Can Someone Explain Why use Amazon S3 vs Own website?

Host videos or any media on amazons s3 server. Its an incredibly fast server. you could look at hosting the video on a cloud server like Cloud Computing, Cloud Hosting & Online Storage by Rackspace Hosting. Mosso is now the Rackspace Cloud.

Ah so I should still host my actual websites on my own server, but store the media on a site like S3 for the massive demands etc.

Is the cloud server faster than S3 for delivering video? (I dont want visitors sitting around forever waiting for videos to load)

Also do the videos uploaded to S3 etc. come with embed codes like using YouTube? (I havent actually tried embedding videos into the site from anywhere other than YouTube, but I want more control over branding etc.)

Cloud servers are just as fast as the s3 server...well the service provided by mosso is.

And no you have to code your own embed codes like on youtube. is really simple though


<embed src="URL TO VIDEO" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="HOW WIDE" height="HOW HIGH"></embed>

Ah, so can you explain why someone would choose Cloud over S3 then?

Is pricing better in the long run? Features?

Cloud servers tend to be cheaper if you choose the right package - s3 you have to pay per gb or mb.

There is more flexibility with a cloud server.

Ah thanks guys,

But what about using a cloud for media?

Or is S3 better suited for video / audio streaming than clouds?

Clouds are better handled for bursty traffic, larger CPU requirements, memory/storage. Even though your website is on a physical server, by the virtue of being in a cloud, it is redundant / resilient to failure that would otherwise be prone to a single server.

Mosso - which is Rackspace's cloud service is more affordable than Amazon's Cloud service. Other providers are GoGrid. You can google for them. It it is video content serving you are concerned about, then the best option for you is to take the content to a 'content delivery network'. The cheapest one I know is SimpleCDN. Others like Bitgravity or StreamGuys are also very very affordable. SimpleCDN is just 3 cents per GB of data transfer (which I think is the lowest in the industry).

What I personally like about the cloud is that it is not a 'single' server that I have to manager per se. I can if I want, get a Cloud Server or Cloud Hosting. Both are economical and robust enough.

Ah so if I just plan to host videos / media on them then S3 would be overkill and I'm better off with 0.03c a GB service like SimpleCDN?

Would it deliver/stream videos just as fast tho? That's my main concern, its an offline client's site so not too worried about massive traffic, just don't want slow load/buffer times!

Gah - Cloud computing is jsut a total minefield so let me try and clear up a few things for everyone.

1) Cloud computing is as follows - a VPS. A VPS is a virtual private server that is a virtualised layer that sits inside a dedicated server/rack. VPS's are incredibly portable, you can alter disk, cpu, memory on the fly, and move a VPS from one dedicated server to another on the fly - zero loss of service. They are the absolute backbone of how cloud computing works.

2) Cloud Pricing - no-one has nailed the pricing models yet. The idea of paying for component usage is smart for the host but awful for the customer. For example I can have a website that costs me 35bucks to host on my own vps - it runs within all the boundaries I am set by my plan and all is good. If I put my website on the Amazon cloud for example I may find my website uses lots of CPU and my first month costs me 2000bucks - remember this is the same website. In my 35bucks package I just dont care about CPU usage so long as it works. Some companies have moved into Cloud Computing then discovered their costs have been so high they have recoded their applications to ensure minimum use of CPU at a ridiculous cost, I still question this but as I cannot see their numbers perhaps it was worth their while.

3) So when to go Cloud?
As has been mentioned - when you need the flexibility of burst usage, or when you do all the calculations it works out cheaper - and thus far I've not seen any evidence to support Amazons pricing model. A more typical model actually follows the typical VPS pricing structure and charge you for usage for maybe one component of the agreement.

Bottom line Cloud Computing is brilliant because it allows incredible level of flexibility and freedom. Right now it is in it's infancy and the pricing models are in my opinion just not right for the real world - yet!

Camtasia is alright. If you are just doing screen-cap video
I wouldn't be too worried. Just use a slow frame-rate, as
slow as 3-5 fps and nobody will notice. Compared to 30
fps video that's 6-10x smaller file size.

Host Gator can and will shut your site down if you get a traffic spike that pulls more than 3% of CPU resources. I know people they have shut down and not even told them why. Kind of crappy to have your sites go offline without you even knowing it.

Video pulls a lot of resources as you stack users at the same time. So that's your answer as to why. If you have the capacity and host your own servers then it's a different issue.

Seems to me you guys need to do a bit of research on VPS servers. They're a tiny bit more expensive than reseller hosting but you're on your own protected resources with some burst capibility. Being on shared hosting makes me cry.