EEVblog Electronics Community Forum

EEVblog => The AmpHour Radio Show => Topic started by: HardBoot on November 20, 2012, 02:42:07 am

Title: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: HardBoot on November 20, 2012, 02:42:07 am
So, I have a rather large amount of webhosting-or-vps goodness left over from a recent project and I was wondering if that crazy Aussie could put it to use. I remember Dave said the show uses a lot of bandwidth compared to EEV(since EEV is all Youtube hosted) and I have a mirror node looking for a user.

RAID10 Disk - 50GB
Dedicated RAM - 1024MB
Connection Speed - 100Mbps(included) or 1000Mbps(expensive)
Bandwidth - 5TB - Whooo 5'000 GB, that's a hell of a lot of AmpHour downloads, that's like 150'000 mp3s a month.

The company won't let me give it away for free forever, but hey, it's still probably cheaper than what Dave is paying, got about a month left on it and the bugger is $9 afterwards, normally it's $60 a month.

Edit: Whoops, 100Mbit is 5TB, Gbit is 15TB
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: EEVblog on November 20, 2012, 02:53:42 am
Thanks for the offer, but we are covered.
It's not just the bandwidth, it's everyone wanting it at once that is the problem.
That is were you need a CDN (Content  Delivery Network) like we use.
Regardless of huge powerful your dedicated server is, or how much bandwidth you have, they are not suited to even small scale streaming podcast shows like ours.
A CDN means that many servers around the world share the load and can stream the file, not only on distributed servers, but a server that more local to the listener.
We use Libsyn for this, and it's only $20/month.
http://libsyn.com/ (http://libsyn.com/)

e.g. Even a fast 100Mbit connection is going to allow 1500 or so 64Kbit streaming connections/downloads at once, at best, much less than that in practice.
When we upload a new show we'll get a several thousand trying to download it at once.
And that does not include people downloading older shows a the same time.

Dave.
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: HardBoot on November 20, 2012, 03:00:54 am
Heh, too bad I don't have a spare 10 Gbit in Chicago like I did last week, that bugger could push 1GB a second.

Well I guess I'll look elsewhere for a taker. :P
Keep up the great show, and EEV.
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: Monkeh on November 20, 2012, 04:11:39 am
Thanks for the offer, but we are covered.
It's not just the bandwidth, it's everyone wanting it at once that is the problem.
That is were you need a CDN (Content  Delivery Network) like we use.
Regardless of huge powerful your dedicated server is, or how much bandwidth you have, they are not suited to even small scale streaming podcast shows like ours.
A CDN means that many servers around the world share the load and can stream the file, not only on distributed servers, but a server that more local to the listener.
We use Libsyn for this, and it's only $20/month.
http://libsyn.com/ (http://libsyn.com/)

e.g. Even a fast 100Mbit connection is going to allow 1500 or so 64Kbit streaming connections/downloads at once, at best, much less than that in practice.
When we upload a new show we'll get a several thousand trying to download it at once.
And that does not include people downloading older shows a the same time.

Dave.

So what you're saying is it's about how much bandwidth you have.
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: EEVblog on November 20, 2012, 04:54:56 am
So what you're saying is it's about how much bandwidth you have.

No, it's a combination of things, I was being simplistic.
Processing power, disk throughput and architecture optimised for multi-channel streaming, and bandwidth all play a role.
Distributed server CDN's handle the job of streaming MUCH better than any dedicated box ever can. It's one of the first things you learn when your video blog or audio podcast grows to be even remotely popular.

Dave.
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: HardBoot on November 20, 2012, 07:44:38 am
So what you're saying is it's about how much bandwidth you have.
No, it's a combination of things, I was being simplistic.
Processing power, disk throughput and architecture optimized for multi-channel streaming, and bandwidth all play a role.
Distributed server CDN's handle the job of streaming MUCH better than any dedicated box ever can. It's one of the first things you learn when your video blog or audio podcast grows to be even remotely popular.
Dave.
Actually one of those aspects, CPU power, is not an issue if your server software is a systems language like Go, instead of script which is 10-100x slower.
I'll often peg out a 10 Gbit line with regular content serving before running out of CPU power on a decent system.
The next issue is storage speed... A battle I have learned is easier fought with RAM and many simple RAID 1's with content interlaced across in chunks instead of monster RAIDs.

EEVBlog.com on a Gbit or 10Gbit ded?
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: EEVblog on November 20, 2012, 08:04:04 am
EEVBlog.com on a Gbit or 10Gbit ded?

eevblog.com and the forum runs on a 100Mbps Xenon dedicated server with 500GB RAID-I drive.

Dave.
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: HardBoot on November 20, 2012, 10:33:38 am
EEVBlog.com on a Gbit or 10Gbit ded?
eevblog.com and the forum runs on a 100Mbps Xenon dedicated server with 500GB RAID-I drive.
Dave.
So the standard "cheapest" Softlayer ded in Seattle with extra drive option huh, $189?
I still have some very similar deds(same specs but Gbit instead of 100 Mbit) sitting around, $80, but they're obsolete.
Got much more powerful 1 Gbit VDS nodes starting at $50, could give you one for free to try out.
Try pinging 173.242.117.147 maybe you'll get better response time from Australia too, that's one Gbit VDS mentioned above, further away from you(in Chicago), but gets great pings across NA and closer to EU.

