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Currently I run a few CentOS dedicated boxes on which I run a few hosted applications (these are online). It currently caters to a little over 200 clients. For the sake of scalability as this is going to soon be a globally used application soon(due to current plan of expansion) I have been researching into cloud based technologies.

Recently I came across Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud OS and I would like to know if this would fit the bill. The UEC site suggests 2 types of clouds one private and the other public. The public cloud connects to EC2. Does that mean that I have to use Amazon to take my services online if I use Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud OS? Or can these servers go public independently. I could be wrong but I would like to understand what they mean before I consider this as an option. I would consider local servers (based on the geographical users and also to localize the data) soon to handle the traffic load. Based on the above factors should I consider dedicated servers or go ahead with a cloud computing? And is it a feasible option?

rzlines
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Using UEC enables you to build a private cloud, which means that you are building a replacement to Amazon EC2. You do not need EC2 when you're using UEC internally, and you get to keep all your data and systems running behind your own firewall. Of course you'd have to actually run the datacenter youself, which is not an easy task.

Using some management tools, and perhaps some in-house scripts, you can (if you want to) transition to what is called a "hybrid cloud" which is like running a private in-house cloud, except that if you run out of resources, you can burst out to Amazon's cloud asking for more resources. Say if you're running 200 physical servers, capable of running 20k VMs, and assume on a certain day, you need to run 22k VMs, those extra 2k VMs can be out-sourced and started on Amazon. I'm not saying that's easy, it isn't .. but it's an option if you need it

kim0
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  • To add to this, the term private is a little misleading. You can, of course, put the UEC created virtual machines (usually called "instances" in the IaaS cloud world) on the public internet. – SpamapS Dec 10 '10 at 19:42