Amazon Web Services?

[b.e.wilson]

Has anyone tried Amazon Web Services (EC2) for hosting? It's free for a year, then you pay for various bits of running a virtual server. I'm curious if it will let you update via FTP, and if updating realtime.txt often (every 5 seconds) would be allowed.

[daj]

I do not have any experience of this at all, but my understanding is that it can be quite complicated. If you want to present a static website you use the S3 service; if it is to be dynamic you also require the EC2 services. You pay for the time you run an EC2 instance.

I've had a few reads about the service in the past but it seems overly complicated to run a relatively simply site.

Maybe someone else has tried it and can offer a more informed view

[lardconcepts]

I've got a friend who wants to setup a basic cumulus site, and amazon S3 website would fall well within the free limits it gives and as cumulus doesn't need anything more than ftp and "flat" pages, it would be ideal.

The thing that's failed me is finding an ftp->s3 "bridge" that would intercept Cumulus' ftp chatter and direct it to the s3 bucket.

Alternatively, has anyone found any weather friendly small free space? Had a quick search here but all the suggestions go back a bit.