How Cloud Servers Work | Rackspace Cloud

The technology behind Cloud Servers

From the command line, you'll find that Cloud Servers look and act much like the traditional servers you may be using now. However, key technologies make Cloud Servers much more flexible than hardware devices.

virtualization layer

The virtualisation layer

Each Cloud Server is a virtual machine abstracted from the hardware. We use a software hypervisor with proven performance, reliability, scalability, and security. Launching a new Cloud Server happens in minutes since we only need to start up a virtual machine on already running hardware. Virtualisation also allows Cloud Servers to be moved easily or even resized for more CPU and memory.

CPU Bursting

All Cloud Servers come with a certain amount of guaranteed CPU power based on the size of the servers you create. However, at times when there's extra CPU power available from the host hardware, we take advantage of it, providing your workloads extra processing power without any additional cost to you.

In Place Resizing

In-Place Resizing

Scaling up your Cloud Server is simple–you don't need to reinstall anything. With the click of a mouse or simple API call, your Cloud Server is momentarily taken offline, the RAM, disk space and CPU allotment are adjusted, and the server is restarted. The entire process is automated and takes just a few minutes.

Cloud Servers features

Manage your Cloud Servers on-the-go via your Android smartphone, iPhone®, iPad® and iPod® touch
Storage is RAID-10 protected for superior performance and redundancy.
For Linux distributions, each Cloud Server is assigned four virtual cores (for servers up to 15GB) or eight virtual cores for the 30GB server size.
For Windows images, each Cloud Server is assigned a number of virtual cores based on the size of the Cloud Server. 30GB Cloud Servers receive 8 virtual cores.
No oversubscription. Reserved RAM and storage.
You can spin up and scale a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard or Web Edition instance in just minutes. With utility-based pricing, you only pay for what you use. Find out which SQL edition is right for you.
Separate public and private network interfaces. Private bandwidth is free and provides inter-Cloud Server communication as well as access to Cloud Files. If you use a public IP, there is a cost for outgoing bandwidth only
Snapshot based server images—scheduled or on-demand. Useful for creating "gold" images for cloning Cloud Servers, or backups.
Support for multiple public IP addresses
IPv6 - Provision a Cloud Server that is IPv6 ready. Read more information on Rackspace IPv6 readiness.
Shared IPs for high-availability configurations using standard failover tools.
Linux distribution or Windows image of your choice.
Web-based console access. Access your server if there is a boot or network problem.
Bootable rescue mode. File system access to repair a troubled Cloud Server.
Combine Dedicated Servers and Cloud Servers to match your compute needs with the hybrid hosting option.

Linux® Distributions	Windows® Images
Arch 2011.10	-
CentOS 6.0	Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise 64-bit
CentOS 5.6	Windows Server 2008 SP2 Enterprise 64-bit
Debian 6.0 (Squeeze)	Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise 32-bit
Debian 5.0 (Lenny)	Windows Server 2008 64-bit with SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition*
Fedora 16 (Verne)	-
Fedora 15 (Lovelock)	Windows Server 2008 32-Bit with SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition*
Fedora 14 (Laughlin)	Windows Server 2008 R2 with SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition*
Gentoo 11.0	Windows Server 2008 R2 with SQL Server 2008 R2 Web Edition*
openSUSE 12.1	-
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 6.1	-
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 5.5	-
Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot)	-
Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narhwal)	-
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx)	-

*Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 images available on 2GB and higher Cloud Servers. For 2GB - 15GB server sizes, add 45p/hour for SQL Standard Edition or add 4p/hour for SQL Web Edition. For 30GB server size, add 68p/hour for SQL Standard Edition and 6p/hour for SQL Web Edition.

Managed Service Level Available Operating System also available with Managed Cloud Servers. Service level also provides support for Apache, MySQL (Linux) and .Net/IIS (Windows).

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