility (You have full control over the environment)
SSL Support
Language Agnostic
Web Server Agnostic (although IIS is available by default)
Auto Management of Servers
Cons
Architecture should be carefully considered
Deployment time is slower (Slows development cycle)
Things to consider for Portability
The items above might have given you enough to plan the immediate future of the application and it is very likely that you might want to consider Cloud Services in the future (it fits a number of application scenarios better in the long run).
Here is a list of things to help portability between Web Sites to Cloud Services:
Start thinking Stateless
Windows Azure Web Sites is nice as it is a persistent environment, which means you are able to store things like session state and assets to the disk.
Although this is a good feature, it's best to start planning towards a stateless application, if your end goal is to be in Cloud Services. Here are a few things you can do to start thinking stateless:
Don't rely on Session State
If you need it, come up with a strategy to make it scale (Caching Service, SQL, or Storage)
Use the Storage Service
Assets such as Static HTML, css, javascript and images are better placed in Storage
Avoids additional bandwidth on your Web Site (potentially stay shared longer for lower cost)
Can be CDN Enabled, provides a better experience for International markets
Easier to update web assets when application is migrated to Cloud Services
Storing User content
If your application already stores to the Storage Service, there is one less code modification in the future when moving to cloud services.
Make it easy to discover patterns in your Data
The benefit of Cloud Services is it enables you to reduce cost by only scaling what needs scaled. Starting the process of identifying your scale units i.e. How you partition your database or Tables in Storage.
I read all post and all of them are very helpful.
In addition to all post , I found an info on msdn : Windows Azure Websites, Cloud Services, and VMs: When to use which?
With Windows Azure Websites you can:
Build highly scalable web sites on Windows Azure.
Quickly and easily deploy sites to a highly scalable cloud environment that allows you to start small and scale as needed.
Use the languages and open source applications of your choice then deploy with FTP, Git or TFS, and easily integrate Windows Azure services like SQL Database, Caching, CDN and Storage.
With Cloud Services you can:
Build or extend your enterprise applications on Windows Azure.
Create highly-available, scalable applications and services using a rich PaaS environment. Support advanced multi-tier scenarios, automated deployments and elastic scale. Deliver great SaaS solutions to customers anywhere around the world.
And also there is summarizes the option on msdn :
And comparing some features Web Sites and Cloud Services on msdn:
Azure is a great place to have your app, but there are some considerations you need to know before start migrating it.
Azure Websites and Hosted Services are really trivial to deploy. With
Visual studio you generate the package and simply upload it. Then you
have a Development environment to check it. If it's ok for you, swap
ips. If it's not ok for you, upgrade again.
Your instances have some properties that could be annoying. For
example, you cannot be sure about your IP. Then if your app works
with some provider using IP restriction, you will need to figure out
how to proceed.
More considerations. Your "server" could be reimaged at any moment.
If you store something on the local disc, that file could go away at any moment.
Azure works very nice if you have at least 2 instances or more for
each website. Maybe your app is not prepared for that. The first step
will be managing the sessions with the appFabric. Is really
easy, just a change on your web config. Be careful because this
session state doesn't work exactly as the "old one". You cannot store
non-serializable objects (should be easy to adapt) or a very large objects (more than 8MB).
If you are going to develop something from zero, I suggest you to start into azure from the beginning. The reason is simple: it's really cheap to start and you will not pay serious money until the app have lot's of visits. It's also very cheap to setup a SQLAzure and a storage account. One you have all in place, it's easy to add more instances or scale up.
Example:
Imagine you have an idea and you wish to show up to some possible investors.
You start setting up a little SQLAzure database (1GB ), $9,99 monthly.
Then you build a site and you put 2 extra small instances, $18,72 monthly.
Let's say you need 100 GB of space (images, backups, ...), $12,50 monthly.
At his point, you have all in place to start your business paying less than $50 monthly.
If you site have exit and the visits starts to come, you change your instances for small instances (it's really dangerous to have production environment with extra small instances, because do not have cpu reservation). Then you change the extra small cost ($18,71) up to $57,60. Maybe you need more space to that SQL Azure? etc...
prices calculated from here: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/?scenario=web .
Those are few tips, there is a lot more. My advice is to start a trial account and play with it.
Final advice: Its very easy to solve everything just purchasing more resources. Sometimes you need to refactor and optimize your code. If you simply add more resources each time you have a problem, you could end with a huge bill and a very messy code.
