Slashdot Mirror
Should a Web Startup Go Straight To the Cloud?
Javaman59 writes "I am a one person company developing a web site from home. The site is hoped to attract millions of accounts and daily hits (just to give an idea of the scale of things, as its important to the question). My infrastructure is currently Visual Studio 2010 on a PC. To progress the site I need to set up version control, continuous integration, and staging. I have a Win2008 server VM, with all the Windows software (free and legal) to do this. However, I am only just competent as a Win admin, and I foresee each step of the way (setting up a domain; SQL-Server, etc) as a slow, risky process, and a big disruption to development. Should I forget my VM server (it will make a nice games machine!) and just go straight to the cloud for all my infrastructure?"
Reality is in the big picture, there is no difference between MS OSs and anyone else.
Except that adding another server to handle more load will cost a couple grand per seat on Windows (Hardware plus licensing) where on an OSS platform you only pay for the hardware.
Your argument that it is possible to do is beside the point, since no one is saying Windows can't scale. The point is the cost of doing so.
The poster stated he is using the Microsoft route since that is what he is familiar with. And there is nothing wrong with that, as long as you have firmly in the front of your mind that is what you are doing, and there will be huge costs involved to do that.
Since his question was about costs, specifically keeping them down, you can not expect people to not recommend tools that perform the same function just as well yet are free.
If he wasn't willing to change from what he is familiar with, he wouldn't have asked for cheaper options, and would have just accepted the fact he must pay a lot of money to stay with the familiar.