Announcement: upgrading the virtual data center cloud!

Announcing new upgraded features for the SwiftWater Telecom RCS cloud computing service!

In addition to the standard web console that allows you to access your virtual server or virtual workstation from almost any computer with a web browser without having to install any software, we’re pleased to announce pre-loaded support for the NoMachine NX client! NX supports Linux (32 bit and 64 bit), Mac OSX, Solaris, and Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, and 7.

With the NX client, you can now share your local drives with the virtual workstation, making it simple to more files back and forth, share printers so you can print from your virtual workstation to your local printer, and share multimedia channels. Sharing multimedia channels allows you to play music or videos on your virtual workstation and hear it through your local speakers!

Our virtual workstations also include:

Firefox web browser with Java and Flash preloaded
Thunderbird email
Adobe Reader
OpenOffice.org (Microsoft Office compatible suite)
Pidgin Internet Messenger (AOL, MSN, ICQ, Google, MySpace, Yahoo compatible!)
Bluefish (web page editor)
WINE (run Windows software!)
Web browser console

Step up to the best equipped cloud powered virtual workstations and virtual servers anywhere!

Virtual Private Workstations
Virtual Private Servers
Cloud Powered Virtual Bundles

Vern

Announcing the new virtual server and virtual workstation!

SwiftWater Telecom announces the release of our new upgraded virtual private workstation and virtual private server! Powered by our data center cloud, the VPW 2.0 provides a powerful Enterprise Linux workstation preloaded with the best productivity software while the VPS 2.0 provides a totally ready to go server. The VPW 2.0 and the VPS 2.0 are now accessible with any Java enabled web browser, no software to load and starting from just $10 per month!

Get more details on our VPW 2.0

Get more details on our VPS 2.0

Learn more about our powerful data center virtual cloud!

SwiftStation VPW 2.0 Specifications
Operating System: CentOS 5.4 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux)(desktop load)
Control Panel: Webmin
Includes XWindows and Gnome desktop
Firefox (web browser)/Thunderbird (email)
OpenOffice (Microsoft Office compatible suite)
Pidgin Internet Messenger (AOL, MSN, ICQ, Google, MySpace, Yahoo compatible!)
Bluefish (web page editor)
WINE (run Windows software!)

SwiftServer VPS 2.0 Specifications
Operating System: CentOS 5.4 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux, server load).
Root password provided
Email and DNS hosting included!
XWindows and Gnome desktop
Firefox (web browser) and Thunderbird (email)
Apache 2.2 (web server)
MySQL, PHP, Perl
Webmin (server control panel)

Vern

Data center reliability and the virtual server

Tonight I was reading about virtualisation and questioning if it’s ready for production use. The answer is, yes, maybe, and no.

Like everything else in the data center, the risk versus value has to be considered. It’s not just virtualisation itself, it’s all of the supporting infrastructure too. Virtual servers, hardware configurations, power, it’s all part of the answer.

So what are the failure points in a virtual server or virtual workstation? Judging by recent events such as the Rackspace cloud outage, the biggest vulnerability is power. Data centers that run their power operations in a risky manner (manual testing, unprotected power) create a large threat to virtual systems.

Next failure point is the hardware. The hardware that underlies virtual systems is substantially similar to that used for single purpose servers and subject to the same frailties. Mechanical hard drives and fans are the most common failure points.

From the software standpoint, guest operating systems should be as reliable running on a hypervisor as they would be expected to be on real hardware, as should the host operating system. I would also expect any of the major hypervisors to be as reliable as any mature software.

So, a lot of the things that insure the reliability of virtual systems are the same as for traditional servers, just more so, since there is more at risk on a server handling many virtual machines. Power stability, both in design and operation, hardware quality, redundancy, and durability, and good choice of stable software all add up to a good reliable virtual server.

Of course, good choices, such as having redundant virtual servers split between multiple physical servers, multiple power sources, and multiple network connections.

Make the right choices and you can feel comfortable virtualising even the most critical application.

Vern, SwiftWater Telecom