Cloud Servers vs. Amazon EC2

1. Persistence

CLOUD SERVERS
One of the most significant differences between Cloud Servers and Amazon EC2 is the persistence of each virtual server. Cloud Servers has access to local, RAID10 disk storage, much like you'd expect in a physical server. This is important because it means your Server has inherent protection against drive failures. If for some reason the host does fail or become degraded, we will restart and/or migrate your Cloud Server for you. A failure doesn't mean that your Cloud Server goes away.
AMAZON EC2
Amazon EC2 instances are transient or ephemeral—if there is a host failure that causes your instance to terminate, all local data on that instance will be lost. Data persistence (not server persistence) can be added with Amazon EBS; however, EBS adds additional cost and complexity.

2. Server Sizes

CLOUD SERVERS
We provide a wide variety of Cloud Server sizes, starting at 256 MB and going up to 30 GB. Cloud Servers can be resized to scale without any reinstallation.
AMAZON EC2
Amazon EC2 standard instances start at 1.7 GB so if your workload requires fewer resources, you are stuck paying for much more than you need. Amazon recently introduced Micro instances (starting at 613 MB) for customers needing CPU burst capabilities.

3. Hybrid Hosting

CLOUD SERVERS
Depending on your needs, you can get the best of both worlds with a combination of cloud and dedicated servers with our RackConnect solution. The best configuration for your business may span more than one platform. By mixing and matching compute platforms, Rackspace can help create the optimal compute solution for your business. Why settle when you can have both under one roof from Rackspace?
AMAZON EC2
Amazon only offers part of the answer, with only cloud solutions. Amazon VPC is a beta service offering to connect a company's infrastructure to Amazon's cloud; however, Amazon does not offer hosting on dedicated/managed servers.

4. CPU Scheduling

CLOUD SERVERS
Cloud Servers has guaranteed minimum CPU power (relative to the size of the Cloud Server), with free bursting when extra capacity is available on the host.
AMAZON EC2
Amazon EC2 instances have a capped CPU. If additional CPU capacity is required, you need to launch another instance. Amazon recently introduced Micro instances which can be added (at an additional cost) for extra CPU resources.

5. Compute Power

CLOUD SERVERS
A recent study conducted by an independent third party demonstrated that US-Based Cloud Servers is, on average, more than two times more powerful than comparable Amazon EC2 Servers.
AMAZON EC2
While the pricing of EC2 instances appears to be lower, if it takes more than twice the time to complete a task, the total price to complete a task increases proportionally.

6. DISK I/O

CLOUD SERVERS
A recent study conducted by an independent third party demonstrated that on average US-Based Cloud Servers have a higher disk throughput than comparable Amazon EC2 servers.
AMAZON EC2
Amazon has a block storage solution that can show better performance than their built-in ephemeral storage under the right conditions; however, this solution results in additional costs, as both the amount of data stored and transferred are billed for.

7. IP Addresses

CLOUD SERVERS
Each Cloud Server comes with the simplicity of a dedicated and persistent public IP address (no NAT) with a second, private IP address for free. There is also low latency bandwidth between your Cloud Servers. Additional public IPs are available upon request and shared IPs can be provided for high availability.
AMAZON EC2
With EC2, the IP configuration is more complex. Each instance gets a non-persistent private IP address NATed to a public IP address. When instances terminate and new ones are launched, a new private IP address is assigned which means you need to plan for changing private IPs (although Elastic IPs can be remapped). In addition, only one NATed IP address is available which, for example, does not lend itself to hosting multiple sites via SSL.

8. Support

CLOUD SERVERS
Cloud Servers is backed by the legendary Fanatical Support you can only get from Rackspace. With our core service level (free with Cloud Servers), customers get:
  • 1) 24x7x365 Chat/Phone/Ticket Support
  • 2) access to the Rackspace cloud control panel
  • 3) 100% network uptime guarantee
  • 4) 100% HVAC/Power uptime guarantee
  • 5) access to our forums and online resources, and much more.
AMAZON EC2
To receive 24x7x365 support for Amazon EC2, you pay the greater of $400 per month or 20% (scaling down) of your EC2 costs. That means your support cost goes up with your EC2 usage and isn’t directly related to the amount of support you use. Except for urgent problems (which can be reclassified by Amazon) response times apply to normal business hours only.

9. Open Philosophy

CLOUD SERVERS
The Rackspace Cloud approach is one that is standards-based and open. As an active member of organisations such as the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), The Rackspace Cloud collaborates to develop standards and promote interoperability. To help ensure that the community shaped the Cloud Servers API, The Rackspace Cloud solicited feedback and conducted intensive testing with its partners and cloud developers. In 2010, Rackspace became a founding member of OpenStack, an open-source cloud platform designed to foster the emergence of technology standards and cloud interoperability.
AMAZON EC2
Amazon has not embraced an open-source approach for cloud interoperability.
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