After reading a report yesterday saying that Rackspace cloud servers were a better deal than Amazon's, I decided to check it out today.

I don't have time to do a formal benchmark, so I created a Rackspace-hosted clone of a system that is having trouble keeping up with its workload on EC2. I chose the cheapest option on Rackspace, a 1GB 32-bit Windows 2003 server that costs $0.08 per hour, which works out to $59 per month. Significantly less than the $90 a mini-server costs on Amazon.

The result was shocking. With the same load that pushed EC2 to it limit, CPU-wise, the Rackspace server bareley got off the baseline. So I kept adding more load to the Rackspace server. It's now doing something like 1.5 the work of the EC2 system.

Here are the two perf monitor graphs. Remember, the second one is doing considerably more work than the first.

I'm definitely moving that server from EC2 to Rackspace.

Also, it seems Rackspace should do some serious benchmarks. And whatever it is that's keeping Amazon from performing like Rackspace, they should fix it.

 4/14/2011; 6:15:37 PM.   .

Tried riding west on Prince St, but that didn't work out too well. Too crowded, busy business street. Traffic and lights.

Ride was great once I was on the bikeway. Headed north into a headwind. Huffing and puffing. Turnaround at 46th. Movie of helicopter takeoff over Hudson. Nice tail wind.

Came back via Bleecker. Feel great!

Here's the map/stats.

 4/14/2011; 5:54:41 PM.   .

Just thought it was worth mentioning that, based on Fortune's sources, Google offered $10 billion to Twitter and they turned it down.

Now of course I could be wrong, I often am -- but it seems to me (enough qualification, ok) this is going to go down as one of the colossal acts of tech industry chutzpah and hubris of all time.

You can also conclude that Google seriously wants to buy Twitter.

 4/14/2011; 5:12:37 PM.   .

 4/14/2011; 10:11:29 AM.   .

Gotta say it, I was proud of my President yesterday for calling bullshit on the Republican bullshit.

This morning, listening to NPR, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They were picking at every little thing. It was as if they had been given the Republican talking points and were going over them, again and again.

Contrast this to the way they explained the Ryan "plan" -- with no skepticism, glossing over the core idea of letting old people die in poverty, while giving more tax cuts to the richest people!

I don't know where they get the idea that NPR has a liberal bias. Sounds to me like they take their orders from the Repubs.

No matter, the President spoke to all of us who love our parents and grandparents, and realize that someday we too will be old, or might get sick, and would like not to be seen as trash.

 4/14/2011; 8:16:12 AM.   .