I’ve been spending a lot of time with Virtual Private Server (VPS) technology, ranging from Amazon’s incredible EC2 offering, to the less sexy but very affordable choices from Mosso, Godaddy, etc. VPS represents a mind blowing technology shift, with major implications for customers of all sizes. Let’s review a few of the basic trends in the VPS space.

1. It’s new, but it’s not new

VMWare and Xen are pretty familiar to people by now, so guest operating systems in their own sandbox is not exactly brand new. Go further back and you’ll find the same thing in the AS 400 arena for years and years. So some of the underlying technology is not new. BUT, no one has ever used to technology to create the VPS products not available… also, the “cloud” infrastructure that supportsVPS technology is new… as well, the economics of the cloud and the infrastructure needed for VPS hasreached atipping point of being extremely robust butextremely cheap …so all of this is new. That is to say, never have we customers had low cost virtual servers of every imaginable flavor available to us on demand …As a product and a value proposition, this absolutelyis NEW.

2. Why buy servers ?

Ordering servers is a pain. Even with Dell’s ecommerce site, there are too many confusing choices, too many options, and it’s easy for even a pro to order the wrong thing. Once your order is done, you wait two weeks (uugh). Then you have to unbox the system, finish the OS install, do the antivirus, setup the backup, do the updates, install applications, take the server to the customer site, find Ethernet, find a free KVM port, on and on and on. That’s a lot of work and hassle (time, people, money)without a lot of business value.VPS blows the modelintosmithereens. Needa new server? With VPS you just login into your provider, a fewmouse clicks later you have your own server up and ready to go.And it’ll be months or years before the charge catches up to theinitialDell expense … looked at in terms of TCO (total cost of ownership), and VPS look like it could be considerably cheaper,with pricesgoing lower… This is aBIG DEAL. Could VPS mean no more serversin the notso distant future ?

3. Perfect Timing

The timing for VPS technology is perfect … customers absolutely want to hold onto their money these days, and they are a lot more willing to look at a cloud based option like VPS … whatever concerns there might be about security and availability will graduallyfade given the outstanding reputation ofproviders of these services, companieslike Amazon.com. VPS is hitting itsstride just at the right time.

We’ll bevisiting further about this topic in later posts, includinglooking at ways that VPS can address specificcustomerbusiness needs forcheaper than ever before.

Michael
Case Studies, Field Notes