What is ECS? What is the advantage of ECS over traditional IDC?

ECS refers to the multiple virtual units serving as independent servers on a group of cluster servers. Each server in the cluster has an ECS mirror, greatly improving the security and stability of the virtual server. ECS is always accessible unless all the servers in the cluster fail.
ECS is a web-based server and provides elastic cloud technologies for adjusting the cloud host configurations. It integrates computing, storage and the IaaS service of internet resources, and offers pay-as-you-go cloud host leasing services. It boasts significant improvements in flexibility, controllability, scalability and reusability of resources.
One of the most essential characteristics of cloud computing is to help enterprise users to achieve on-demand, flexible and efficient usage of IT resources. So the practical needs for space elasticity and scalability should be taken into account for the deployment of cloud computing platforms. Currently the existing production architecture of many enterprises does not offer good scalability, whether in server or in storage, and is unable to meet the elastic demands of private clouds for space expansion. Therefore, a practical evaluation of the elasticity demand is an important consideration before you deploy a private cloud that enables on-demand addition or reduction of IT resources.
ECS providers provide cloud hosts, and some large cloud computing manufacturers also provide various instance services, such as Alibaba Cloud which provides the Docker container service, MySQL and Redis.
It is actually an issue of hierarchy: Server room (IDC, Ali) -> Server cluster (Alibaba Cloud) -> Operating system (O&M) -> Business
When the business volume is small, you can totally leave the business to cloud computing service providers such as Alibaba Cloud which will help you to save the costs for installing underlying operating systems and establishing server clusters and IDC. As the business grows, it is unavoidable for you to expand your business to the cluster, leasing bandwidth/server rooms/cabinets, establishing the clusters and providing services to your own. One-click scaling is available in the infrastructure layer, but it depends on the support of the business layer to achieve one-click scaling on the business layer. You cannot expect one-click scaling on the business layer before you have the basic session sharing mechanism ready on the business layer.
Traditional servers are mostly physical machines. You need to build server rooms of your own, host your servers to server rooms or rent server rooms and cabinets, and take care of the facilities, configure the switches on your own (as necessary), initialize the system and prepare the remote supervisor adapter. If there is any issue, you need to go to the server room in person to troubleshoot the issue.
ECS is mostly virtual machines, eliminating the trouble of renting server rooms. If you entrust all the work to cloud service providers such as Alibaba Cloud, what you get will be a complete and initialized server. In case of any issues, you can delete and rebuild a virtual machine. Compared with traditional servers, cloud services provide infrastructure with a ready operating system, and you don't need to care about the work below the operating system layer. In addition, Alibaba Cloud now opens the application and software market which provides a variety of software images for you to choose from.
There is almost no difference in applications on the server (such as structuring a website). The biggest difference is the “O&M costs”. To use traditional servers, you need to procure the servers, arrange O&M and designate dedicated IT personnel for maintenance; pay for utilities such as water and electricity, and rent (servers also take up space) among others; replace or upgrade outdated facilities; and even protect them against thieves. But with ECS, things are different. You can drop your worries about O&M as long as you pay the rent on time. For an analogy: The traditional server is like a gas can which you need to replace or carry around on your own, while ECS is like a gas supply pipe.
Compared with traditional servers, there is almost no difference in applications on the servers (such as structuring a website). The biggest difference is the “O&M costs”.
To use traditional servers, you need to procure the servers, arrange O&M and designate dedicated IT personnel for maintenance; pay for utilities such as water and electricity, and rent (servers also take up space) among others; replace or upgrade outdated facilities; and even protect them against thieves.
But with ECS, things are different. You can drop your worries about O&M as long as you pay the rent on time. For an analogy: The traditional server is like a gas can which you need to replace or carry around on your own, while ECS is like a gas supply pipe. You can buy an ECS and give it a try. It is safe, stable and most important of all, cost-saving. I use Alibaba Cloud ECS and have nothing to worry about. Its cost-effectiveness and after-sales services are also quite good.

Nice Guide!

I recommend these posts to be published at Alibaba Cloud, instead of QA. Users normally visit QA for a succinct answer to a specific problem, and they prefer blogs for a 5m reading. :-)


Just my opinion.