#virtualservers

Cloud Sandboxes

Customers are invited to test the performance of 2nd and 4th generation Intel Xeon processors in a nonproduction environment using a new sandbox that uses IBM  Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC.

 Intel Cloud Virtual Servers and IBM Cloud Virtual Servers have launched a new custom cloud sandbox.

What is a cloud sandbox?

A cloud sandbox is a cloud infrastructure security feature that establishes a segregated testing environment. Users can securely launch programmes, run code, and test setups in this environment without affecting the system as a whole.

Resolving issues with performance in a testing setting

To fully comprehend the effectiveness of sophisticated apps running in your cloud hosting environment, performance testing is essential. Indeed, even in fully managed business settings such as IBM Cloud. Your compute strategy ultimately defines how performance is spread among your workloads, even while IBM can provide the newest hardware and software across global data centres built for optimum availability.

 Cloud sandboxes are useful since it’s important to understand your system’s performance characteristics before deploying to production. Without endangering vital resources, you can test and watch how a certain workload behaves in a segregated, non-production environment. Like the one IBM is releasing today, some cloud sandboxes concentrate on monitoring the memory, CPU, network, and I/O utilisation of your server. These kinds of cloud sandboxes can assist in figuring out how much money and processing capacity are needed for both short- and long-term execution. Let’s investigate the specifics.

Intel Xeon processor comparison on virtual servers using the new IBM Cloud sandbox

You may rapidly test and evaluate the workload performance characteristics of 2nd Gen Intel Xeon processors versus 4th Gen  Intel Xeon processors on IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC using the new IBM  Cloud VPC sandbox. You have the option of deploying your own application for a fully customised evaluation or testing IBM system performance differences on preconfigured apps with preselected workload benchmarks. Using IBM Cloud Schematics and Terraform as the programming foundation, the IBM Cloud VPC sandbox is automated and operates on your IBM Cloud VPC account.

The virtual server resources you test are invoiced hourly and will belong to you. Therefore, after your testing is finished, it’s crucial to remove your virtual servers and application environment, just like in the majority of customer-managed cloud sandboxes. Benchmark tests can take as little as 30 seconds to a maximum of about 15 minutes, depending on your application environment. To enrol in their reimbursement programme and receive 100% of your expenses back in IBM Cloud credits, get in touch with IBM sandbox team.

Build, test, and destroy: options for IBM Cloud VPC sandbox applications

Huggingface, Presto, or a Monte Carlo simulation can be used as benchmarks while testing in the new IBM  Cloud VPC sandbox. Alternatively, you might bring your own (BYO) customised app.

Monte Carlo simulation: For financial workloads, the Monte Carlo simulation has emerged as the industry standard for analysing the statical patterns of huge, random data sets. The fundamental modelling strategy of the simulation is based on chance, just like in the casino game roulette. Applied within the IBM Cloud VPC sandbox on two distinct virtual servers, the default load settings generate numerical performance results through repeated random sampling. You may view the number of operations per second, memory usage, and CPU usage for every benchmark that is run on your virtual servers running both 2nd and 4th generation  Intel Xeon processors.

HuggingFace inference application: The IBM  Cloud VPC sandbox’s HuggingFace benchmark programme (version Optimum Intel with Pytorch) lets you run and test many natural language processing models on two widely used text categorization tasks: Bert-base-uncased and Roberta-base. This application is used for inference purposes. The performance dashboard will provide the model inference time for 100 iterations in milliseconds when you run the tests against your 2nd and 4th generation Intel Xeon-based virtual servers, allowing you to readily monitor the performance trend over time.

Presto data lake application: TPC-H query execution on Presto is crucial for decision support tasks in large-scale data lake systems and analytics. Second and fourth generation  Intel Xeon-based virtual servers are tested using IBM PrestoDB and TPC-H, the industry standard for data warehousing benchmarks, inside the IBM  Cloud VPC sandbox. Additionally, each test calculates query times in milliseconds.

