Amazon.com Amazon Web Services Store: Amazon EC2 / Amazon Web Services

Amazon.com Amazon Web Services Store: Amazon EC2 / Amazon Web Services

Wanted to pass this link along... these new services that are coming out threaten just about everything we take for granted... I think it could be a good service in the future to add in servers when needed. It's an Amazon service to host machines, and allow you to "fire up" identical machines on the fly when you need them. Done right, you could go from 1, to 10, to 50 very quickly, just by flipping a switch, and then turn them off just as fast when they aren't needed anymore. And you only pay for what you use, that's all.

The cost is cheap - 10 cents per hour pre machine, with no minimum. Cutting edge, but huge cost savings if done right.

For example, imagine a data mining app, where machines digest pieces at a time, and enough are brought up to solve a problem, then shut down again. Or a busy website, say for ecommerce, where down times, like at night, resources are turned off - and not paid for. Data warehouse ETL where only resources used are charged for, with no idle mongo servers lying around afterward.

Smart people are going to have a field day breaking old expectations when it comes to computing power requirements.