Network latency with using different PaaS solutions

Question

Not sure is this belongs to stackoverflow or stackexchange. Mods - please point me towards the right platform.

I am unable to find statistics for an average network latency (due to network calls) and average cost hike (because these platforms also charge for network ingress/egress) due to the amount of web-service calls involved - especially when we use different providers for webapp hosting and database hosting. Pretty much everything is on SSL to add more delay. Is this delay/cost noticeable to a consumer ? I understand caching will help, but there's a limit to that.

Just to add some context - I am wondering if it's a smart decision for a startup to go with PaaS (I am planning to use Cloudbees/mongolab); or prefer rolling out everything on IaaS (like EC2). I guess GAE will not have such issues because everything Datastore is a part of their cloud ?

Thanks !

Answer 1

Disclaimer: I'm working at CloudBees. Contact me ndeloof@cloudbees.com if you want to discuss specific application constraints

CloudBees (and probably other PaaS, can't tell) don't bill for network traffic. Compared to an IaaS that would bill I/O, network, CPU cycles, etc, a PaaS offer a higher level abstraction then pricing model.

Network latency indeed is a major topic being hosted on a PaaS, that may be hosted on another continent. CloudBees offer US-east and EU-west regions to host application. For European customers, being hosted in EU zone, with low-latency network connection is a major improvement.

Hosting on a IaaS vs a PaaS can make sense, but probably not as your startup is in early stage. Use the PaaS as a booster to get quicly online and deliver features to your customers. If/when you're successful, maybe you'd prefer for whatever reason to switch (partially?) to a IaaS, and even later follow Facebook and Google building your own DataCenter :P

We have many startups as CloudBees customers, that benefit high level service to reduce Time-to-market, and focus on company actual business. Even working on an IaaS is fun for engineers, from business perspective it's not really what you want developers to focus on when your company has to be quick on a competitive market - and there's lot's of other topics you can have engineers to have fun with ;)

I don't get your comment on GAE. Google is indeed hosting his own DataStore. A PaaS like CloudBees relies on partner SaaS for Mongo (mongoHQ.com) but as this one is hosted on AWS as well network latency is the same as if CloudBees hosted it's own mongo instances.