halt + Amazon EC2 + Instance Store = A bad day

I did a stupid thing while on vacation. Decided to clone an EC2 server and executed halt from commandline without checking to see if the server was using Instance Store. Whoops, Amazon showed the server as terminating...terminated... ahhhhh.

After having to rebuild the server while on vacation, I have learned a valuable lesson.

Clients are always trying to determine if they should host their own site in house or using an ISP. While in the past I would definitely suggest using an ISP, it is not so cut and dry as the cost of servers and bandwidth have decreased dramatically. These days, I can build a server that is super fast for around $1,000. Getting a DSL line with static IP addresses cost around $75 per month. It allows for ease of system upgrade and for more advanced integration into business systems through programming. While there is the down side of power backup issues and hardware failures to contend with, it is still a viable option if the website is not a mission critical application.