Seriously.
Moving from host to host while no one is looking isn’t an easy task, but I’m thinking it’s going to be an awesome little blog series! It was a blast to move from Dreamhost to EC2, and the differences are night and day, especially from the administration stand point.
One of the things I looked forward to the most was root access to my server. I’ve always had root access to my personal boxes, but the connection at home isn’t fast enough to successfully host a website. It’s just too slow upstream-wise. Root access allows me to install whatever I want, whenever I want. I can also edit any file on any part of the server, and that’s huge – especially when you’re as picky as I am.
Root can also be very dangerous, so unless you know Linux, I wouldn’t risk too much!
The second advantage has been speed. My load times were fast at Dreamhost, and I was pleased. On that same note, I’m absurdly picky about load times. My goal is 2 seconds, but I can settle for 3-3.5, but no more. I’m doing a ton of work to keep speeds there – there’s another post!
Most of all, I’ve loved the pricing. It’s free – mostly. There’s a few charges here and there related to S3, but they’re negligible, really.
The only downside is the fact that there’s no “rescue me” button. Most providers have reset buttons on their control panels that allow you to reset everything without losing your data. With EC2, that’s not the case. If you blow it up, you fix it or start over. It’s a scary reality to live in, but I don’t think I’d have it any other way.
A few things have changed since the move:
- I removed all the content that wasn’t related to tech – period. I didn’t want it there and it was serving no purpose and wouldn’t have benefited anyone.
- I revamped my about page.
- I added a subscribe page.
- I moved from Rackspace Cloudfiles back to S3 – and have been happy with it!
- Worked to get file sizes down as much as possible – more on that later.
Moving to EC2 has been an awesome, challenging, and humbling experience. I was excited about the future before – now I’m just pumped!
sweet!