Hope it helps!
Another advantage of Windows Azure Cloud Services over Web Sites is that a cloud service can be added to an Azure Virtual Network. This can give it access to on-premises resources like databases. So if your requirements are such that you need the scalability offered by Azure but need to keep your data on-premises due to security restrictions, cloud services is a better choice.
Azure web sites cannot be part of an Azure virtual network. To access on-premises resources mechanisms such as Azure Service Bus Relay must be configured.
We've had our web site running on PHP on some hosting and at some point decided to move it to Azure (where sits main part of our service). We've started with Azure Web Sites which was great from development point of view (mainly integration with git). But after about a week of testing (when we've decided to actually move the production web site) we've found that currently
No SSL for custom domains
Custom domains are available only for reserved instances (no shared infrastructure)
SLA
So we moved to Hosted Service. The main problem for us was lack of ability of simple deployment (need to build package and upload whole package of the web site), and found solution was to use dropbox - as a startup task for role, we're installing dropbox service on the machine, which takes all the web site from dropbox, which in turn have SVN checked out folder, so site updates became very easy.
I heard that apps don’t port directly and they have to be specifically written to work with Azure. I’m new to Azure and did some reading but I don’t see anything from their site or documentation that suggests that you must specifically code for Azure, so is it true?
If this question is better suited for another StackExchange site please let me know.
You should take a look at the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit to see some introductory project labs.
While you theoretically can just "drop in" some apps into a Windows Azure VM, it hardly makes sense to do so. Some apps can be migrated with only minor changes, such as an asp.net website - session state is easily handled by AppFabric Cache, and the Web Role VM is Windows Server 2008 with Full IIS. However, you'd still need to integrate with Windows Azure Diagnostics, to be able to have external visibility to the health of your app.
Further, with the example above, there are more optimal things you can do, such as moving static content to blob storage, and taking load off your VMs. This requires you to upload this content, and then change your IMG and other tag URLs to point to a slightly-different URL.
Just remember that you're moving to Windows Azure to take advantage of its platform and related services, not just to be a rack to host a server. To take advantages of these services, you're going to have to target them specifically, such as:
Access control services
Caching
Connectivity (vpn, service bus)
Diagnostics
Database (SQL Azure)
Synchronization services
Traffic management across data centers
This is somewhat true. Your apps will typically run as-is. You just need to add an azure project to the solution, and add your MVC apps as roles to the Azure Project.
I found O'Reilly's "Programming Windows Azure" to be a good conceptual introduction to Azure.
I am a web developer that are working on several web applications. For my projects (running in a production environment), I always strive good performance.
So, I have started to look into Microsoft Azure. I have deployed some test-apps and they all work fine. They all run a lot quicker than on my regular shared hosting environment.
My questions are:
1. What should be ran at Azure? Are you suppose to deploy your whole web app (along with images, scripts etc) or are you just suppose to deploy services? (such as WCF)
2. It says "Data transfers within a sub region are free.", but what is a sub region?
3. CNAME works, but is it possible to use A-records of a domain to Azure?
For web sites that are just jQuery slabs calling web services Azure is very easy to adopt. Azure can store any type of file, so for traditional web sites follow this guide
Azure process to Azure process, or Azure SQL etc. May included other non Azure services within the same Microsoft network area. Basically they are saying LAN access if free, whoopee
What would you point you A-Name too? Azure is virtual
Here are the answers I can give you:
It depends on what you want and what kind of (web)application you want to build for Windows Azure. If you're going for fast performance, perhaps it is faster to deploy everything to the cloud (but face the financial costs)
A sub-regio is North-Europe, another one is West-Europe. So data transfering inside North-Europe will be free of charges. But if you have data transfering between North- and West-European hosted application/services you pay for this.
Note: North- and West-Europe form 1 region
Sorry, can't give an answer to this one
Azure is definitely geared to handle more than just hosting web services.
Putting all your web site's static content in Azure storage should enable you to take advantage of the Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) service, which basically replicates your static content out to geo-local caches at the edge of the cloud to reduce network load on your Windows Azure web roles and improves the responsiveness of your web app for your end users scattered around the world.
Read more about the Windows Azure CDN here: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsazure/archive/2009/11/05/introducing-the-windows-azure-content-delivery-network.aspx