How do you tell if it's a real cloud server?

[Victor Leigh]

From what I have been reading on the subject, cloud servers have lot of advantages over many other forms of hosting. However cloud servers, generally speaking, costs more, too. I can understand the higher price because cloud servers are supposed to cost more to create and maintain. The main question which is bugging me, though, is whether those cloud servers are really cloud servers. How can I know?

 

Does anyone know how we can tell if it's a real cloud server?

[webdevuser]

From what I have been reading on the subject, cloud servers have lot of advantages over many other forms of hosting. However cloud servers, generally speaking, costs more, too. I can understand the higher price because cloud servers are supposed to cost more to create and maintain. The main question which is bugging me, though, is whether those cloud servers are really cloud servers. How can I know?

 

Does anyone know how we can tell if it's a real cloud server?

 

I could provide you with a long answer, but sadly my english is not good enough for using too many technicals terms :S

 

Anyway, just to let you know, in the end, as a user, you can not know if you are in a "Cloud", since a cloud is 99.99% virtualization (Virtualization is the concept on running virtual machines (OS within OS)) as an user of the cloud it is impossible to make the difference between a cloud or a dedicated server.

 

But using support of your website, you could ask them to maybe add 1GB of RAM to your account. If it take less then 30 seconds, than yes you are running on a Cloud, if it take 1hour + (you may be on a dedicated server, or the technicians are slow to make the modifications for your cloud service)

[Victor Leigh]

Thank you, Danny.Bomb.

 

I think that's a good way to find out. A cloud server is supposed to be scalable on demand in real time. I am on a host using OnApp. Do you know anything about that? It's supposed to be a cloud server but a modified version where changes in resources, although can be done on the spot, are normally done from the start of each billing cycle because the services are paid for in advance, for one month.

[webdevuser]

Thank you, Danny.Bomb.

 

I think that's a good way to find out. A cloud server is supposed to be scalable on demand in real time. I am on a host using OnApp. Do you know anything about that? It's supposed to be a cloud server but a modified version where changes in resources, although can be done on the spot, are normally done from the start of each billing cycle because the services are paid for in advance, for one month.

 

Well, from what I can see on their website they are using hypervisors

 

 

Cloud BootCloud Boot is a new way to deploy Xen and KVM hypervisor servers automatically, across your network

 

so yes, I'm pretty sure they are using a real "cloud" service.

[LiquiLayer - Brent]

The only functional difference between a cloud server and a normal VPS is that a cloud server can migrate between hardware as needed. This is probably outside of your control, so it will be difficult to 'prove' it.

 

You can't use the "if it only takes a few minutes to add ram, it's a cloud server" argument, because I can do the same with our VPS's. 

 

You may also find "Cloud" servers to be a bit slower sometimes over a traditional VPS container because typically the host nodes have lower specs than the typical VPS node. 

 

It also depends on your providers "definition" of the term "Cloud". Many providers throw the term cloud around when referring to a regular VPS instance. 

[LiquiLayer - Brent]

Also, a true "cloud" would be a fully redundant, self healing network of nodes. This could be 5 nodes, 20 nodes or 100 nodes. It all depends on who your provider is.

 

One issue that's frequently run into is because of using a SAN vs local storage, the r/w times can be higher.