Control panel

The DNS Europe Cloud Control Panel (CCP) provides you with the ability to control your Cloud Server, Applications & Infrastructure online, from anywhere, using only a web browser. Using the CCP you can:

• Deploy new Cloud Servers/Applications with Virtual Infrastructure
• Change CPU, RAM and disk (Volume) resources when you need to
• Start, Stop, Reboot, Delete Cloud Servers
• Change Cloud Server Settings (DNS, hostname, passwords etc.)
• Administer multiple Cloud Servers/Applications
• Monitor active Job Console
• View Cloud Server usage graphs and export data
• Access Knowledge base and advanced support channels

In addition to the CCP, you also have the full root, SSH and FTP access, just as you would have with a dedicated server.

For a more detailed view of the CCP, please see our Demo Video.

Persistent infrastructure

In designing our Cloud Service we were acutely aware that High-Availability (HA) is a core business requirement for almost every online hosted environment. OK you may not be directly loosing money when your service is down but it certainly creates a bad impression and a lost opportunity risk.

The AppLogic Cloud platform underpinning our Cloud Services has been created with this requirement in mind. Whilst the focus of "Cloud Computing" is generally around the scaling and cost elements, HA is one of the 'unsung' heroes of a good Cloud platform.

Previously the domain of expensive clustered multi-server physical infrastructure, HA comes as standard with even our entry-level (£25 per month!) Cloud Server product. Every volume on the Cloud is mirrored live to another physical server in the Cloud ensuring that in the case of hardware failure, your Cloud Server and App will be up and running again within minutes, not hours.

What happens then is that some very clever technology attempts to recover the stricken server and if that fails, a healthy replacement is added to the Cloud in its place. Since we run all of our 'Shared' Clouds in HA mode, we can also guarantee that you will never loose data due to server hardware issues.

Our 99.99% uptime SLA is no joke. This equates to a maximum unscheduled downtime of just over 4 minutes in any given month but in reality we have found that the average downtime is less than that for a whole year!

Scalable Virtual Infrastructure

DNS Europe Cloud Servers are actually an entire encapsulated Cloud Application that contains not just the Servers, such as Apache & MySQL, required to run your application but also a range of scalable virtual infrastructure component options such as Load-Balancer, Firewall, Storage, in fact all of the networking components required 'hook' your application together.

OK so how does that benefit you?

Well firstly it means that your Cloud Server is actually distributed across the Cloud with each component (Web Server, DB server, Storage etc) scalable up to the limits of a physical server (which can be 8 CPUs & 24GB RAM!) giving you massive growth capability for your Cloud Application.

Secondly, each component has its own CPU, RAM and Storage allocation that can be individually scaled so your precise requirements for growth can be met without unnecessary cost.

And thirdly, if you decide later to move to your own Private Cloud platform, with us or any other AppLogic hosting company (or even in-house!) then your entire application and virtual infrastructure can be easily migrated across the Internet to its new home.

For those who are interested, in our opinion, this is the key difference between "Virtualisation" and true "Cloud Computing".

Versatile environment

Our online Cloud Server configuration tool allows you to take a base server (OS only) and choose web server, db server, storage, firewall and load-balancer component options, each of which can be individual resource allocations.

We are adding to the tool's capabilities constantly and as more capabilities are delivered with updates to the AppLogic Cloud Platform, we will integrate those with the online configuration tool.

If you don't find the feature/service/platform that you're looking for, please Contact Us and we'd be happy to discuss creating a custom Cloud Server just for you.

Perhaps you are interested in designing your own Cloud Service? Something you can deploy over and over again from a template and offer as a white-labelled service from our Cloud Platform? Again, give us a call and we can consider a custom build solution.

Flexible resourcing & billing

Our online Cloud Control Panel (CCP) gives you the resource scaling control you need down to a granular level. Each major component of your Cloud Server can scale:

• CPU (25% CPU core increments)
• RAM (256MB increments)
• Storage (25GB increments)

Scaling is not just one-way. From time to time you might need less resources and of course that's possible too.

Your monthly bill is calculated based on the principal of 'resource hours'. This is the number of hours during which you have specified a resource amount. The resources that are billed monthly are:

• Total CPU hours
• Total GB RAM hours
• Total GB Storage hours

In addition to the resource metering, there are two other billable elements:

• Cloud Server rental (variable)*
• Data Transfer used (250GB increments)

* Each Cloud Server 'flavour' has a different monthly rental fee that covers our physical infrastructure, administration and management overhead. Simple Cloud Servers therefore have a lower rental fee than more complex Cloud Servers.

Cloud Assist Services

At DNS Europe we have a great deal of experience with custom Cloud Services & Solutions building and our Cloud, Application & Networking experts are available for issues, projects, guidance, assistance with any of the following:

• Cloud App Design & build
• Cloud Service Design
• Deployment & maintenance
• Security audit & hardening
• Networking

More information about our Cloud Assist Services can be found here.

World-class physical infrastructure

DNS Europe's Cloud Services are hosted by two leading datacenter providers in London (UK), Level3 and Interxion. At both locations our Gigabit upstream connectivity is based on multi-homed BGP uplinks to two independent networks providers, Level3 and Cogent.

This configuration means that we are simultaneously connected to both Tier1 networks, and in the event of failure or quality degradation in one, there is a seamless and fully automatic failover to the other, ensuring uninterrupted address translation and connectivity.

Rack power at both locations is distributed through redundant A+B feeds with N+1 Generator and UPS backup.

Within the rack, we not only maintain HA on our shared Cloud (1:1 volume mirroring), but we also have hot standby spare servers in the rack which we can use to quickly replace any failed hardware, ensuring that HA status is maintained.

Beyond our standard infrastructure, we are able to offer enhanced reliability through our Disaster Recovery and Cloud Replication services.

To complete the reliability picture, we only use premium branded hardware from Cisco, HP, Supermicro, Intel, Hitachi and Crucial.