Ok I'm stopping, can't stand any more of myself being a salesman, back to playing with electronics.

I'd just give you anything for free but company doesn't let me unless you slap on an ad, ugh.
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: Monkeh on November 20, 2012, 10:46:18 am
So what you're saying is it's about how much bandwidth you have.

No, it's a combination of things, I was being simplistic.

I'm aware.

Quote
Processing power, disk throughput and architecture optimised for multi-channel streaming, and bandwidth all play a role.

CPU power is not that important, disk throughput is of limited import (RAM, use it wisely.), bandwidth is all.

Quote
Distributed server CDN's handle the job of streaming MUCH better than any dedicated box ever can.

This is true, but it's not accurate to say a single box can't handle it for your load. I think a well connected box on a single gigabit link would probably suffice, if properly set up.. Also amazing what you can do with a couple of cheap proxy appliances in the same rack (on different networks, obviously).
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: HardBoot on November 20, 2012, 11:06:29 am
This is true, but it's not accurate to say a single box can't handle it for your load. I think a well connected box on a single gigabit link would probably suffice, if properly set up.. Also amazing what you can do with a couple of cheap proxy appliances in the same rack (on different networks, obviously).
Ya distributing loads is just plain win.

In only a day I made a pseudo-CDS with 100 Mbit VPS nodes that only cost $5 each and with 4 of the buggers I could upload 45 MB a second for $20 a month.
The central node received a request and redirected the user to the least loaded and nearest node.

Pointless with Gbit now though, and a lot of work... but it was cheap and cool.
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: EEVblog on November 20, 2012, 11:39:41 am
This is true, but it's not accurate to say a single box can't handle it for your load. I think a well connected box on a single gigabit link would probably suffice, if properly set up.. Also amazing what you can do with a couple of cheap proxy appliances in the same rack (on different networks, obviously).

Maybe, but for 20 bucks a month?, that is already setup, monitored, and maintained to boot.
What if our audience doubles?, or more?
What about those in other countries? a local CDN can be much better.
What if the single box goes down? (I do that that risk on eevblog.com)
No contest really.

Dave.
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: Monkeh on November 20, 2012, 11:42:21 am
This is true, but it's not accurate to say a single box can't handle it for your load. I think a well connected box on a single gigabit link would probably suffice, if properly set up.. Also amazing what you can do with a couple of cheap proxy appliances in the same rack (on different networks, obviously).

Maybe, but for 20 bucks a month?
What if our audience doubles?, or more?

Dave.

$20 a month real cost? Sure. $20 a month for the customer? Yeah, right!

And when the audience doubles, you start scaling.

Note I never said a CDN is the wrong way to go about it.

What if the single box goes down?

And what if DNS for the CDN goes down? Yes, this happens. Far too often. I've also seen some utterly obscene routing issues with CDNs. Not to mention you're boarding a ship made a big, juicy target by hundreds of other people.

It's a trade-off whichever way you go.
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: HardBoot on November 20, 2012, 07:46:58 pm
$20 a month real cost? Sure. $20 a month for the customer? Yeah, right!
And when the audience doubles, you start scaling.
Note I never said a CDN is the wrong way to go about it.
And what if DNS for the CDN goes down? Yes, this happens. Far too often. I've also seen some utterly obscene routing issues with CDNs. Not to mention you're boarding a ship made a big, juicy target by hundreds of other people.
It's a trade-off whichever way you go.
Well it is pointless for DIY-CDN for his audio since there happens to be a CDN specifically for that, for cheap, but if there wasn't a specialized CDN it's be much more costly and self hosting makes a lot more sense.
Probably want to have a backup archive(or Torrent) but no need for more than that.
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: EEVblog on November 20, 2012, 10:12:25 pm
$20 a month real cost? Sure. $20 a month for the customer? Yeah, right!

Yes, really.
http://libsyn.com/3/plans-and-pricing/ (http://libsyn.com/3/plans-and-pricing/)
$20/month gets us a proper CDN podcast streaming system, with 400MB/month storage. Enough for a daily show if we wanted it.

Dave.
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: Monkeh on November 20, 2012, 10:39:00 pm
$20 a month real cost? Sure. $20 a month for the customer? Yeah, right!

Yes, really.
http://libsyn.com/3/plans-and-pricing/ (http://libsyn.com/3/plans-and-pricing/)
$20/month gets us a proper CDN podcast streaming system, with 400MB/month storage. Enough for a daily show if we wanted it.

Dave.

... I wasn't arguing the price of your CDN subscription. Context.
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: HardBoot on November 21, 2012, 12:46:52 am
(http://speedtest.net/result/2280579209.png)
Today I Learned: You can get blocked by speedtest.net if you run to many tests on your Gbit lines.  :-DD
Title: Re: AmpHour Hosting
Post by: TriodeTiger on November 21, 2012, 12:56:29 am
(http://speedtest.net/result/2280579209.png)
Today I Learned: You can get blocked by speedtest.net if you run to many tests on your Gbit lines.  :-DD

You need a blog ::)