Cloud Hosting for PHP - Explain away my fears?

Question

So I've always relied on more traditional hosting when it comes to hosting my websites - either with shared or dedicated hosting. The time has come (or maybe it came long ago) for me to consider the cloud. But with the cloud come a few concerns (all arising out of my own ignorance) and I'm hoping StackOverflow can put my fears to rest.

While I've heard some answers to my questions in the past, I'm hoping to get enough feedback, and also hopefully provide a valuable resource to any others out there like me.

1) First off - how does it all work? I mean, I get the network of clouds, spinning them up and down as I need it. But until now, I've always opened up an FTP client, connected to my server and uploaded my website. My guess is this all works the same way with the cloud, but how is it all managed? How do I update files and how would I delete them? Would an FTP client suffice for the simple file-management of a website?

2) A lot of shared hosts use PHP4, and allow PHP5 with the right extension - how does this, and all the PHP extensions work? How would I turn on the mod_rewrite extension, for example? How would I select my version of PHP? Can I curl?

3) What about things like cron jobs, or administrating a mysql database? Can I access my database via a phpmyadmin interface, or via the MySQL Query Browser?

4) Lastly, how does the cost really compare to shared hosting? I know it all depends on traffic, so to phrase my question differently, where do the cost lines intersect (if at all?) For example, if I pay $100/month for a dedicated server, and can support 300,000 page visits, or 2-3 page visits per second, what would the cost be for similar usage?

As always, I appreciate the help, and hope it's enough to encourage me to use the cloud. It's so fancy!

Answer 1

I'd vote for Cloud Sites http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/sites/

I'd imagine the methods used to manage your site (in the case of Cloud Sites) would be very similar to that of your traditional shared hosted with something like Plesk or CPanel installed.

Answer 2

The term "Cloud" is used in many ways... What you describe is more likely a virtual root server - which you can freeze or unfreeze at will (EC2, JiffyBox (Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of these :)).

If you have good LAMP/Linux knowledge you do not have to worry about things like mod_rewrite etc. because you have the power to change it to your liking.

If your knowledge about root servers is limited - you can install free/open-source tools like webmin. If your are not to enthusiastic about running your own server - a managed hosting ist probably better.

Sorry - I cannot comment on the costs.

Answer 3

You should be afraid...very afraid.

For offloading multiple long running tasks, clouds are fine.

However, when every web request to build a page has to go through a boat load of algorithms to find the resource, performance will suffer. (In my limited experience).

Do testing before committing to anything.