Evaluating CMSMS on Rackspace Cloud Sites

[milehigh]

So..I've been trying out the Rackspace Cloud sites and tried an installation of CMSMS with an Ecommerce project I've been messing with. Feel free to hit the URL at www.siboatdeals.com. It's a sandbox domain I'm not doing anything with. Feel free to play around with everything. The shopping cart will not send you any widgets or gadgets. There's also a contact form and a streaming sample.

So far...it seems really snappy and responsive. I also REALLY like the fact the when you install modules via the module manager the show under my own user and group and NOT as apache/apache. Some of you on a shared host knows what a pain that can be.

The Rackspace website claims that 10,000 compute cycles can get you 2.1 million pageviews out of a database driven CMS. I'd like to put that number to the test a little bit here.

I've installed Google Analytics (just analytics, not ads or anything like that) so I'll post the pageviews and and computed cycles here after a couple days.

Also if anybody else is using them, can you either post (or privately message) your URL, pageviews and cycles used?

Again the URL is http://www.siboatdeals.com.

[dmgd]

Have 6 clients on my RackSpace account and not even close to 10,000 limit.  Of course these are not huge sites with mega trafic.  I do like the fact Module Manager installs as my user/group.  That was the main reason I started using RackSpace.  No problems so far. Also like the fact you can write shell scripts to do backups to dirs far from public view.  The automatic client billing is great too.

From Sept 20th to date about 20 days
Top site 2800 page views and 249 cycles

[JeremyBASS]

---CMSMS on Rackspace Cloud Sites

All I can say is good gosh they are great...

[milehigh]

It looks like those cycles go a long way...

Google analytics showed 172 visits but that doesn't count the actual install of CMSMS and the messing around I did under the admin section (which doesn't go towards the pageviews) and I've used 3 cycles out of 10,000. Wish I had more pageviews to measure by but I think it would take a lot to reach the allocated limit without paying for overage.

Tough decision here..i'll probably stick with my 2 VPS's for now due to the work involved with transferring over but if you're just starting out hosting CMSMS websites for several clients than this would be a really sweet setup. Little expensive at first in comparison but you get what you pay for in hosting and bandwidth.

[moorezilla]

Sounds good!

I've never reached the traffic necessary to justify this hosting option, but I have used and been impressed by slicehost (now owned by Rackspace) as a cheaper alternative. Linode has worked out pretty damn well for me too. Both have the option to easily add/subtract server resources as needed, and their entry price points are in the shared vhost ballpark.

[RackWire.com]

What are the costs for the Cloud Hosting Options?

Mike

[milehigh]

Their cloud sites offering is at $100 a month. If you are handling the hosting for a lot of sites or different clients it's a really strong and well performing solution. As others stated..the fact that everything installs as your user and group eliminates one of the biggest needs for root access when working with CMSMS so if I had to do it over again I'd have all my sites on their cloud due to the scaling it provides.

[scooper]

I know this is a bit of an old topic but I'd be interested to know if people are still happy using Rackspace Cloudsites for CMSMS.

We have a fairly large site that has reasonably large fluctuations in traffic so I'm thinking about moving them to Cloudsites but don't want to have to make the move if people aren't convinced that Cloudsites are as good as we hoped. Certainly reading the Rackspace support forums isn't as reassuring as I'd like.

In particular has anyone had any issues with sites getting 'No available nodes' types errors or memory issues? And how are you dealing with backups?

Thanks.

s.

[dmgd]

Can't complain. I have not been to the RackSpace forums lately though. Last I was there I read some grumbling about RackSpace letting CoudSites go dormant as fare as adding new features. However last I heard a new CP was in the works.

Site monitoring shows uptime average is 99.99 over 20+ sites. Lowest single site was 98.9 but mostly 100%. Chat tech support is good the few times I have used it. I have noticed a few more notices from RackSpace about the CP being down the last few months. I'm hoping this is just a cycle. Funniest notice I got was last year when they ask all WP users to and I quite "UPGRADE" and gave a link to directions. They usually stop cron when there is a problem and I notice some backups not getting done.

I wrote a couple of backup scripts that cron runs. The script do complete backup of all files and databases. The script deletes the files older that 1 week and saves a monthly backup for 3 months. (Over kill I know)

All and all I really don't have any issues with them. I only go to the CP to add new sites and check data quota. I can mount a drive on my Linux box. This is a nice feature but I'm sure others have it as well. The ability to do a lot with .htaccess. The default memory limit is 32. Because the main CP and the CP my clients have is lacking in some areas (a few clients can not grasp the ftp client concept) I rate it a 4 out of 5. BTW the price has gone up to $150 since I started.

Current PHP Version (phpversion)
: 5.2.13 Success
md5 function (md5_function)
: On (True) Success
GD version (gd_version)
: 2 Success
tempnam function (tempnam_function)
: On (True) Success
Magic quotes in runtime (magic_quotes_runtime)
: Off (False) Success
Is E_STRICT disabled in error_reporting (E_STRICT)
: Success
PHP Effective Memory Limit (memory_limit)
: 32M Success
Maximum Execution Time (max_execution_time)
: 64 Success
PHP output_buffering (output_buffering)
: On Success
PHP Safe Mode (safe_mode): Off (False) Success
File uploads (file_uploads)
: On (True) Success
Maximum Post Size (post_max_size)
: 16M Success
Maximum Upload Size (upload_max_filesize)
: 8M Caution ?
Session Save Path (session_save_path
: /xxx/xxx/xxx Success
Sessions are allowed to use Cookies (session_use_cookies)
: On (True) Success
Basic XML (expat) support (xml_function)
: On (True) Success
Checking if the httpd process can create a file inside of a directory it created (create_dir_and_file)
: Success
PHP register_globals (register_globals)
: Off (False) Success
disable_functions in PHP (disable_functions)
: leak, posix_getpwuid, posix_getpwnam, posix_getgrid, posix_getgrnam, posix_getgroups Caution ?
PHP Open Basedir (open_basedir)
: Success
Test for remote URL (test_remote_url)
:Success
fsockopen: Connection ok! Success fopen
: Connection ok! Success
Test ini_set (check_ini_set)
: On (True) Success

Server Information:

Server API (server_api)
: apache2handler
Server Database (server_db_type)
: MySQL (mysqli)
Server Database Version (server_db_version)
: 5.0.77 Success
Server Software (server_software)
: Apache/2.2
Server Operating System (server_os)
: Linux 2.6.32.21-grsec-6.mosso5.x86_64 On x86_64

[scooper]

Thanks dmgd - appreciate the detailed answer.

I think we'll give it a go and I'll report back in a while with how we got on...

s.

[milehigh]

Thanks dmgd....

I'm wondering..I haven't checked them out in awhile and have been waiting for features to be announced but I also have noticed they have been silent while really pushing their other products hard.

How are you handling CMSMS upgrades and installations that aren't handled by diff files? Do they offer any type of zip/unzip yet?

You mentioned earlier that you have 6 clients on the platform...have you moved more? If I make the switch...at the current price point it's at it needs to be an all or none for me.

[dmgd]

I have 20+ sites now but I'm not making any money hosting. I make money in monthly maintenance fees. I maintain 16 sites all small business or non-profits that don't have the staff. Hosting is just part of the package.

I'm not getting rich! I retired a few years back and started helping a local non-profit. By word of mouth it has turned into some nice extra income.

I use this method on Ubuntu to edit and upload files. http://help.rackspacecloud.com/article.php?id=340

Like I said I only log in to control panel to add new clients, check data quota and other mail or DNS stuff.