(Newb question!) How to divide a dedicated server into VPSes?

[Mason]

I made a post yesterday looking for some VPS servers for testing, but now I am considering a dedicated server that I can use to just create test virtual servers on the fly when needed. The thing is.... I'm not sure how to do this exactly. I have a few years of experience managing my own project servers but never had to use a dedicated server or administrate a VPS node server. So, my question is somewhat straight forward:

What is the best method of dividing a dedicated server into VPS servers?

I just need the ability to create/delete/ and adjust each VPS resources. They do not need a control panel for each one as I am not selling them just need to create separate servers for testing a project!

I think OpenVZ is what I need? Right? Is there a free control panel that makes this easier to manage?

 

[QuadraNet_Adam]

OpenVZ is great if you don't require a custom kernel on the virtual machines. For true virtualization, use Xen or KVM. You can use Proxmox for the control panel.

 

[Ishaq]

I think what you're looking for is Proxmox, it has a web UI that can manage the containers too.

 

[drmike]

It gets no easier than Proxmox. 

Order server, install Proxmox, use the web interface to allocate VMs as needed and adjust resources.

Other approaches are provider-centric, more cumbersome, more technical BS to deal with.

Just order enough IPs with your server for your containers otherwise you will be dealing with NAT or other hackery.

 

[Mason]

Thanks for the really quick answers! I guess Proxmox is what I should be looking at then! I am still not certain if I will just order a handful of VPS servers or order a dedicated server and go about it this way. My own server that I can divide how I see fit and as needed would be nice. We'll see. Looks like I have some reading to do regardless.

 

[D. Strout]

You may well have already considered it, but if having the ability to quickly spin up servers for testing is important, you should look in to a service like DigitalOcean. They would be ideal for creating servers on the fly with adjustable resources, and they have reasonable pricing which is consistent across their variety of locations.

 

[drmike]

Well I'd be a bigger fan of Digital Ocean if it didn't have Marc "Conehead" Andreessen's entitlement money behind.  Same fellow who sh!t talked Edward Snowden as a traitor (while blathering on about what revelations will have on sales at US companeis from foreigners - i.e. I WANT MORE MONEY F' ya'all).

Here's to Vultr, Linnode, and anyone else instead who competes in such space with deploy now as needed containers billed by the hour, when needed.

 

[DomainBop]

Here's to Vultr, Linnode, and anyone else instead who competes in such space with deploy now as needed containers billed by the hour, when needed.

Blech.  They're both VPS providers once you get past their cloud marketing gimmick

MY choice for hourly rate (real)(enterprise grade) cloud these days is:

CloudVPS:  +1 because they're big supporters of open source, free speech, and privacy (and are the most reliable NL provider I've ever used)

Nephoscale: +1 for their in-house NephOS platform and Cloudscript

GreenQloud +1 for their inhouse QStack and StorageQloud  +1 for Iceland  but -1 for being a little too green (yeah, I'm talking about that "CO2 saved" stats section of their control panel )

honorary mention to the boys from Milan:

IWStack (Prometeus) and CloudFlow (SeFlow)

edited to add an on topic comment:

I think OpenVZ is what I need? Right?

Noooo. you need Xen! which isn't that hard to install..google, there are a lot of tutorials.

 

[AThomasHowe]

Blech.  They're both VPS providers once you get past their cloud marketing gimmick

Maybe, I'm yet to see a range of locations like Vultr's at the same price point though.

 

[WSWD]

Maybe, I'm yet to see a range of locations like Vultr's at the same price point though.

And you aren't going to, because real clouds cost real money.  You aren't going to see a real cloud provider anywhere close to those price points.

 

[AThomasHowe]

And you aren't going to, because real clouds cost real money.  You aren't going to see a real cloud provider anywhere close to those price points.

The argument was that they're normal providers - do any normal VPS providers have the number of locations Vultr do in as many geographically diverse locations with the same plans at all locations starting at $5/m?

People like to beat DO and Vultr and say they're just another provider - find another normal provider in their league then. There may be overall better hosts at the price point but you can't deny that they're leading the game in that regard.

 

[drmike]

The argument was that they're normal providers - do any normal VPS providers have the number of locations Vultr do in as many geographically diverse locations with the same plans at all locations starting at $5/m?

People like to beat DO and Vultr and say they're just another provider - find another normal provider in their league then. There may be overall better hosts at the price point but you can't deny that they're leading the game in that regard.

I'm on the fence about both DO and Vultr.  Neither is particularly bad.  Performance with both can be rather spotty, random.

Vultr's network speeds in my US testing has been underwhelming.  

DO has good nodes, bad nodes, good days, bad days.

The variability of resources realized with DO and Vultr hasn't reached ever the shitastic level of a Buffalo owned / invested VPS company.  But, outside of dev sandboxing of lightweight stuff I am not even pushing the containers to see.

I like the instant provisioning at will.  More providers need said feature where they are multiple location based.   Billing by the hour, yes, I really like that for testing instead of buying a whole month or whole year like I typically do (and almost always regret).

DO and Vultr aren't even close to clouds.  Not this year.   They compete with VPS companies.  Cloud companies probably aren't noticing much about either and no erosion of their customer base.

