DigitalOcean is a well-known service provider for cloud services. According to Netcraft they are the third largest hosting company in the world. They mainly operate as an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform. This means you can use the DigitalOcean cloud for a wide range of projects.
On the one hand you can simply host a website on a small virtual compute instance and on the other hand you can also run a complex multi-server setup, multiple databases and load balancers for your web app or service with millions of users.
Which services does DigitalOcean offer?
Their services fit into four categories:
- Compute Instances
- Storage
- Managed Databases
- Networking Services
Compute Instances
In this category you can run a managed Kubernetes cluster to orchestrate your container apps (for example Docker images). But in my opinion the DigitalOcean Droplets are the most interesting products. A Droplet is a virtual machine with some amount of memory, virtual CPU and SSD space.
Here you can install your favorite Linux distro and have your own virtual root server. So there are no limitations which packages you can install or which config you apply. Their smallest Droplet starts from just 5 dollars per month and already comes with many options and reasonable power.
Storage
In the storage category they offer SSD-based block storage. This can be directly attached to your Droplet to extend the capacity of the internal volume. They also offer S3-compatible object storage which could be used for web assets or media file hosting for example.
Managed Databases
Here you can launch a PostgreSQL or MySQL database cluster and just connect to it from your applications. Of course you could also install your own database server on your Droplet but then you need to do all the tasks and tweaks for a smooth operation yourself. When using this managed service DigitalOcean does all the heavy stuff for you.
Networking Services
In this category they offer a DNS service, floating IPs or load balancers for high-availability apps. But my favorite here is the DigitalOcean cloud firewall. This comes for free with every Droplet and helps to restrict access to certain ports or IPs.
Which advantages does an IaaS platform offer?
Today there a numerous ways to host a web app or complex application. The main advantage of an Infrastructure as a Service platform is the pay-as-you-go model. When you begin developing an app you probably want to start without paying significant money for server resources.
You don’t need to invest into physical servers or ongoing maintenance tasks. On DigitalOcean you can start with the smallest Droplet and when necessary you could scale up your server as you need. Of course this is also possible for databases or storage size.
Is DigitalOcean right for me?
There are dozens of similar services out there and I tried many of them. But in my opinion DigitalOcean has the best interface to manage your Droplets and services. It has a good structure and reacts fast when clicking an item. This is not given for the clunky interfaces of some other hosts.
They also have a really good documentation for common software setups on Linux boxes so you could get your first Droplet up and running very fast. And I think they provide a 99,99% uptime SLA which is really good compared to some competitors.
How to register on DigitalOcean?
You can create your account in three easy steps. First go to the sign-up page on digitalocean.com. Here just enter your name, email address and choose a good password.
Confirm your email
After clicking the submit button go to your email inbox and check for a confirmation mail from DigitalOcean. If it’s not in your inbox you need to check your spam folder. In some situations emails get flagged as spam by mistake. I recommend to save the sender to your email contacts or address book so these false-positives won’t happen anymore with emails from DigitalOcean.
After clicking the confirmation link in this email you will be sent to the account setup page. In the second step you need to enter your billing details. Even if DigitalOcean offered some promo credits today for free testing your credit card info must be entered to proceed. But unless your promo credits run out or expire your card won’t be charged.
I think this way they validate that you’re a real person and not some spammy guy registering dozens of accounts for some weird business 😀
Setup first project
In the last registration step DigitalOcean asks you to setup your first project. Enter a project name as you like and select a purpose as Just trying out DigitalOcean. You can select some technologies shown here so they could optimize their services in future.
After hitting the Start button your first project gets created and you will be redirected to the project overview. Each project can contain any services like droplets, databases or storage. Of course you can create additional projects as you like. This way you can group all services for a specific client for example.
DigitalOcean control panel
Now your basic account setup is done. Before installing a droplet or other services I would recommend you to check out the items in the left navigation bar. So you would get a good overview of the DigitalOcean control panel and all it’s capabilities.
