Grails hosting - what are you looking for?

Date May 20, 2008

If you’re using a third party Grails host, how is it working out for you?

If you’re looking for a Grails host, what are you looking for?

What are the most important factors - available RAM, CPU, disk size, app container, support?  Java 1.5?  1.6?  Cutting edge Groovy betas?

I’m doing my own on a dedicated server right now, but it’s sharing with other apps, and my Grails apps (admittedly small and tests for the most part) only get about 300meg or so, and I’m not sure if that’s adequate if the apps get more traffic and concurrent users.

What would be your ideal ‘dream’ hosting setup for Grails?

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5 Responses to “Grails hosting - what are you looking for?”

  1. Robert Fischer said:

    I’m using a 256 slice on SliceHost, cranking away with Tomcat and Nginx acting as a reverse proxy. I’ve got Hudson running up there, too. Seems to be working out great, despite the occasional swap warning.

  2. mgkimsal said:

    Robert:

    Thanks for the info there. Slicehost doesn’t look too bad. I’ve got dedicated servers I run, but they’re all running other apps as well. A 1gig dedicated ’slice’ for 1gig is pretty competitive with a full dedicated server from serverbeach or theplanet. Have you had any speed issues? What sort of cpu/bogomips do you see for your 256 slice?

  3. Luke said:

    Have you or anyone tried something else from Slicehost? I also got a 256 slice and two simple Grails-based apps there and that seems to be too much… Running only Tomcat 6.0.16. I guess 256 is for one not too complex Grails app. What I wanted to say is I don’t need that much a dedicated (virtual) server if I can run only one app. But hell, Grails are still my choice for many of my 2.0 ideas.

  4. mgkimsal said:

    This is such a matter of observation. I’m a very impatient person, and I’ve complained about service from a company that other colleagues have no problem with. Looking at the same exact site and behaviour, and we come up with different views.

    Wider issue - in this day of 2+ghz processors, I can still tell when I’m using a Java desktop app (not that there’s too many to choose from). Some people today claim “I can’t even tell if I’m using a Java app cause it’s so fast!”. I can tell. Some people 10 years ago were saying the same thing, and one could notice then. Faster processors mean all other desktop apps are faster too, so the delta still exists and is noticeable.

    So, tying that back to this thread, 256 for apps is fine for someone, and not enough for someone else. Yes, the apps might be different, but I suspect 256meg, a moderate CPU and slow disks just really aren’t enough for most Java/Grails apps. The target user and scenario for the entire stack (hibernate, spring, etc.) aren’t “people running on small/cheap hosting”, so I’d be very surprised if a moderately complex app will be performant on a relatively ‘low end’ system.

  5. schleicher said:

    I have 256 slice. There are: apache2, php5, mysql, tomcat, postfix (with amavis and spamassassin). On php side deployed 3 small sites with low users…
    I put there a small test grails-app - and it works very slowly, due the swap. It seems like mail-services are very dependent on memory also

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