Hi,

So recently I have been looking into changing from a traditional VPS to a cloud service like Azure or AWS. However it seems like a jungle compared to choosing a regular VPS where the pricing structure is more straight forward.

I'm making this post to ask what specifications and configurations other people use. It would help me and I'm sure also others to see what other people use. I want to run TS but people who run other trading softwares on a VPC probably have something smart to say.

I would also be interested in knowing what pricing structure you have, how many hours per month or week you have the service running and how many strategies you run simultaneously.

Edit: if you can mention what your monthly costs is with your current configuration that would be greatly appreciated so it's easier to compare with a traditional VPS.

Best regards

Prophet85 

Hi, So recently I have been looking into changing from a traditional VPS to a cloud service like Azure or AWS. However it seems like a jungle compared to choosing a regular VPS where the pricing structure is more straight forward. I'm making this post to ask what specifications and configurations other people use. It would help me and I'm sure also others to see what other people use. I want to run TS but people who run other trading softwares on a VPC probably have something smart to say. I would also be interested in knowing what pricing structure you have, how many hours per month or week you have the service running and how many strategies you run simultaneously. Edit: if you can mention what your monthly costs is with your current configuration that would be greatly appreciated so it's easier to compare with a traditional VPS. Best regards

I have been working on this for a while. I think (correct me if I am wrong) VPC and VPS are synonymous, it just depends how you are using it. They are all just virtual machines (VM's), running whatever O/S you need to run. For instance, I have a shared VPS that I run my web properties and email server on, but it is Linux.

Here is one VM that I spec'd last week, Windows 10:

• B4MS Instance (whatever that means....instance means something else to me)
• Choose your location (US East, Midwest, etc.)
• 4 cores
• 16 GB RAM
• 32 GB Temporary Storage
• ~ US$168/month pay as you go; $66.57 for 3 year prepay
• 99.95% uptime (per SLA, or Service Level Agreement), that is less than 46 minutes of downtime per month

It is cheaper if you bring your own license, in the long term ($11.68 per month to lease the license, no long term discount). This system might be overkill or just right, as I would only use for running strategies (TradeStation 10) and no optimizations and minimal indicators.

This will probably by my starting point. I will set one up next week (it is a very fast process, 5 minutes or so) and test those specs.

~vmodus

vmodus 

I have been working on this for a while. I think (correct me if I am wrong) VPC and VPS are synonymous, it just depends how you are using it. They are all just virtual machines (VM's), running whatever O/S you need to run. For instance, I have a shared VPS that I run my web properties and email server on, but it is Linux. Here is one VM that I spec'd last week, Windows 10: B4MS Instance (whatever that means....instance means something else to me) Choose your location (US East, Midwest, etc.) 4 cores 16 GB RAM 32 GB Temporary Storage ~ US$168/month pay as you go; $66.57 for 3 year prepay 99.95% uptime (per SLA, or Service Level Agreement), that is less than 46 minutes of downtime per month It is cheaper if you bring your own license, in the long term ($11.68 per month to lease the license, no long term discount). This system might be overkill or just right, as I would only use for running strategies (TradeStation 10) and no optimizations and minimal indicators. This will probably by my starting point. I will set one up next week (it is a very fast process, 5 minutes or so) and test those specs. ~vmodus

For what its worth, you can get a small dedicated server with similar specs closer to the tradestation servers (im guessing 350 cermak), for about the same monthly cost (~$70ish) without having to prepay for 3 years. I use one of these as a backup server should my main trading server fail.

Also if you self install your OS you can run win10 pro for free, so long as you are ok with the watermark in the lower right, running unactivated is only locks out the desktop customization features.

addchild 

For what its worth, you can get a small dedicated server with similar specs closer to the tradestation servers (im guessing 350 cermak), for about the same monthly cost (~$70ish) without having to prepay for 3 years. I use one of these as a backup server should my main trading server fail. Also if you self install your OS you can run win10 pro for free, so long as you are ok with the watermark in the lower right, running unactivated is only locks out the desktop customization features.

Windows licenses are cheap enough, no reason for us to not to pay for them. It is just a cost of doing business to us. On Azure, you have to have an activated license anyhow.

We did some analysis last year and found Azure cheaper in the long run than equivalent AWS. What VPS service are you using? I'd like to check them out.

~vmodus

vmodus 

Windows licenses are cheap enough, no reason for us to not to pay for them. It is just a cost of doing business to us. On Azure, you have to have an activated license anyhow. We did some analysis last year and found Azure cheaper in the long run than equivalent AWS. What VPS service are you using? I'd like to check them out. ~vmodus

https://dedicated.com/index.php

addchild 

https://dedicated.com/index.php

Thanks, they have very competitive pricing.

