July 25, 2014 at 10:37InfoboxCloud cloud infrastructure launched in Amsterdam. Installation Technical Details
We are pleased to announce the availability of the InfoboxCloud cloud infrastructure in Amsterdam. A little earlier in the same location VPS were launched . Now you can use the enterprise-class cloud both in Moscow and in Europe. We are systematically implementing a strategy to expand the presence of InfoboxCloud in various regions of the world. In this article, we will unveil the veil of secrecy over the iron part of InfoboxCloud and the software used. At the end of the article, you can get a free trial version of InfoboxCloud.
In the new location, we use only branded servers. A typical host configuration in an installation is the Dell R720XD . It has 2 Xeon E5-2670 processors , 256 gigabytes of RAM, an SAS15K drive array of 600 gigabytes each with Raid controllers. Each server has 2 power supplies with at least two power reserves and 2 network cards. The internal network uses Arista, Juniper, and Cisco network equipment in a redundant stack that provides a 10-gigabit network between hosts (with growth opportunities as needed). In the Moscow location, the network has already grown to 20 gigabits. There is no particular problem in scaling the network, but you need to grow as you load existing equipment.
In the screenshot above, the Arista 7050T used in InfoboxCloud in Amsterdam (description) .
We do not disclose the top-end equipment used in the installation so as not to give our competitors a reason to think. However, contacting us you can find out more necessary details.
Each server has the Parallels Cloud Server operating system installed, which allows you to create virtual machines with containerized and hypervisor virtualization. Parallels Cloud Storage distributed file system is used as storage. It provides high availability of virtual machines even in case of failure of part of the cluster or individual servers. The technology provides fast live migration of virtual machines and containers between hosts without the need to transfer virtual server data.
The cloud is managed by Parallels Operations Automation (POA) and Parallels Business Automation (PBA). A POA allows you to manage hundreds of hosts in a cloud cluster, and Parallels Business Automation (PBA) is responsible for billing. The control panel panel.infobox.ru is part of the POA that users see. The cloud part of the POA is Parallels Automation for Cloud Infrastructure (PACI), designed as a module for POA.
PACI includes components:
Parallels Virtual Automation (PVA), integrated with Cloud Server, is used for centralized management and monitoring. The responsibility of the PVA includes the management and monitoring of physical servers: adding, grouping, decommissioning, managing IP address pools, backup host control hosts, real-time monitoring of the resources of each physical server.
Cloud Storage distributed fault-tolerant storage unites PCS hosts in a cluster and consists of 3 components:
The following is a diagram of how Cloud Storage works:
Virtual servers run from Cloud Storage. If the PCS host in Cloud Storage breaks down, the user continues to work and does not notice anything. If a cloud server was currently running on this PCS host, it restarts on another PCS host without the need for data migration and work continues. All this is done to provide much higher reliability than dedicated servers, higher speed of the disk subsystem and the uniform load on the disks from clients distributed in the cluster.
It is possible to reboot the user's cloud server in case of some updates on the host machines (which will be notified in advance), however, using 2 InfoboxCloud locations allows creating solutions in which even a reboot that takes from several seconds per container (in case of containerized virtualization) to several minutes per vm (in the case of using virtual machines) went unnoticed for accessibility-critical projects.
Backups are stored on Storage hosts outside of Cloud Storage. This achieves even greater reliability of the cloud system. Cloud Storage does not have a single point of failure in hardware, and the use of external backups reserves Cloud Storage.
Over the entire existence of the Moscow and Amsterdam locations (as well as over a long testing period), there were no incidents in them, but we take into account the most diverse potential problems, making the InfoboxCloud infrastructure resistant to them and suitable for enterprise customers. Almost everything that has appeared in InfoboxCloud and continues to appear is a reaction to the needs of corporate clients with 24x7 businesses operating on a federal and international scale.
We hope this article has made InfoboxCloud more transparent to our users. It is very important to understand what is happening in the cloud in order to design truly reliable systems that do not rely on the magic of marketing and the size of advertising budgets, but use knowledge about the real technical capabilities of the cloud.
You can try InfoboxCloud for free in one of the data centers in Amsterdam or Moscow by registering at this link . If you need more resources for testing than in the trial version, write to trukhinyuri@infoboxcloud.com and we will allocate the necessary number of resources for testing the most loaded and accessibility-critical projects.
Iron
In the new location, we use only branded servers. A typical host configuration in an installation is the Dell R720XD . It has 2 Xeon E5-2670 processors , 256 gigabytes of RAM, an SAS15K drive array of 600 gigabytes each with Raid controllers. Each server has 2 power supplies with at least two power reserves and 2 network cards. The internal network uses Arista, Juniper, and Cisco network equipment in a redundant stack that provides a 10-gigabit network between hosts (with growth opportunities as needed). In the Moscow location, the network has already grown to 20 gigabits. There is no particular problem in scaling the network, but you need to grow as you load existing equipment.
