What makes UltraVM™ Cloud Servers better?

What makes UltraVM™ Cloud Servers better?

There’s a lot of providers offering Cloud Servers, and like many things, the devil is in the detail.  Find out below what makes our UltraVM Cloud Servers better.

How can it be so reliable?

We use the Citrix XenServer virtualisation software to abstract your UltraVM™ Cloud Server from the hardware that it sits on.  The storage is centralised in a highly available Storage Area Network (SAN) device.  This not only makes it a lot quicker, but also means that you’re no longer reliant on the physical machine on which your UltraVM™ Cloud Server runs.

Our UltraVM™ cluster controller watches all running Cloud Servers day and night, and if it detects a failure of any critical hardware, it’ll automatically move the Cloud Servers onto spare hardware.  Most of the time you won’t even notice this, and our engineers would then simply replace the failed hardware.

We’re so confident that it works, that we guarantee that the availability of the “Hardware” of your UltraVM™  won’t drop below 99.95% of the month.

How is it cheaper than a real dedicated server?

Most dedicated servers are vastly under-used.  In tests across our datacentre we’ve found that at any given time, about 75% of our hardware is being used less than 25% of its maximum capacity.  That’s a big waste of energy and money.

By “pooling” both backend storage and frontend servers we can cut hardware costs dramatically, and pass that saving on to you.

Because you’re guaranteed the memory (RAM) and storage space that you’ve ordered, and guaranteeing a share of CPU time, with burst available, you’re never going to find your UltraVM™ Cloud Server clutching for resources.

Does UltraVM™ have a green benefit?

It certainly does.  Overall we reckon an UltraVM™ Cloud Server uses approximately one eighth of the power of a modern similarly specified physical dedicated server.  Combined with the energy reduction procedures we’re putting in place across our datacentres, it adds up to a real difference.

We’re specifically encouraging customers with older dedicated servers, that are quite slow by today’s standards to consider switching to an UltraVM™ Cloud Server, not only saving money, but increasing potential reliability and speed in one go.

Flexibility and Scalability

Whether you’re looking for a single UltraVM™ Cloud Server, or you want a cluster with dedicated hardware, where you can create your own Cloud Servers, we have solutions available.  We can also add UltraLoad™ load balancing, off-site backup space, anti-spam filtering or server management just like we would to a physical dedicated server.

All UltraVM™ Cloud Servers come behind our Enterprise class UltraFire™ firewalls for your protection, with our unique web-based interface to set up your rules.

What if something goes wrong with the hardware?

This diagram shows what happens in the unlikely event of a hardware failure (and it is unlikely as the physical machines have dual power supplies, hot-swap hard drives, and are fed by two independent power feeds from two separate UPS devices in our datacentre).

If a disk fails in the storage device, again, it’s no problem.  Whilst our technicians are alerted, one of the dedicated “hot spare” disks automatically drops in place, and keeps things running.  Our technicians will then replace the failed disk.  The same thing goes if a power supply or controller fails in the storage device.  Everything that’s critical has at least one hot-standby backup part.

What about upgrading my UltraVM™ Cloud Machine?

That’s simple too.  With physical servers, we’d have had to shut down your machine whilst an engineer puts more memory into it, or even more disruptive, move your data over to a bigger machine because you’ve outgrown the capabilities of your current server.

With UltraVM™ things are much easier.  After ordering the upgrade (be that more memory, more CPU cores, or more disk space), we simply make a change on our cluster controller.  We then schedule your machine to “reboot” at a convenient time (after all, the operating system won’t be able to recognise the additional resources until it’s restarted).

The best thing is that additional capacity can be brought online instantly, rather than waiting until an agreed out-of-hours time to schedule the hardware upgrade.

How do I control my UltraVM™ Cloud Server?

If you have physical dedicated servers already, you’ll probably be familiar with our remote reboot switches and KVM over IP.  Both of these give you access to your machine remotely.
The UltraVM™ controller, through its web interface, gives you instant access to the same features.  You can start, stop, or reboot your UltraVM™ Cloud Server, or view its console output.  This means you can troubleshoot any OS issues causing it to not boot, or to repair incorrect network settings.

How do I get an UltraVM™ Cloud Server?

Click here to customise and order your UltraVM™ Cloud Server online.  It’ll be online within 4 business hours after your order.

For your convenience there are no lengthy contracts, you can take a server for as little as 30 days.  You can also upgrade your server’s hardware specification within 4 business hours.