Block producing witness hardware advice

[abit]

Out of curiosity, if we take the extra-cost out of the equation, would a cloud-hosted VM be better or a bare-metal server?

Depends on server load (if you can get same level of guarantee on power supply, networking, redundant hardware and etc).

Currently load of block producing nodes is low, so a bare-mental server would be "more than enough".

[clockwork]

Out of curiosity, if we take the extra-cost out of the equation, would a cloud-hosted VM be better or a bare-metal server?

[abit]

Packets Lost: None
Latency: 25.583ms
Jitter: 5ms

I'm UK based too, currently I see no UK nodes.

@abit what other types of broadband are there?  Are you suggesting a dedicated line just for a block producing node?

A node running in an Internet data center is preferred.

Actually, an active witness (regularly producing blocks) should have at least 2 nodes, one primary, one backup.

[ekck-trade]

Packets Lost: None
Latency: 25.583ms
Jitter: 5ms

I'm UK based too, currently I see no UK nodes.

@abit what other types of broadband are there?  Are you suggesting a dedicated line just for a block producing node?

[abit]

Latency, and stability.
I'd recommend against running block producing nodes with home or corporation broadband.

[xeroc]

Latency is key, not data rates. You only have 1.5-2 seconds to generate a nlock and broadcast it. Fortunately, blocks arent that big right now.

[ekck-trade]

Thanks for the reply @abit. 
Is 350Mbs download and 20Mbs upload good enough?

[abit]

Can someone recommend some links to suitable spec'd hardware.

Would two desktops do, if they are spec'd with top end CPU and 64GB, with two 300+GB SSD's?
Or are proper servers the way forward?

By now, dual CPU, 8G RAM, 50G SSD is good enough for block producing.

Should have stable power supply and fast Internet connection.

[ekck-trade]

Can someone recommend some links to suitable spec'd hardware.

Would two desktops do, if they are spec'd with top end CPU and 64GB, with two 300+GB SSD's?
Or are proper servers the way forward?