 

[AThomasHowe]

I agree they're not "real" clouds but almost every cloud offering out there is the same spin on a different gimmick. Just seems like an easy stick to beat them with. They're not cloud but they're hardly your average provider are they?

 

[drmike]

I agree they're not "real" clouds but almost every cloud offering out there is the same spin on a different gimmick. Just seems like an easy stick to beat them with. They're not cloud but they're hardly your average provider are they?

So true @AThomasHowe,  very much marketing gimmicks instead of anything remotely in the big picture cloud-like. 

I am hoping we see a bridge built.   Historically we have  Xen, vmWare, KVM, OpenVZ, etc. which are server virtualization - bare mental - one server, multiple containers doing different things.  That's kind of the old or prior generation absent improvements, API plays, panels, etc. It's the base even of the clouds though.

Then on other side we have hardcore clouds that are just rather exotic, complicated, conceptually abstract often.

I am hoping companies like OnApp [yes I've been smacking at them recently as I see providers having selected such platform and not getting traction with the prior generation buying audience - OpenVZ, KVM, Xen, etc.]  address this middle cloud between old school virtualization of server and full blown clouds. As is, most providers, haven't a clue about OnApp and competing platform plays.  Ideally these companies start addressing the marketplace with seminars, whitepapers and other materials and create visibility in these marketplaces like WHT, vpsBoard, etc.

 

[DomainBop]

Maybe, I'm yet to see a range of locations like Vultr's at the same price point though.

That depends on how you define location.  CloudVPS has only one physical location (HA setup distributed in 3 different fiber connected data centers in Amsterdam) but they also offer a free CDN with their service that has 93 global locations (partnership with Level 3 CDN).  Vultr may offer multiple locations but you would need to set up a VPS in each of their locations (which means paying for VPS's in 13 locations) to receive the same type of global distribution of your content that you do with cloud providers like CloudVPS that include a free CDN.  tl;dr If you want a global presense Vultr could wind up costing you more in the end than some higher priced "single location" providers that throw in a free CDN.

I am hoping companies like OnApp [yes I've been smacking at them recently as I see providers having selected such platform and not getting traction with the prior generation buying audience - OpenVZ, KVM, Xen, etc.]  address this middle cloud between old school virtualization of server and full blown clouds.

F*** the buggy proprietary OnApp.  I'm pinning my hopes that more companies that are trying for "the middle ground" sector of the market follow IWStack and and adopt proven open source technologies like OpenStack and CloudStack.

 

[drmike]

F*** the buggy proprietary OnApp.  I'm pinning my hopes that more companies that are trying for "the middle ground" sector of the market follow IWStack and and adopt proven open source technologies like OpenStack and CloudStack.

Well, OpenStack and CloudStack are fine by me also...   Less likely to see big push from an open source platform as they are usually like here - you figure it out and RTFM, have fun and go bald in the process.  So limits who and what and lacks usually the polish and general market ready to deploy rapidness of a solution like OnApp [who I won't be defending].

Mind you I haven't tried fussing with OpenStack or Cloudstack.  Nice to see a Marketplace for finding folks for Cloudstack who own proper decoder rings and are for hire. 

Yeah Apache projects --- I love/hate them.   I feel teased, lured and then slapped for looking at them.

I am thinking a bunch of providers who have something else to do than be anchored to their desk until death share some of my sentiments [yes I like open source like the next dork / pinko commie economy underminer / utopian dorktard].

And thanks, considering spinning up something with LunaNode to see what they've cobbled.

 

[DomainBop]

Well, OpenStack and CloudStack are fine by me also...   Less likely to see big push from an open source platform as they are usually like here - you figure it out and RTFM, have fun and go bald in the process.  So limits who and what and lacks usually the polish and general market ready to deploy rapidness of a solution like OnApp [who I won't be defending].

I think in this case the biggest push will come from the open source platforms because there are already some giant adapters of both OpenStack and CloudStack in the hosting industry  and large corporations

OpenStack users include hosts like Rackspace, iWeb, BlueHost and large corporate users like RedHat, Intel, Disney, Wells Fargo, Bloomberg, IBM, PayPal [their developers network], GoDaddy [in house private cloud]  who have implemented public and private OpenStack installs. 

Cloud Stack also has some giant corporate users who will help push its development along (LeaseWeb, Verio, Apple, Verizon, NTT, British Telecom, Citrix, Dell, and many others).

On the other hand, from what I've seen the primary users of OnApp are small to mid-sized hosting companies who are looking for something that offers more than SolusVM's limited feature set so I think OnApp is the definite underdog in the cloud arena.  OnApp's ready to deploy solution might make them more appealing to many smaller hosts (especially the less technically capable ones) than the 2 big open source projects but OnApp's pricing model will probably continue to limit their ability to win over the average current SolusVM user who they seem to be targeting, and unless they can manage to convince a few major enterprises to adopt their platform their ability to compete (translation: funding for development) with the open source projects will be limited.

 

[jvkz]

Get a dedicated server with VMware ESXi as you are going to use for server for personal use. Get a free license from VMware and create Virtual machine with dedicated resources and manage them from GUI based software... Simple!