Introducing Slidebar.ru Cloud Hosting

I happened to test the cloud hosting service slidebar.ru. In this article I will tell you how to work with it, how to configure and manage the service. I will not touch upon the question of the cost of the service and compare this offer for hosting with others. Firstly, because I do not have enough experience and data to compare, and secondly, the goal of the article is to show what a flexible slidebar.ru proposal is for the configuration of your virtual machines.

To start working with the service, you need to go to the address http://slidebar.ru/ and select for yourself the required configuration of the virtual machine on which your product will be spinning.



The service allows you to set the configuration very flexibly:

• target operating system: Windows Web Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2003, Linux / BSD;
• RAM size from 512 MB to 8 GB with a step of 256 MB;
• one, two (not available in the Linux version) or four (not available in the Linux and Win2003 versions) processor cores;
• available processor power in percent in increments of 10%;
• Storage from 20 (linux, for windows at least 40 GB) to 200 GB in increments of 20 GB.

As the parameters change, the price tag on the right changes. I chose the following settings:



Please note that the price is calculated for hourly use. This allows you to flexibly rate the use of resources with the planned change of parameters, which is described below.

After purchasing the service, a letter arrives confirming the acquisition of the tariff and with a link to the management console. The console represents the following form:



In addition, the second letter contains a password for RDP for the virtual machine. In the console is what is the main feature of the service: the ability to flexibly set the current system parameters: you are allowed to configure the amount of memory, processors, power, and storage capacity. This allows you to urgently respond to changes in the work of your service: when the load increases, increase resources, and when it decreases, decrease.

After installing my web product on the server using RDP, I tried to make changes to the service, increasing the processor capacities and storage capacity:



After clicking “Make changes”, the following window appeared:



At the same time, the RDP working session with the server open at that moment was forced completed.

One minus of the service appears here: during the processing of the application, there is no access to the management console, even if you have several virtual machines there and the configuration is for only one, you will not get access to the second, you will be transferred to this window with request processing.

Application processing time was short - after about 10-15 minutes, access to the console appeared and after another 5 minutes it became possible to access the server via RDP. You will also receive a letter confirming the tariff and the data that you specified in the configuration.

The additional disk space will be unallocated and you will have to partition it yourself: You



also need to pay attention to the fact that the increased disk space cannot be reduced:



So you need to plan the size of the storage wisely and bearing in mind that it will not be possible to refuse excess volume within the framework of one virtual machine.

So, in 15 minutes I significantly improved the characteristics of my resource. At the same time, I did not have to do anything other than specify parameters. I did not have to deal with migration, all the files, parameters and system settings remained untouched.

Let's see what the slidebar service has to offer.

Another interesting feature that slidebar.ru has is the ability to schedule configuration changes for a specific date and time:



Due to the fact that my testing was limited in time, I did not experience this feature, but I find it extremely useful. Knowing the temporary sections with low attendance and the load on your resource, you have the opportunity to reduce costs for this period by planning a change in characteristics in advance. Conversely, you can predict in advance the influx of visitors and order at this point a more sophisticated configuration of your virtual machine.

The slidebar.ru console allows you to track changes in the configuration of your system:



The slidebar.ru service allows you to create several virtual machines. To create a new one, follow the link in the letter that will come to you when creating the first tariff in the system.



Creating a new car is practically no different from creating the first tariff. You also choose system parameters. The exception is that here you need to select an image of the operating system from the list provided or make a choice “without an operating system”:



For my case, I chose the option with the pre-installed free Web Platform Installer, which allows you to deploy any of many web projects in two clicks . By the way, it is worth noting that in this case you will get preinstalled SQL Server 2008 Express.

An additional optional option may be to order an administration service, more about the service here .

After selecting the parameters of the new virtual machine, you expect its creation within 10-30 minutes. Here again, I came across a drawback already described: during the creation of a new virtual machine, the entire console is inaccessible. After creating the machine, you receive an email with a password for RDP, an IP address, and links to instructions for remote access to the virtual machine.

The slidebar.ru console has several more options for administering your machines. Consider them in order: The



ability to restart the server and configure the boot order: DVD, HDD.



The ability to set a finished image for a DVD of a virtual machine, followed by the ability to boot the system from it. Variants of images are presented in the picture.

From the console, you can configure DNS and mail:





Another interesting administration tool that the slidebar offers is access to the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 console: The



login and password for accessing this console are laid out in the slidebar console, so it will be difficult to forget them. After login, you are greeted by the standard System Center interface. In it you can start, pause and completely disconnect virtual machines, connect to them via RDP.



With this, I would like to complete the review of the cloud hosting service from slidebar.ru.

My personal impressions of the service remained positive: I liked the flexible options for configuring and changing the configuration of the tariff plan. The prices of the service are probably higher than the offers of the classic VDS hosting. But hourly pay and the ability to plan configuration changes and resources used will help to narrow this gap slightly. The service itself is convenient, works well, offers a set of necessary tools for managing virtual machines.

It remains to add that everyone can test the service - when you start a server without payment, you will be given 50 rubles and the opportunity to feel everything with your own hands.