I'm in the same low-cost-seeking mode as you, self-funding a teeny "startup" for iPhone services (along with 1000s of other developers) including multiplayer gaming (along with 10s of others developers).
While I can get good dedicated server deals they are still too expensive to me. So I'm diving in deep to learn how to create a almost pure scale-out solution based on a larger (than dedicated) number of VPS instances. Something like
I really want to be able to have a script that watches load and dynamically adds more capacity. I'm not a fan of calling this "cloud" based but the ideas are pretty similar.
Good luck with your project! BTW, have you looked at Neo4j (which is a graph database that seems to get high marks)?
Good luck to you too! You've got an interesting approach to scaling, hope it works out (cheaply).
Yes, I've looked at Neo4j, and I would've tried that if it weren't for this (from their home page):
Neo4j is released under a dual free software/commercial license model (which basically means that it’s “open source” but if you’re interested in using it in commercially, then you must buy a commercial license).
Thus MongoDB. I just heard of Riak the other day, and might check that out too since it has the concept of links built in. I'm also still early enough in the work that I can afford to switch still.
While I can get good dedicated server deals they are still too expensive to me. So I'm diving in deep to learn how to create a almost pure scale-out solution based on a larger (than dedicated) number of VPS instances. Something like
I really want to be able to have a script that watches load and dynamically adds more capacity. I'm not a fan of calling this "cloud" based but the ideas are pretty similar.Good luck with your project! BTW, have you looked at Neo4j (which is a graph database that seems to get high marks)?