In the screenshot above, the Arista 7050T used in InfoboxCloud in Amsterdam (description) .
We do not disclose the top-end equipment used in the installation so as not to give our competitors a reason to think. However, contacting us you can find out more necessary details.
Software
Each server has the Parallels Cloud Server operating system installed, which allows you to create virtual machines with containerized and hypervisor virtualization. Parallels Cloud Storage distributed file system is used as storage. It provides high availability of virtual machines even in case of failure of part of the cluster or individual servers. The technology provides fast live migration of virtual machines and containers between hosts without the need to transfer virtual server data.
The cloud is managed by Parallels Operations Automation (POA) and Parallels Business Automation (PBA). A POA allows you to manage hundreds of hosts in a cloud cluster, and Parallels Business Automation (PBA) is responsible for billing. The control panel panel.infobox.ru is part of the POA that users see. The cloud part of the POA is Parallels Automation for Cloud Infrastructure (PACI), designed as a module for POA.
PACI includes components:
- Instance Manager (IM) . He is responsible for managing all operations in the PACI module. When a user gives a command to create a server, change parameters, etc. - the team is transferred to IM and the manager coordinates its execution;
- IM Database . The database used by IM;
- PCS nodes . Hosts with Parallels Cloud Server. Used for the execution of cloud servers and organized in a Cloud Storage cluster for distributed reliable storage of virtual machines.
- Storage nodes . A separate type of server used for backups outside of Cloud Storage. If a user activates a cloud server backup, it is performed on Storage nodes.
Parallels Virtual Automation (PVA), integrated with Cloud Server, is used for centralized management and monitoring. The responsibility of the PVA includes the management and monitoring of physical servers: adding, grouping, decommissioning, managing IP address pools, backup host control hosts, real-time monitoring of the resources of each physical server.
Cloud Storage distributed fault-tolerant storage unites PCS hosts in a cluster and consists of 3 components:
- Metadata server ( The Metadata Server , the MDS). MDS manages metadata (data description) and controls how virtual machine files are fragmented and where they are stored. MDS also tracks fragment versions and makes sure that the cluster has enough replicas. MDS runs simultaneously on multiple servers for high availability. MDS also stores global logs of all events occurring in the cluster.
- Fragment Server ( Chunk Server , CS). CS is responsible for storing fragments of user data and provides access to data. To ensure high availability, CS is running on all hosts.
- Customers ( Clients ). Clients access data by interacting with MDS and CS. The client is Parallels Cloud Server. Containers and virtual machines in the cloud run directly from the Cloud Storage cluster.
The following is a diagram of how Cloud Storage works:
Virtual servers run from Cloud Storage. If the PCS host in Cloud Storage breaks down, the user continues to work and does not notice anything. If a cloud server was currently running on this PCS host, it restarts on another PCS host without the need for data migration and work continues. All this is done to provide much higher reliability than dedicated servers, higher speed of the disk subsystem and the uniform load on the disks from clients distributed in the cluster.
It is possible to reboot the user's cloud server in case of some updates on the host machines (which will be notified in advance), however, using 2 InfoboxCloud locations allows creating solutions in which even a reboot that takes from several seconds per container (in case of containerized virtualization) to several minutes per vm (in the case of using virtual machines) went unnoticed for accessibility-critical projects.
Backups are stored on Storage hosts outside of Cloud Storage. This achieves even greater reliability of the cloud system. Cloud Storage does not have a single point of failure in hardware, and the use of external backups reserves Cloud Storage.
Over the entire existence of the Moscow and Amsterdam locations (as well as over a long testing period), there were no incidents in them, but we take into account the most diverse potential problems, making the InfoboxCloud infrastructure resistant to them and suitable for enterprise customers. Almost everything that has appeared in InfoboxCloud and continues to appear is a reaction to the needs of corporate clients with 24x7 businesses operating on a federal and international scale.
We hope this article has made InfoboxCloud more transparent to our users. It is very important to understand what is happening in the cloud in order to design truly reliable systems that do not rely on the magic of marketing and the size of advertising budgets, but use knowledge about the real technical capabilities of the cloud.
trial version
You can try InfoboxCloud for free in one of the data centers in Amsterdam or Moscow by registering at this link . If you need more resources for testing than in the trial version, write to trukhinyuri@infoboxcloud.com and we will allocate the necessary number of resources for testing the most loaded and accessibility-critical projects.