Real world cloud hosting costs

[coroffice]

Hi all

Investigating cloud hosted 3CX and would appreciate if you could share your real world hosting costs.

Perhaps something like:

Host provider:
VM spec:
Operating time: e.g. 24/7
Monthly cost:
3CX sim calls:
Number of extensions:

and anything else you think may be interesting

Thanks in adavance

 

[eddv123]

Hi coroffice,

I am asked this one regularly by re-sellers and I will provide below what I normally provide, unfortunately this changes based on provider and is a very broad subject - I tend to prefer AWS myself:

https://aws.amazon.com/pricing/services/
https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/

All I know that you do need to be aware of is extra costs which are applied for things such as elastic IP addresses, VPN's etc so read carefully and understand what you are using.

 

[Marari]

I use google cloud for my hosting.
For each client instance that I host running 1 vCPU, 2 GB of RAM, 30 GB dedicated SSD storage, and external static IP, it runs me about $48 (CDN) per month.

After my 'play' funds are expired (in about 3 more months), I will sign up for 1 year commits which will reduce the monthly spend by about 20-25% if I've calculated it correctly.

 

[coroffice]

Thanks for the info both, very useful.

All I know that you do need to be aware of is extra costs which are applied for things such as elastic IP addresses, VPN's etc so read carefully and understand what you are using.

Understood, that's why I was interested in what people are actually paying and also, it's interesting to hear what spec VMs are suitable for number of calls / extensions.

Anyone else care to share?

 

[cobaltit]

https://www.3cx.com/docs/recommended-hardware-specifications-for-3cx/

There are the system requirements for 3CX. Cloud doesn't change that. Every cloud provider lists their pricing and as both previous replies posted the pricing can very based on extras and also based on commitment. So go to your preferred provider, find their pricing calculator, put in what you want and you will have your real world answer.

 

[coroffice]

https://www.3cx.com/docs/recommended-hardware-specifications-for-3cx/

There are the system requirements for 3CX. Cloud doesn't change that. Every cloud provider lists their pricing and as both previous replies posted the pricing can very based on extras and also based on commitment.

Agreed, plugging in the documented compute specs is easy but it's only part of the cost and hence doesn't give you real world figures. What about other chargeable facilities that are less easy to nail down and may be charged differently across platforms e.g. network ingress/egress?

 

[dandenson]

I've running in google cloud in a g1-small instance (1.7GB RAM, .5 cpu) with great results. The cost on this is $14.20/m with the sustained use 30% discount.

I have a number of these, this is more that adequate for a 4 or 8 channel 3CX instance.

For a 16 channel, bump it up to a n1-standard with 1 full cpu and 3.75GB RAM.

The CPU in the hosts are 2.2Ghz E7 series Xeons configured so there's plenty of horsepower there even on a .5 commit.

I've even been testing opus transcoding on the g1-small with no issues.

 

[dandenson]

Here's the gce monitor for 1 week on a g1-small. As you can see, load is very reasonable.

 

[cobaltit]

Agreed, plugging in the documented compute specs is easy but it's only part of the cost and hence doesn't give you real world figures. What about other chargeable facilities that are less easy to nail down and may be charged differently across platforms e.g. network ingress/egress?

This is exactly my point. If the pennies difference between a few gigabytes of ingress/egress is a factor in your budget then you need to figure out your usage. If it doesn't, then why are you asking.

 

[dandenson]

in google's cloud in the US, it's a whopping $.12 per GB egree, free ingress, so that's about 1600 minutes.

My bandwidth spend is right around $.20 on a typical small client.

 

[coroffice]

Great, thanks dandenson, that's really useful input.

Interesting, in my chosen region, running a g1-small instance works out about a $10 saving compared to running on a 1 vCPU & 2 GB mem.

 

[Marari]

running a g1-small instance works out about a $10 saving compared to running on a 1 vCPU & 2 GB mem.

Yes, but a g1-small (1.7 GB RAM) isn't a supported config. If you don't care about getting support from 3CX, then roll with it. If you want support from 3CX, then you have to meet their minimum spec which is 2 GB.

https://www.3cx.com/docs/recommended-hardware-specifications-for-3cx/

 

[coroffice]

Good point, thanks for pointing that out.

 

[dandenson]

Actually, that's the 'real hardware' spec sheet and 16 calls

If you look at the cloud hosting guide, it says nothing of the required specs:
https://www.3cx.com/docs/hosted-pbx-google-cloud/

And the provisioner sets up less than the hardware version specs itself.

I believe the 2GB RAM in the real hardware spec sheet is based on a windows machine. debian is going to use about 110MB of ram for it's baseline with a 'full' OS, less if you pare it down.

On these debian 9 GCE instances, with 1.7GB I've not yet seen the system use more than 45% of the ram. I just hopped through a few systems just to see and they are all sitting between 37 and 40% ram usage with 1GB free.

I actually tested on the tiny instance that has .25cpu and .6GB memory and with a minor modification it runs great. the provisioner creates a system without a swap file, so if you add a small .5GB swap file you can run 3CX on a bare minimum. Now, I wouldn't run a production server right at the limit here, I was mostly just testing where those limits were so I could provision out in my comfort zone.

The 3cx 'system' is actually really lean, the largest memory use on a debian system is actually the management console. Out of the ~40% used, 17% is the management console service. 3cx system services just 9%. In my testing of the tiny instance, without a swap file the management console will crash, but the system still handles calls. add the swap file and restart and the management console doesn't crash anymore.

go when it comes down to it, 1.7GB for a <8 channel system is generous.

 

[dandenson]

also check out this thread:
https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/3cxphonesystemmc01-crash-on-fresh-install.57188/

You'll see 3cx's @StefanW say the same thing about a tiny AWS instance.