EC2 as a full-time VPS for Windows

Question

I've been using Amazon EC2 for hosting a recently released website, mainly to gauge traffic demands etc. before committing to a more dedicated host. I'm currently using a small instance of Win2k8+SQL and paying about $80/month for the service.

Now that the site has been up for a month I am considering more long-term VPS solutions. However, I'm a bit surprised at costs. I don't see a significant price difference between EC2 and a dedicated VPS (usually a $20 difference for a similar level of equipment). I'm also a bit concerned, because some of the links posted here for VPS recommendations don't seem to work any more (ie. I'm confident Amazon will remain next year, but it seems that's not that case for all VPSes).

My questions:

1. Does anyone use EC2 for full-time, dedicated hosting of a Windows server, and is there any reason not to do so? I'm specifically noting that EC2 is a cloud provider for on-demand, transient loads, hence my curiosity about its suitability as a dedicated provider.
2. Are there any Windows VPSes that are recommended, have been in business for some time and do offer a cost benefit to just running on EC2?

Answer 1

I have multiple EC2 servers running commercial production websites, and I'm very satisfied with the price/performance ratio and general quality/stability.

The main reason I might look elsewhere would be for better/cheaper support...

Answer 2

There are issues, for instance last time I checked you couldn't configure RDNS.

The other problem is that if you start to make use of more than just the EC2 service your costs start to spiral. It is a fairly safe bet that a website will want to make use of EC2, S3, possibly RDS and also possibly ABS.

Answer 3

I have never used Amazon's EC2 cloud services. I am curious to know about the additional cost incurred when you get high amount of traffic?

Regarding your 2nd question about low price windows vps, what exactly is your requirement? Like RAM, Bandwidth etc ? Probably 1 GB RAM Windows VPS (Self Manged) may cost you in any range between $30 to $40 a month.