Bring your own device (BYOD): Would you like to test the vCPU performance of our newest Intel Xeon processors with your own application? Not an issue. Using shell script formatting, you may quickly and simply upload your installer and runner file via the IBM Cloud VPC sandbox dashboard interface. Alternatively, you can configure IBM Cloud LogDNA for your application. For all performance benchmarks, Ubuntu 22.04 is used in each option. Once implemented, you can evaluate your 2nd and 4th generation  Intel Xeon-based virtual servers’ average, current, and maximum utilisation metrics.

Web hosting has seen some serious developments and innovations in recent years. Many industries have noticed the significance of cloud computing, cloud-based applications and technologies as a vital tool to up-time their performance and total productivity. Big enterprises and companies are embracing innovative technologies because they have detected the advantages that cloud hosting can bring to their companies. Now companies are on a hunt for the perfect hosting solution and are looking for affordable, yet optimal, solutions for multiple projects as VPS hosting or virtual private sector has exploded in the hosting industry, making the selection even tougher or critical. 

Why A Hybrid Server?

Stepping into the next phase of web hosting, hybrid servers have proved to yield benefits that companies are prioritizing it over traditional or any other type of web server hosting. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that it is a game changer in the truest sense, as it has undeniable benefits. Since businesses have different sets of requirements and job-specifications, the complete one-package solution is found in hybrid servers. It is a combination of public based servers and private cloud servers, which are combined together seamlessly into one platform. It is the kind of server that provides a combined power of a classic dedicated server and the flexibility of cloud networking and computing. Hybrid servers diminish tradeoffs and simply break down technical barriers to get maximum performance-benefits from each component. 

Moreover, businesses are embracing hybrid servers for a number of reasons, as it provides quantifiable benefits in terms of faster data transfer and increased privacy. The companies that used to hesitate uploading or sharing their sensitive data over different servers have now found an alternate route to secure their data via secured cloud-based networks. However, there must be a management platform or board in place in order to configure the data or network appropriately. Moreover, you can’t simply plug in an outdated server into a public cloud server or network and call it Hybrid, in fact, you have to integrate or incorporate a proper system for making an optimal use of it. 

What Is A Hybrid Server?

Hybrid servers are best known for their all-round performance. It bridges the gap between dedicated servers and VPS servers and provides a powerful hosting solution for a wide range of applications. Traditional servers can never ever meet the super-fast I/O transfer rates and data security; which hybrid servers offer. They generally provide more flexibility and scalability, which is a dire need of large-scale businesses, which means it offers complete control and freedom to access and install any software you choose. 

What Is It Used For?

The reason why shared servers initially made a huge impact and later started to fall apart is that companies started to move to newer and advanced technologies, like cloud computing and cloud database servers, which were faster and convenient for the users. Since companies always look for dynamic options and solutions with superior security, Hybrid servers allowed enterprises to offload their back-end architecture into remote—virtual environments. This makes it convenient to access information via remote sources at the hour of need. It saves a lot of time, efforts and energies, as everything can be done via high-speed internet connections and advanced devices or gadgets with improved security protocols. In a nutshell, some of the major hybrid cloud advantages include,

Increased data speed allows hybrid servers to configure and push the essential data through a private server funnel instead of public ones, which ultimately increases the data transfer spend and dramatically improve load times. 

Sensitive data can be stored and secured on private servers with superior layers of encryption for accessing in-house, while huge chunks of publically accessed data can be assessed on a public side of the server. 

It provides maximum flexibility to enterprises to explore a variety of operational directions and devise optimal cloud-based solutions for them. 

It saves your investments and provides cost-effective solutions.

When it comes to hybrid servers and security of sensitive data, it’s easy to maintain and regulate data handling and storage requirements and protocols.  

Different Servers and Their Applicability

People have both - positive and negative experience with different sort of servers, dedicated, hybrid, cloud. At the hour of need, all of these servers have their own particular strengths and respond exceptionally well. However, a specific type of deployment requires a specific type of server. For that, optimal choices have to be made in order to reap intended results. However, hybrid servers work particularly well due to their robust and flexible nature. They are used for almost any project: testing, web hosting, back-end servers for mobile apps and many more. Large enterprises usually go for efficiency in processes, for them, hybrid servers are best for each and every perspective. A study revealed that there is a very thin line between hybrid and cloud-based servers, they both actually reinforce each other but most people don’t agree with it and consider it quite different. 

Summary