Today’s downtime was unfortunately caused by memcached being overloaded. After tracking down the issue I figured that my configuration could use a slight overhaul in order to prevent future issues like today’s. The basic resolution was to simply restart the service which brought the site back online. Simple enough, however I feel that if memcached cant handle the current load then there is probably a reason and it should be revised. Initial Configuration: Database Server - MySQL 5.0.77 - Memcached 1.4.5 Memcached(defaults): 64MB Cache 1024 Max Connections Listening on private IP As you...

This article is a follow up to my original called “Coding for the Cloud” which focused on a broad range of topics and provided a high level overview of how to use the cloud by scaling your application in a linear fashion rather than relying on heavy duty hardware to power your servers. This article is going to focus on figuring out if your application is a good fit for the cloud or if it should remain on a dedicated hardware solution such as Co-location, Managed Dedicated Servers, or Unmanaged Dedicated Server. So.. Is your application a good fit for the cloud? Here are a few questions you...

Overview: These day’s everyone is talking about the scalability of the cloud, and its abundance of uses, however few of them are talking about how to properly utilize the technology. Cloud Infrastructures are designed to be able to scale in a linear fashion rather than a “vertical” like that of dedicated hardware. When scaling with dedicated hardware the first step is to build up what you have. Typically people start off with a smaller server which is cheaper and add ram / disk as needed. Once the hardware can no longer be upgraded, they then start to expand linear. The cloud also...