How does management differ from Ubuntu on the clouds and on a dedicated server?

Question

From an administrators point of view (Tools, Services, Commands, way of working, thinking and accessing) What differs from working with Ubuntu on the Clouds and working on a Dedicated server or VPS

Answer 1

It does take a slightly different mindset to manage a cloud based Ubuntu server.

• When you need to reboot, you want to make sure that don't accidentally do a shutdown instead (sudo shutdown vs. sudo shutdown -r). After all, powering-on a cloud server is more complicated than walking over to the rack and pressing the power button.
• You need to think about the server's dependencies, and make sure that the applications and services on it have a high degree of fault tolerance. That way if your building's internet connection is spotty or goes down, the cloud server isn't going to fill up the logs with errors because it can't reach the database server sitting under your desk.
• You need to be more vigilant about security. At one job I was told to SSH out to the cloud Ubuntu server as "root." When I expressed my shock, the response that I got was "we all log in as root." Obviously, the first thing I did was create individual accounts for everyone, and educate them on how to use "sudo."
• Along the same lines of thought as user security, you will also want to make sure you only open ports that need to be opened. After all, if you can see/use a port, so can everyone else. This is a good idea to do anyway, but I have noticed some admins get lax on port maintenance for internal servers.
• When you run any kind of maintenance plan, it's a good idea to script-out and double/triple check your commands. Again, if something you do turns the server into a paperweight, doing a reinstall/repair can be more complicated in the cloud.