A shout-out to DreamHost. And to @JoeBaguley of Quest, who has caused me to think harder about the environmental impact of daily life.
Recently while I was away at VMworld we had a circuit breaker trip and for one reason or another the power to Marvin, my server, did not get restored. The impact was immediately visible: a reduction by 0.5kW in power draw. That’s a lot of power for a private website and mail server, so I cast around for a cheap and easy-to-use hosting deal. I settled on DreamHost because the price was right (under $10 per month), I saw some decent reviews, and it has an awesome one-click install process for the software I already used (MediaWiki and WordPress) and integrates with GMail for mail.
I needed some support during setup, the quality and speed of this was awesome. Humbling, actually, I am nowhere near that good with my internal customers. Sure, not quite up to VMware standards but I pay for platinum support with VMware and I can upgrade to a an almost equal level with DH for another ten bucks a month. Those folks are smart and friendly. I can’t fault the value of that offer.
Importing my Wiki to the test site took very little time and setting up the managed DNS for transferring the live site took hardly any longer. I can save the hosting cost in month 1 because I can move to a cheaper ISP which does not provide a static IP, the power saving is free collateral benefit.
Why did I not eat my own dogfood and go for cloud provision, I hear you ask? Easy: I need a completely predictable bill, just as my business units do. So managed virtual hosting works for me as it works for my business and funnily enough for my business’ customers as well. Cloud is about where you stop caring, the monthly bill is something I care about.Blimey, the phrase eating your own dogfood was popularised in Microsoft by Paul Maritz, now CEO of VMware. Small world.
Oh, do feel free to point out where I am wrong, as I am sure I am – no doubt there are cloud providers who are as easy to use, as cheap and as competent as DreamHost. Right now I am in no hurry to change, I have been surprised and delighted at every stage, and the fact that you are seeing this shows that it Just Works. I am all for point solutions that Just Work.