I don't know where your pricing numbers are coming from, we host sites in the Alexa top 100k for about $12 a month.
I would say that things are slow if you only have one instance, mainly because 8 requests at a time made by users add up fast. But if you use static and cache headers this is entirely manageable. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of WallyDD Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2011 7:26 PM To: Google App Engine Subject: [google-appengine] Re: Instances - How do they work? Hi Anand, Thank you for the response. I am not concerned with being charged for the full 15 minutes for when instances start and stop (or as you described), what I am concerned with is the start-up time it takes each time an instance is fired up. A browsing session while testing looks something like this; 1. Click a link. 2. Wait 3 seconds for an instance to fire up, get to look at a web page. 3. Study web page for 5 seconds, click on link. 4. Wait 3 seconds for an instance to fire up. 5. Repeat. In regards to idle instances it appears to me that they are getting stuck about once a day or so until I manually intervene. Originally Google App Engine was billed as going to have an always on feature but now it appears I have two choices; Choice 1. Pay nothing and get ridiculous latency that makes GAE look like something that nobody in their right mind would want to use. Choice 2. Pay $1.60 ($.80 until December 1) a day for a usable testing/ development platform. For a low traffic site the cheapest anyone can expect to pay is $48 a month. This is a far cry from the $9 a month always on feature that was offered all those months ago. I hope these are just teething errors that are occurring with Python 2.7. As you did point out it is still experimental. I am going to assume that this will all be fixed sometime soon. Other than the issues above, I have been pleasantly surprised with how well Python 2.7 is performing. The amount of traffic a single instance can take is quite surprising, especially when compared to how GAE was working with Python 2.5 On Nov 22, 6:51 pm, Anand Mistry <[email protected]> wrote: > On Monday, 21 November 2011 10:25:34 UTC-8, WallyDD wrote: > > > I am little confused with how these instances work. > > > How long does an instance stay alive? > > A site in Python 2.5 (M/S) fires up an instance when it is accessed > > and the instance stays alive for minutes after. > > With Python 2.7(HRD) the instance is killed off after a matter of > > seconds. So I either have to pay and keep the application alive but > > then it gets tricky. > > And to add insult to injury, if I access a python 2.7 application > > and get one page, the instance lasts for a few seconds but I am > > billed for > > 15 minutes. If I am billed for 15 minutes please would it be > > possible for the instance to stay alive for something close to 15 minutes? > > For Python 2.7 specifically, we're aware of the short instance life. > Please be aware that the Python 2.7 runtime is still experimental and > so rough spots like this can happen. > > As for billing, remember, you only get charged the 15 minutes once per > instance. If that instance goes away and comes back within 15 minutes, > you don't get charged again. > > > Now if I enable billing (for the cost of $2.10 a week). > > I can adjust the sliders under application settings, I have two > > settings "Idle instances" and "Pending latency". > > > Leaving "Idle instances" at Automatic results in instances only > > lasting a few seconds. Setting it to 1 results in having a "Resident" > > instance and this sort of works. I can use the application a little > > but then a second instance fires up and leaves one instance > > completely idle. All I want is one instance running. I put "Pending > > Latency" up to 500ms to try and stop other instances firing up. > > I believe (I'm not an expert here) the purpose of "Idle Instances" is > to absorb extra traffic to help your app scale more smoothly. Once you > start using that instance, it's no longer idle so the system spins up > another instance. > > > > > > > > > I use the application and so now I have two instances serving, The > > resident instance is sitting there doing nothing and I am using > > another instance but being billed for both. > > So I go an play with the sliders and set idle instances to automatic > > and it kills one off (the resident one that was doing nothing). But > > then the instances start with their stop start routine and the > > application is very unresponsive. > > > Is there a bug with the instancing or is there something that I > > really don't understand here. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en.
