Using BitComet In Amazon EC2 Windows Instances

[alecleekya]

Is it possible to runing BitComet in the Windows 2003 instances offered by Amazon EC2?

[The UnUsual Suspect]

You would have to ask them that, but from what I see in the website, it should support most/all windows programs. I am however at a loss why someone would want too...

[kluelos]

I don't think you could profitably do this. You would essentially have multiple instances of Bitcomet that are completely uncoordinated with each other, but close coordination is vital for cloud computing. It's essentially, "you work on that part of it while I work on this part of it."

In Bittorrent terms, this would be, "you download that piece while I download this piece, and we'll put them all together here." If they're not coordinated, you could have six instances downloading the same piece six times instead of six different pieces - wasting resources and money, while not getting the job done.

BitComet has no provision for scheduling the efforts of multiple instances of itself to divide up the work or to assemble the fruits of those instances. It would take a pretty major rewrite to add that.

Not many people would be willing to pay the cost to run it, and Amazon probably has a rule against using EC3 for anything illegal.

Beyond that, feasibility would depend on whether each member of the cloud has independent internet access, which you would have to ask Amazon about.

[alecleekya]

The reason I want to put bitcomet on the cloud is that currently I am subscribing an extra internet connection solely for the purpose of doing BitTorrent and Shareaza things. I got free connection from library and office which of course doesn't allow BitTorrent stuff. So I am forced to pay for a connection purely for something I would use occasionally.

From what I understand, Amazon EC2 offers quite an impressive network speed and I guess this would mean my download/upload would be fast. I am not trying to run multiple instances but just delegating the tasks to someone who I thinkg can do the job better.

[The UnUsual Suspect]

sounds like what you really want is a seedbox. A dedicated (or shared) server that runs a bittorrent client at speeds upto 1024mbit per second (thats over 130,000kB/s in bittorrent speed), but most run at 100mbit or slower (still 12,800kB/s). When you rent a dedicated server, you actually get these speeds, but a shared server will have several users sharing (often unequally) the same bandwidth.

For the most part, these servers run from $50 to 100 usd a month, but I've seen some shared plans that are a lot cheaper, but never seen even one happy customer using one of the cheap ones.