A new era in virtual server providing is coming at our data center. We are on the verge of launching a new virtualization platform that will offer numerous new possibilities for both users and VPS hosting providers.
Progress is unstoppable, and this is especially true in the realm of virtualization and cloud services. Since the launch of virtualization on the KVM platform in 2011, much has changed. To provide our clients with the very best and most secure solutions that today’s hardware and virtualization management can offer, we decided at the end of 2023 to initiate the development of a completely new virtualization platform. This platform is built on new virtualization clusters, introducing entirely new possibilities for everyone, both clients and providers.
Virtualization Proxmox VE
Based on our extensive experience with KVM virtualization, both in the form of a public cluster and the operation of several private Proxmox clusters, we carefully evaluated and ultimately decided to migrate our KVM virtualization environment to Proxmox VE. Jiří Dvořák, head of the virtualization project, explains the selection of Proxmox: “Compared to KVM, the Proxmox VE platform offers enhanced and efficient support for virtualization and virtual hosting. This allows not only better transmission of processor instructions to virtual server environments but also significantly more efficient handling of the demands of modern operating systems and installed software. Whether we talk about encryption, modern database processing, or container virtualization within individual virtual servers, Proxmox handles it exceptionally well. During the operation of our private Proxmox clusters, we have confirmed firsthand that Proxmox meets everything we expect under the terms modern, fast, and above all, efficient“.
The development of the new Proxmox virtualization platform, tailored specifically to the needs of Coolhousing, took over a year and was supported by a grant from the European Regional Development Fund under the Operational Programme Technology and Applications for Competitiveness and includes many innovative features, which we will be revealing gradually. And we can assure you, there is a lot to look forward to.
New Infrastructure and Significant Increase in Performance
Together with the transition to Proxmox, we have built a new hardware infrastructure that includes two independent virtualization clusters. One dedicated to Linux-based environments and the other for virtual servers with Windows OS.
Both clusters are built on Supermicro servers, powered by processors with which we have extensive experience in our data center—AMD EPYC Milan series. As Jiří Dvořák explains:“Thanks to the implementation of these new processors, we will achieve an almost 40% increase in CPU performance per cluster thread, while at the same time reducing power consumption by up to 64%. This modernization ensures stable and high-performance services, not only today but also well into the future”.
However, CPU performance is not the only key factor in modern virtualization and its operation. Disk operation speed also plays a critical role. To ensure a high standard in this area, we have completely replaced our existing HDD and SATA SSD storage with modern NVMe SSD technology, across our entire infrastructure. This innovation delivers a disk performance increase of approximately 300% compared to traditional SATA SSDs in terms of IOPS (input/output operations per second), and reduces disk latency by up to 84%. While technically skilled users will recognize the significance of these figures, for the average user, it means a dramatic acceleration in the performance of all applications, delivered consistently, even under high load on the entire virtualization cluster.
Client Server Migration Without Any Change in Pricing
Many of our existing clients may be asking themselves after reading this article: “What will happen to our current VPS server?” Jiří Dvořák responds: “As we greatly value the trust of our customers and thank them for their long-term partnership, we will migrate all client VPS and VDS to the new virtualization platform on a 1:1 basis, completely free of charge and without any impact on the current service pricing.”
To ensure that the migration of clients data, including existing configurations and network settings, between virtualization platforms is as efficient as possible, a planned and pre-announced maintenance window will be necessary for the affected VPS and VDS servers. All clients will be notified in advance via email with the exact date of the migration.
In the coming weeks, we will be sharing more and more details about our new virtualization platform here on our blog and across social media. If you have any questions regarding the new VPS hosting, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We are here for you and with a new and modern virtualization solution.
Coolhousing team
