kindproject

Setting up Windows Ftp 7.5

Posted by jonathan - 24/02/10 at 09:02:07 am

With the release of Windows FTP server 7.5, we finally move on from IIS6 metabase configuration and see some IIS 7 goodness. FTP can now hangout in the same playground as IIS web serving, with the managed code and .config file syntax for ftp administration. Finally, windows ftp supports sftp which has been a long missing feature.

The setup still seems a bit cumbersome to me, but its a configuration that requires n half-hour to setup and then no thought for months. Follow these walk-throughs and you should be on your way pretty quickly.:

1. http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/263/installing-and-configuring-ftp-on-iis-7/
2. http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/301/creating-a-new-ftp-site/
3. http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/304/using-ftp-over-ssl/

Ip address configuration within the ftp administration, especially in a cloud environment, might need to be set to a specific address and potentially an ip6v address, as opposed to using the “All unassigned” option. Additionally some thought should go into how you want to secure the ftp access. I’ll tend to use ssl and then turn ftp off when I’m not using it, if updates are not frequent.

Pricing windows cloud servers

Posted by jonathan - 16/02/10 at 02:02:00 pm

Many clients are now asking about cloud computing and how their company might benefit from it. While cloud computing provides clear cut advantages for on-demand scaling especially for processor intensive activities such as data crunching or multi-media processing, the average small business never needs this capacity. Despite this, they can benefit from the scale that cloud computing offers in terms of bandwidth pricing and rapid scaling. As the graph on the right shows, cloud computing standards, especially pricing standardization, present some big issues for adoption.

The calculations below are a relatively simplistic way of calculating cost using on-demand pricing and data transfer. The pricing models for cloud computing are still being tweaked and standardized between the major providers. It remains cumbersome to compare the offerings since pricing of resources has not yet been standardized. For example amazon only offers certain tiers of ram level, they have restrictions on operating systems at certain tiers, they might offer monitoring, where others price monitoring a la carte.

It will probably take another few years for cloud pricing models to standardize, but since I work mostly in the windows space I thought I’d provide a quick breakdown of current (2/16/2010) pricing for the top three windows server cloud hosters:

Breakdown by size

Pricing Grid (RAM/Disk)	Instance Price	Data In	Data Out	Monthly bill (100GB Tranfer)
Amazon
Small - 1.7 GB / 160 GB	$ 0.13	$ -	0.15	$ 109.90
Large = 7.5 GB / 850	$ 0.53	$ -	0.15	$ 401.90
Extra Large - 15 GB / 1690 GB	$ 1.04	$ -	0.15	$ 774.20
Rackspace
512 MB / 20 GB	$ 0.04	$ 0.08	$ 0.22	$ 59.20
1 GB / 40 GB	$ 0.08	$ 0.08	$ 0.22	$ 88.40
2 GB / 80 GB	$ 0.16	$ 0.08	$ 0.22	$ 146.80
4 GB / 160 GB	$ 0.32	$ 0.08	$ 0.22	$ 263.60
8 GB / 320 GB	$ 0.58	$ 0.08	$ 0.22	$ 453.40
15.5 GB / 620 GB	$ 1.08	$ 0.08	$ 0.22	$ 818.40
GoGrid
512 MB / 30 GB	$ 0.10	$ -	$ 0.29	$ 102.00
1 GB / 60 GB	$ 0.19	$ -	$ 0.29	$ 167.70
2 GB /120 GB	$ 0.38	$ -	$ 0.29	$ 306.40
4 GB / 240 GB	$ 0.76	$ -	$ 0.29	$ 583.80
8 GB /480 GB	$ 1.52	$ -	$ 0.29	$ 1,138.60

Comparing a 2GB instance with 100GB transfer

Estimated bill for 2GB Server / 100GB Data Transfer	Price
Amazon	$ 109.90
Rackspace	$ 146.80
GoGrid	$ 306.40

Here’s links links to their pricing pages, amazon, gogrid, rackspace

Why is KISS so hard?

Posted by jonathan - 10/02/10 at 09:02:45 am

KISS, keep it simple stupid, is a hard practice to follow because your simple is my hard. Your configuration is my convention. Your DRY, do not repeat yourself, is my tight coupling.

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