~vmodus

vmodus 

I have been working on this for a while. I think (correct me if I am wrong) VPC and VPS are synonymous, it just depends how you are using it. They are all just virtual machines (VM's), running whatever O/S you need to run. For instance, I have a shared VPS that I run my web properties and email server on, but it is Linux. Here is one VM that I spec'd last week, Windows 10: B4MS Instance (whatever that means....instance means something else to me) Choose your location (US East, Midwest, etc.) 4 cores 16 GB RAM 32 GB Temporary Storage ~ US$168/month pay as you go; $66.57 for 3 year prepay 99.95% uptime (per SLA, or Service Level Agreement), that is less than 46 minutes of downtime per month It is cheaper if you bring your own license, in the long term ($11.68 per month to lease the license, no long term discount). This system might be overkill or just right, as I would only use for running strategies (TradeStation 10) and no optimizations and minimal indicators. This will probably by my starting point. I will set one up next week (it is a very fast process, 5 minutes or so) and test those specs. ~vmodus

No you are absolutely right that they are more or less synonymous. VPC obviously has some benefits such as better up time as it doesn't really need to rely on a single server center were the servers are located.

What confuses me is that VPC services have so many different pricing models and different versions of virtual machines and CPUs that are good for different things. AWS for example has EC2 instance (and as you mentioned it's not clear for me what an instance means) have different things to choose from like a1.xlarge, c5.large and so on.

This is all a bit confusing to me so that's why I wanted the input of others on what specifications they use. Also price wise it seems much more expensive (although that's relative I guess) than getting a VPS or even a dedicated server. I for example am paying 22 dollars monthly (without any minimum contract time) for a 6 vCPU and 16 GB ram VPS and there is no way that I can get that price even with a 2 vCPU configuration from any of the VPC providers.

So this is the reason I am asking because maybe I am missing something.

addchild 

For what its worth, you can get a small dedicated server with similar specs closer to the tradestation servers (im guessing 350 cermak), for about the same monthly cost (~$70ish) without having to prepay for 3 years. I use one of these as a backup server should my main trading server fail. Also if you self install your OS you can run win10 pro for free, so long as you are ok with the watermark in the lower right, running unactivated is only locks out the desktop customization features.

Yeah as I mentioned in another reply I think the cost of a VPC is quite high when you can get a dedicated server or a VPS from a reputable provider with better specs but for cheaper. Or maybe I am missing something...

Just an update on my VM (virtual machine) situation. I looked at dedicated.com against Microsoft's Azure service and decided on Azure for a few reasons:

• Native Disk Encryption (SSE) with optional Azure Disk Encryption
• Easy Deployment
• Security
• Ease of use

This is not to say that dedicated.com does not offer the same, but I would have to implement a lot of this on my own. I don't want to spend a lot of time administering a server, in particular the security end of it. Since we are dealing with our actual trading account, a big thing for us is security: can I secure our connection to the virtual machine end-to-end?

So I setup the virtual machine on Azure, as we already have an existing MS business account. They say it takes five minutes, but it took me about 30, just so I could understand what I was doing. If I hose something, I can just delete the VM and create a new one. Or I can create templates and deploy multiple VMs.

One thing that is good is that they offer the VM's for free, to start (they say 12 months, but I think it is an actual $ credit..... $200 I believe). This will allow us to test the VM for a while and see if the solution works for us, or if we need more CPU, memory, etc. If it works and is reliable, then we will stick with it.

VM Monitoring Dashboard


Here is the product I am running: Standard D2s v3 (2 vcpus, 8 GiB memory)

I did a ping from my VM to cmegroup.com: 8ms average. A ping from my office averages 55ms. I was not able to ping TS servers, for whatever reason. The VM is located in the US Central region (Wisconsin?).

Anyhow, I have TradeStation up and running on the VM in sim mode. Everything is working fine so far. We will continue to let it run and I'll let you all know how it goes.

~vmodus

vmodus 

Just an update on my VM (virtual machine) situation. I looked at dedicated.com against Microsoft's Azure service and decided on Azure for a few reasons: Native Disk Encryption (SSE) with optional Azure Disk Encryption Easy Deployment Security Ease of use This is not to say that dedicated.com does not offer the same, but I would have to implement a lot of this on my own. I don't want to spend a lot of time administering a server, in particular the security end of it. Since we are dealing with our actual trading account, a big thing for us is security: can I secure our connection to the virtual machine end-to-end? So I setup the virtual machine on Azure, as we already have an existing MS business account. They say it takes five minutes, but it took me about 30, just so I could understand what I was doing. If I hose something, I can just delete the VM and create a new one. Or I can create templates and deploy multiple VMs. One thing that is good is that they offer the VM's for free, to start (they say 12 months, but I think it is an actual $ credit..... $200 I believe). This will allow us to test the VM for a while and see if the solution works for us, or if we need more CPU, memory, etc. If it works and is reliable, then we will stick with it. VM Monitoring Dashboard Here is the product I am running: Standard D2s v3 (2 vcpus, 8 GiB memory) I did a ping from my VM to cmegroup.com: 8ms average. A ping from my office averages 55ms. I was not able to ping TS servers, for whatever reason. The VM is located in the US Central region (Wisconsin?). Anyhow, I have TradeStation up and running on the VM in sim mode. Everything is working fine so far. We will continue to let it run and I'll let you all know how it goes. ~vmodus

That sounds great! Please let me know how it goes.

Also how many strategies do you run simultaneously? I'm worried 2 vCPUs won't really be enough for me but ofcourse it depends on the CPU.