EC2onRails - 2 Small Instances or 1 High-CPU Medium Instance?

I recently watched the excellent RailsLab videos on tuning and optimizing Rails applications. One of the videos suggests that a great way to scale a Rails application is to separate the web and database components onto separate machines. We have been happily using Amazon’s EC2 system for about a year. Amazon’s recent introduction of the High-CPU Instance (High-CPU) made me curious how it would perform when compared against two Small Instances in a cluster (Cluster), since they would cost the same.

You will be happy to know that after hours of rigorous testing, I have identified a clear winner. Read on for the details.

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Aloha!

Aloha everyone!

I have decided to set up a blog to talk about Ruby, Rails, and other tech related issues. I hope that you find something useful. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to drop me a note.