5tags

Introducing Dreamhost’s “Private Server” or PS for short. Dreamhost, my old web host, just launched a new and innovative product which combines the benefits of Amazon’s EC2 with the ease of use of shared hosting. Shared Hosting is what the majority of people use to host their blogs, sites, and small web apps. The problem is that these sites can grow very quickly and outgrow the shared hosting environment. This forces the creators of these websites into a predicament. They either have to pay big bucks to get a fully managed server or take a significant amount of time to learn how to properly run a server. Some opt for the fully managed route and get faced with huge bills which hinder the future of their website. Others choose to run their own server, that is located at a data center, but often run into problems with security. There has to be a better and easier way to scale your website beyond shared hosting.

What is “PS”?

Dreamhost PS is our new invite-only premium shared hosting service, available only as an add-on to a current DreamHost hosting plan. DreamHost PS uses Linux-VServer to give you your own “virtual machine”, thereby protecting your CPU and RAM from all other users on your physical machine.

Essentially you can simple drag a slider to scale your site up to an additional dedicated 2300 MB of RAM and 2.3 GHz of CPU. Dreamhost makes it very easy for you manage your website thru the same control panel that you have been using prior to this new add-on.

What Makes This Better?

Unlike other virtual dedicated servers where you have to pay for additional features such as backups and performance stats, Dreamhost continues to offer their amazing disk space and bandwidth along with full automatic backups and performance stats. If you are running a single dedicated virtual server at a competitor then you are forced to run not only Apache (if you use Apache as your web server) but also MySQL, and your email server on the same “box”. With PS you still continue to run your MySQL databases on other dedicated servers and you still get the load-balanced email.

Ideal Situation

PS is perfect for many situations but I can think of one right now that it would be excellent for.So you run a website to promote a yearly event. The event happens in August so your traffic spikes around August. When it comes to August you need the full 2300 MB RAM and 2.3 GHZ CPU, but in November you only need standard shared hosting since your traffic is relatively small. The old solution would be to build around the August traffic. You maybe would need to purchase 2 servers, pay for the hookup at the data center, and also pay for the bandwidth. Your total money spend would be very high and although you would get the full potential out of the servers during August, your setup will be fairly overkill for November.With PS you can simple adjust your server resources based on your projected traffic. When you approch your busy season you can boost the resources and when it comes time that traffic slows down, you can scale back to a cheaper solution. Rather than spending several thousands of dollars you would only spend hundreds.

• You get your own protected CPU and memory!
• You can still burst up to the full 2.3 GHz cpu and double the memory!
• It works just like your current shared service!
• We’ll never kill a persistent process / cronjob you run!
• You can name your own “server”!
• You get 2 unique IPs (a $9.90/month value)!
• You can change your memory and CPU on the fly… no reboot needed!
• You can reboot your own server from our panel instantly!
• You get historical memory / load graphs on our panel!

What’s Bad

• It’s currently invitation-only.
• It’s $1.50/month ($1.00/month forever if you pre-order now!) for each 10 MB and 10 MHz.
• There’s a $100 (waived for now!) one-time set up fee.
• You don’t get root access… remember, it works just like our regular hosting.
• (But hey, no root means no breaking things… and our hosting is already super flexible!)

I first have to say that this was just launched and I nor anybody that I know has used the service. The main problem is that their is no root access. I suppose that this is a major drawback except for the fact that if you read thru the Dreamhost Wiki you will see that the users have made work arounds to install almost anything. The fact that their is no root access I suppose just emphasizes that fact that this service is designed for users with little to no experience with servers, except the product is so strong that it is also ideal for people with some knowledge and experience. It is very early to weight in all of the cons but I would have to say that the concept looks very strong.

How Much Will I/You Need?

It is always hard to guess how much you will need but I suggest starting out with the lowest 150MHZ and 150 MB of RAM, unless you know for sure that you will need more. Once you run your site off of this for a day or two then you can see how much you actually need. If you are usually the majority of your resources then I suggest boosting it up. If you know of an event like a digg then you an always adjust on the fly in order to get the most out of the digg effect and not lose traffic due to a bad host.Dreamhost also listed some of their websites and how much resources they would need to run on PS:

• 150 MB / 150 Mhz: 99% of all predominantely static sites. (e.g. www.dreamhost.com)
• 300 MB / 300 Mhz: A top 100 blog. (e.g. blog.dreamhost.com)
• 515 MB / 515 Mhz: A busy forum. (e.g. discussion.dreamhost.com)
• 2300 MB / 2300 Mhz: A very popular web app. (e.g. panel.dreamhost.com)

Will I Use It

I will have to be honest and say that I will probably not use PS. I am currently using Media Temple’s grid server and I love it. Not only does it never go down but when I get sudden traffic spikes it handles the traffic very well. They give out 1000 GPUs which is about 32 per day. Currently, my highest day since I switched was around 7.5 GPUs in one day. I must say though that my site is heavily optimized, and I try to make it as simple as possible for the server to serve m site. I still have a lot of room to grow though.

COUPON CODE!!!

I have an exclusive coupon code for Dreamhost web hosting. Simple use the code “50OFFALLPLANS” to get $50 off any plan or use “5TAGS” to get $30 off. Since you have to have a Dreamhost account in order to use PS, I highly suggest using these codes to get a great deal.

Closing

I still have a Dreamhost account but I can’t see myself using PS in the near future. It is a great concept and I really hope people use it. If you have any comments please make them below.