what exactly is a "cloud vps"

cosmicgate

does it mean that all of your contents are "imaged" around the world (lets assume you have a website) and the contents are then served to visitors according to location closest to them?

If so, what happens if i install a vpn on this so called cloud vps and connect to it? Will i get this mirror jutsu magic? LOL.

DanielM

Remove the word cloud and you got ur answer.

Its typically used to ripoff customers with no knowledge and the use of fancy words etc.

AsadHaider

"Cloud hosting: is a new type of hosting platform that allows customers powerful, scalable and reliable hosting based on clustered load-balanced servers and utility billing. A cloud hosted website may be more reliable than alternatives since other computers in the cloud can compensate when a single piece of hardware goes down. Also, local power disruptions or even natural disasters are less problematic for cloud hosted sites, as cloud hosting is decentralized. Cloud hosting also allows providers to charge users only for resources consumed by the user, rather than a flat fee for the amount the user expects they will use, or a fixed cost upfront hardware investment. Alternatively, the lack of centralization may give users less control on where their data is located which could be a problem for users with data security or privacy concerns."

That's one definition.. however most providers don't actually do this and just use it to jack up prices.

joepie91

Basically, a VPS on an external storage device, meaning it can be booted up / transfered to another physical machine when one goes down.

This has been done for god knows how long under the name "High Availability VPS" (which is a far less misleading name), but apparently some people found the need to give it a new, misleading, name so they could sell more. Also worth nothing is that a VPS sold as a HA VPS typically gives better results than a 'cloud VPS', for the simple reason that the latter is more aimed at 'consumers' as opposed to companies requiring near-perfect uptime, so they can get away with downtime more easily. Of course the fact that the name doesn't tell you anything about what it's supposed to do, helps with that.

If you have to ask what a cloud VPS is, you probably don't need one. If you already know, you probably still don't need one. If you need good uptime and don't want to bother setting up your own redundancy, look for a HA VPS.

24khost

We disagree, of course we sell cloud vps. Yes the difference between HA VPS and Cloud VPS is minor but are setup does things a little differently.

This picture makes it a little clearer. http://blog.24khost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/hadiagram.png

serverbear

IMO true cloud VPS has SAN/Failover & not just local storage. Thats just my opinion tho.

24khost

that is true serverbear. The only really cool part is when you use local storage in connection with the san. The replication takes a lot but when it is perfectly setup it is amazing.

AsadHaider

@serverbear said: IMO true cloud VPS has SAN/Failover & not just local storage. Thats just my opinion tho.

Yeah, everyone has their own opinion on what it is. And most of them are crappy, but it doesn't stop those hosts advertise it as being "in the cloud".

rds100

In theory using SAN sounds very good, however it introduces many new modes of failure. Ask vps.net - they would have a lot of stories to tell ;-)

Alex_LiquidHost

I think that it is almost obvious... Cloud VPS = A VPS in the clouds...

serverbear

@Alex_LiquidHost said: Cloud VPS = A VPS in the clouds...

Or a price in the clouds =D

Damian

I will sell you a cloud slap-in-the-face. After that, I'll sell you a cloud cappuccino. You can drive your cloud car over here to pick it up, at my cloud house.

24khost

@serverbear not all of us have prices in the clouds!

luma

@24khost said: @serverbear not all of us have prices in the clouds!

Do you use fully redundant servers? Do you use fully redundant storage? Is my data stuck on a single point of failure at anyone time?

Is the above in multiple geographical locations?

Can I upgrade/downgrade space, compute power etc on the fly without shutting down rebooting?

That is what I consider cloud computing. I can't stand the term cloud but if I had to give any sort of explanation that is what it would be.

24khost

fully redundant storage: yes fully redundant servers: yes

We are currently working on the geographical limitations. The only problem with geographical jumping is ip addresses. As jumping you from one geolocation to another is very difficult unless you have your own dns systems in place.

We are currently working on the autoupgrade and downgrade features. if you purchase extra space, cores, memory, bandwidth, none of this requires reboots. we just upgrade your server via the control panel.

Our cloud is not totally perfect yet. But we are working on it.

Most providers are finding the multiple geographical locations the major problem.

Alex_LiquidHost

@24khost Is your panel solusVM?

William

@luma said: Can I upgrade/downgrade space, compute power etc on the fly without shutting down rebooting?

No one can this, not even Amazon, Rackspace and Softlayer. It is simply not possible by the Linux Kernel and Windows OS stack.

24khost

@Alex_LiquidHost No, we use vpsgrid.

@William umm, I think you may not understand what he means. When we add ram the vps container does not reboot.

luma

@William said: No one can this, not even Amazon, Rackspace and Softlayer. It is simply not possible by the Linux Kernel and Windows OS stack.

We do this with our current vsphere clusters. We can add space and memory without a reboot as long as the OS is a modern OS. Downgrading memory is harder though with vmware but it is doable in other architectures (I have asked a few openvz providers to give me more ram to do updates on tiny vps' before and they don't need to reboot)

24khost

@luma you are correct with openvz, this is not needed, and one of the reason that is what are cloud runs

rds100

OpenVZ can upgrade/downgrade RAM / CPU / HDD on the fly, without need for any rebooting. Other architectures might allow upgrading RAM and HDD resources, however downgrading seems tricky.

William

Yes, upgrade works (even with Windows) - Downgrade however does not. If only upgrade works it is not 100% scalable IMO

24khost

@William openvz can downgrade, no problems.

Taz

Cloud is vapor. Something, you can see but can not touch. It is a dream that everyone lies about.