Azure vs Hosted VPS

beauzero wrote:

first visit is taking a long time to load.....so far 1 min and its still waiting and loading..nothing coming out

Its more than 2-3 minutes.. still waiting to load.

i am struggling with windows azure....azure VM plan is too expensive for me (over 80 dollars per month)....azure website shared plan does not support custom SSL.....azure website standard plan is too expensvie (over 70 per month)....azure cloud service plan is cheaper (around 20-30) and support custom SSL but hard to setup..(no guide online)....this is so frustrating...been a week now..i probably just gonna find a VPS host instead..can anyone recommend me a fast/reliable VPS for the east coast US?

prodev42 wrote:

Have you tried Smarterasp. We have few sites hosted with them now, and so far got no issues. Support is good too.

jariwalakrunal wrote:

their cheapest rate for VPS is 59.95 a month which is relatively more expensive than others...i can find deals around 25...any other recommendations?

It is really slow when it's not spun up.  I have to mess around with the default keep alives, etc.  I think there is another issue because I am pretty sure that the database and the website are hosted in two different geographical locations.  In one of the //build talks they were giving advice on how to reduce data usage and speed up sites.  Getting both the website and the db in the same container is apparently the holy grail of speed and cost reduction because data stays inside the storage container.  I will keep you posted with what I find.

To other questions...
1.  I haven't tried SSL yet.  Will post walkthrough as I do it.
2.  "Pricing plan"...I just went with the defaults because MSDN Pro comes with a $200 credit.  

I will post as I ramp up to production.  Azure is about the only option for us.  I am limited to a staff of one at this point and security is a huge requirement for us.

beauzero wrote:

from ur blog it seems u used website plan but I am not sure if u selected standard or shared...if u selected shared then u can't have a custom SSL setup...

I just went through the wizard as described.  Unfortunately it put the website in "Western Europe" and I put the db in "South Central US" (San Antonio, TX).  Pulling down the website now and going to delete it then recreate it in South Central US.  Will then upload site again and see if this improves performance.

Using Filezilla to push and pull files.  Note:  FTP account you create is <website name>\user you created.  Need both the "domain" and username to login through FTP (using Filezilla).

The reason I am doing it this way is to see how it works.  I have already deleted and recreated the site 2 times using the wizard.

beauzero wrote:

can u msg me ur skype? we can discuss this together as i am also looking for a VPS/AZURE solution

beauzero wrote:

Hi Beauzero, you may want to check out Webmatrix 3.0. I used this to upload a plugin to my Azure test site and it worked very well.

Maybe we should ask Andrei to set up a separate Forum Topic dedicated to Azure as there seems to be increasing interest in Azure.