Cloud server: how to get performance guarantees at an affordable cost

When your business grows and you need more versatility than, for example, a traditional service hostingil cloud is undoubtedly the best solution.

A cloud-based platform helps the professional, the small business, the larger company to manage workflows without worrying about hardware maintenance, network equipment and with the flexibility of a configuration that knows how to adapt to changing needs of each customer.

The virtual machines CLOUD VPS e CLOUD PRO there are two types of proposals from which it is possible to choose. In this article we focus on the differences between the two and how performance guarantees can be obtained at a low cost.

Let’s take the new Aruba cloud computing offer as an example: what are the differences between server VPS e PRObecause now you can choose between three different ones hypervisor and how to ensure that the performance of the machine is adequate to the requirements of the applications that will be installed and run?

Difference between CLOUD VPS and CLOUD PRO

When it comes to cloud computingsome vendors tend to blur the differences between the various types of virtual machines so much that they are often presented as if they were the same thing.

Aruba escapes this “custom” by clearly differentiating its proposal: there are virtual servers CLOUD VPS e CLOUD PRO.

I server CLOUD VPS (Virtual Private Server) combine a good choice in terms of available configurations with maximum convenience, also thanks to clear monthly pricing.

They are cheap but not non-performing for this: we start from one Linux machine with one vCPU, 1GB RAM, 20GB SSD storage for only 1.99 euros per month to arrive at Linux or Windows Server configurations based on 16 vCPUs, 32 GB of RAM and 320 GB of NVMe SAN storage.

If you don’t need unlimited data traffic, if you are satisfied with just one public IP address (in the case of the machine at 1.99 euros per month it is only IPv6) and if you don’t have to insert the server in a virtual private network, then VPS are the right choice. They can also be used as test machines to “test drive” your projects using a machine that is always connected to the Internet and has its own public IP address.

I server CLOUD PRO are freely customizable in terms of hardware and software configuration (operating system image that is pre-installed when the machine starts up), offer guaranteed resources and unlimited traffic, allow you to create complex virtual infrastructures with the possible addition of switches, firewalls, load and unified storage.

Pricing, in the case of Aruba’s CLOUD PRO servers, can be hourly, monthly or yearly depending on your preferences. In this case the prices start from just 13.20 euros per month for a CLOUD PRO based on hypervisor OpenStack (one vCPU, 2 GB of RAM, 20 GB of SAN NVMe storage) to arrive at more structured configurations with 32 vCPUs, 64 GB of RAM and 480 GB of NVMe storage.

Users can also choose between configurations general purpose and “Memory”, useful in the case of applications mission critical that require a high endowment in terms of RAM memory (RAM/CPU ratio 4:1).

on the side ofuptime and then of the service continuityPRO servers offer the best guarantees with an SLA (Service Level Agreement) by 99.95%. In the case of CLOUD VPS servers, the SLA communicated by Aruba at the time of writing the article is 99.80% for VMware machines, 99.90% for OpenStack ones.

Overall, as observed in the article dedicated to Aruba cloud computing, the new CLOUD VPS and PRO offer rests on some important cornerstones:

– Competitive price, clear and predictable
– Maximum choice of configurations
– Power and performance
– Latest generation technology
– Guarantees of computational resources
– Enterprise grade architecture

Both in the case of CLOUD VPS and CLOUD PRO we are talking about virtual machines that are made available to customers using a hypervisor.

In virtualization solutions, thehypervisor deals with managing the operation of virtual machines and the operating systems installed and used in them. L’hypervisor it also makes part of the resources offered by the machine visible to virtual machines and the operating systems present in them host that is, the one running the virtualization solution.

In the case of CLOUD VPSs, however, the virtual machines run on a single host; a CLOUD PRO server, on the other hand, bases its operation on a more elaborate and redundant configuration which provides for a cluster of physical machines which contribute to the operation of the virtual systems.

In a cluster, when one of the hosts fails, the virtual machines are automatically moved to another physical host. The technology stack chosen and deployed by Aruba allows to minimize the so-called Point-of-Failure hence the failures that may arise.

Aruba is the first European cloud provider to provide the ability to use three different hypervisor: OpenStack, VMware e Hyper-V. The first, being free and open source software, allows you to activate cheap virtual servers because there are no license costs that are reflected in the fees paid by end users.

Aruba’s Cloud services can be tried for free: new customers can in fact activate and actually use the CLOUD VPS and CLOUD PRO servers at no cost with a credit of 100 euros for companies and 20 euros for private users. By clicking on the various hypervisor present on the same page in the boxes CLOUD VPS and CLOUD PRO, it is possible to know all the available configurations.

The configuration proposed by Aruba helps push the theme of data sovereignty, increasingly dear to the European legislator. All data stored on its CLOUD VPS and CLOUD PRO servers remain within European borders, are accessible only by the customer and any administrators authorized by them and are in no way made accessible to Aruba personnel.

Dal Control Panel Aruba Cloud, we therefore suggest that you click on Create new server and try the CLOUD VPS and CLOUD PRO combinations that are proposed by acting on the following preferences:

– Hypervisor (“choice of technology”)
– Operating system and pre-configured settings (“template selection”)
– Characteristics of the virtual server: vCPU, RAM, storage (disks), data traffic
– Configuration of network cards (public and private IPs)
– Server name
– Account for remote access to the server or root (other accounts can be added after the first connection)
– Method of pricing

Come dimensionare server CLOUD VPS e CLOUD PRO

Those who already have experience in the IT sector certainly have no difficulty in selecting, using the configurator integrated in the Control Panel Aruba, the VPS or PRO server that best suits your needs.

Assuming you need to host an application on the Cloud, it is not at all complicated to size the machine when the application itself is already running on a physical server or on another virtual machine (for example at another manager).

If the application has not yet been “launched” it is possible scegliere il server CLOUD VPS o CLOUD PRO best by evaluating its overall size, expected traffic, number of repeat users, and expected page views for each individual user.

Let’s assume we are dealing with a newly developed application that is not running on a real server but that has been created on a local machine, within its own infrastructure (one might say on-premises).

In terms of bandwidth, to give a concrete example, the data relating to a site with 1 million page views per month can be estimated. If the single page of the site weighed about 2 MB, calculating a redundancy factor of 1.8, the figure would be approximately 3,600 GB/month. Apart from any traffic peaks, this is a connection of about 11 Mbps.

Suffice it to say that both in the case of CLOUD VPS servers and CLOUD PRO servers, Aruba provides connectivity at 1 Gbps: obviously the traffic included in the offer changes which in the first case is limited on a monthly basis while in the second, as already mentioned, it is unlimited .

Apart from it space (storage) needed in the cloud, the choice of vCPU and RAM allocation could be a little more complex. A overprovisioning of vCPUs, therefore allocating to the server more virtual processors than necessary, is generally not recommended: it is preferable to balance well the choice of vCPUs as well as RAM.

The available memory on the virtual machine, moreover, it is one thing while another is the allocated memory that is, the amount of RAM that the operating system guest can use thanks tohypervisor. If you plan to run a cloud system with Windows Server it is advisable never to go below 8 GB of RAM while with Linux, especially if you manage the machine via SSH without any desktop environmentit is sometimes possible to opt for more “conservative” configurations.

CLOUD PRO servers offer excellent scalability upwards: the configuration of the virtual server can be dynamically adapted to the changing needs of your business by modifying, if necessary, the allocation of CPU and RAM. Thus it is possible to pay only for the resources that are actually used and to correct any errors in the dimensioning of the machine.

To try Aruba Cloud Computing without paying a cent, you can take advantage of the free credit 100 euros for companies and 20 euros for private users.