Cloud Servers?

[ceaser]

I know it just came out to a public launch, but is Hostgator considering offering cloud services or maybe switching from VPS to cloud? As in The Planet's server cloud, you have the storage and processor separate to ensure high-availability to the user.

Storage:
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Servers:
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The reason I ask if HG is considering offering this, rather than just ordering direct, is because HG has high quality service that Im used to by now. And if I buy via HG, two companies benefit rather than just one.

Ryan

[GatorSteveN]

There has been some talk about it but nothing decided on just yet.

[simply4est]

Any news on this?

[GatorJoshL]

Hello,

We have discussed this and do plan to some day have this service, however we do not have an ETA on when this would be available.

[keymaster]

Since it's been around 4 months since this last came up, thought I'd inquire anew... any more news on the availability of a cloud service, given that the Planet already offers it?

Thanks.

[lleal]

I think you mean SoftLayer now

[virtvir5]

And Softlayer has made it quite clear that, while existing The Planet arrangements will be sustained, all future expansion and upgrades will be done their way.

[GatorJacob]

I saw this thread and I brought it up with a manager. He advised that while we are always looking into services that we can offer, we haven't stepped in that direction yet.

This may or not be something we'll offer down the road.

Keep your fingers crossed (I'd love to work with Cloud computing and virtualization)

[ceaser]

Hell, I would even go for an offering along the lines of a VPS solution where the VPS's are stored on a SAN storage device (Softlayer seems to use Dell EqualLogic storage devices) and have the computing be done on the VPS Servers. That way, if one server needs to go down for maintenance, you can migrate one or all the VMs using that server's processing power to another server. That way, you don't have customers complaining that their site is down because of a RAM swap or chasis swap. They only have to worry about OS updates which can be mollified by Ksplice.

Another idea that would take a lot more effort and capital, but would probably also result in a better customer experience and maybe more efficiency in the long run would be to have the Reseller and Shared Hosting accounts be on VMs. Have everything be stored in SAN devices, and have VMs with the capacity of what you currently have on your shared servers, and then when they need to go down for maintenance, you can use the "live migration" feature to move the VM to a standby server ready to take on the load. Then you can reduce hardware downtime from 30min - half a day to seconds or a minute. Now that would take Hostgator off the competitive market and put you on a mountain of your own.

[staceykents]

Hopefully, 2011 will be the time that HG will be pursuing this plan.