Updated: New Autoscalable Cloud on Linux Containers
Last year our team worked very hard on developing a new cloud platform based on Linux containers. We saw a great potential in this technology, as it was much more efficient, faster and easily scalable than the traditional virtualization methods. Today, we are happy to announce the official launch of this technology for the SiteGround cloud accounts.
How it all began….
It actually started nearly a year ago. It took us tons of kernel patches and hours of hard work to make sure that our new container-based platform is not just fast, but also rock-solid and secure. Once we were ready, we launched the new platform in a separate sister brand (GetClouder) that was offering unmanaged hosting and was targeting the hard-core geeks that want to tweak their hosting environment on their own. Through the last 6 months the platform has been successfully used by thousands of people through GetClouder. However, we have always wanted to use it for our managed services at SiteGround too and now we are ready to go!
Main benefits of the new cloud service
The SiteGround cloud platform provides all the benefits of the Linux container technology, adapted to the specific needs of our clients:
- Autoscaling to meet unexpected traffic spikes
From your User area, you can set your new cloud’s CPU or RAM to autoscale when the CPU or RAM consumption reaches certain levels. This is a great way to avoid any downtime or slowness in times of unexpected traffic spikes. The option is not turned on by default but we highly recommend that you take advantage of it. The creation of an autoscaling event (setting the usage levels upon which the autoscaling will kick in) is easy and free. We would charge only when and if the scaling actually happens.
- Instant scaling without reboot
When you add more RAM, CPU, or space, or all the three together, the extra resources are added immediately and without any rebooting or other downtime associated with that process. That applies to both the autoscaling event and when you scale your server manually.
- Flexibility to create your own cloud plan
On the new cloud platform, you can “create” your own plan – meaning a custom combination of RAM, space, and CPU that will meet your specific needs and will optimize your spending.
- More speed for your website
Yes, I guess you expected that – the new platform is faster! Thanks to the resource efficiency of the Linux containers, the websites hosted on it get better performance.
What about the old clouds?
We will continue maintaining the old cloud platform, honoring all the terms of the service as until now. However, all new clouds will be activated on the new setup. If you have a cloud of the old generation, but you are really eager to lay your hands on that hot new technology, you may request a migration to the new platform via our HelpDesk. You can find more information about the new cloud plans on their product page:
https://www.siteground.com/cloud-hosting.htm
Comments ( 31 )
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Gokhan Taysi
Hello Reneta, I noticed during order screen. There is no Performance Booster option for the new cloud packs... How do you explain the lack of option in the old cloud's booster packs? Do you think new cloud would tolerate it with SSD disk structure. thanks.
Reneta Siteground Team
Hello Gokhan, The performance booster is included for free in the new plans. On our cloud sales page you will see it mentioned as the "Supercacher". Although, the new platform is faster than the old one, we see significant improvement of the performance of the website when the caching is turned on. Reneta
Joseph
Hi Reneta, I don't see the word mentioned "Supercacher" any more. Am I missing something? Regards, Joseph
Hristo Siteground Team
SuperCacher is part of our GoGeek and GrowBig shared plans. On our Cloud platform it's called WordPress/Joomla Booster and you get it for free with your account. Different name but the same awesome performance boost!
Rob
It looks like this option is only available if you use the 3x cpanel theme. If you want to use the paper_lantern theme then supercaher and a load of other options are missing.
Daniel Kanchev Siteground Team
Hello Rob, The Booster upgrade should work as expected with all cPanel themes. Please post a support ticket, so that our technical team can check the case for you.
Greg
Hi Renata, I am under an old plan and just renewed for 6 months but my biggest disappointment about Siteground (and that's maybe the only one) is the storage space. This new plan allows me to have more space. Is there a way I could upgrade space under the old plan?
Reneta Siteground Team
Hello Greg, The new plans allow you to have up to 200GB of space, up to 16GB of RAM and 16 CPU cores. I would suggest you to request a migration from your current plan to a new Cloud plan via our Helpdesk and define the exact specifications that you need.
Dusan
@Greg pulled the most interesting one (accidentally). Scenario: Let say I buy into this SiteGround Container Plan ... Can I then look elsewhere for the cheaper, plentiful, resilient storage *cough*aws*cough* ? I assume technically the answer should be: Why not? I mean some tighter integration with less latency than SQS ... but let's leave that one for now. Correct me if I am wrong but that would be most desirable scenario: Cloud Mix-n-Match ... I assume my question is: Is any SG Architect realistically thinking about that?
Reneta Siteground Team
@Dusan, our system architects are not looking to make an integration with the Amazon storage solution because they are working on our own alternative and faster implementation of distributed storage. We even beta tested it, but exactly due to latency and some other issues, we have not launched it in production (yet) and we keep working on it. Our new clouds at the moment come with SSD local storage. Reading from that local storage proves faster than reading from Amazon storage, based on our tests, as you avoid the network latency. That being said, we do have clients who have their own implementation of that Mix-n-Match approach – they use Amazon storage (S3) and our Linux containers so it is a viable option depending on the use case.
michael
I am just not that proficient to in IT to understand what your talking about... I barely am able to install my phpbb3 software....I never have more than 20 members online and was forced to upgrade to a virtual cloud......1 year ago....and now what???? frankly I dont have a clue what your offering, what advantage I would have over the cloud package, with dual core I am currently using, I dont have space issues.I dont know if your pushing me forwards or backwards, are you doing something to benefit me or save yourself money...I still cant see how I should need a virtual dedicated server with less than 20 members ever online at one time & I only have 300 members total!
Jean-Yves
Michael, I don't think they are pushing towards anything, sounds like you can stay put and your present packages will do the trick. They are offering us more flexibility in website needing demands for more hardware/bandwith/storage. As a client, that's a great deal for us.
Hristo Siteground Team
The problem with forums is that they are pretty much 100% dynamic because of their general concept. This is why the majority of the content is hard for caching and if not configured in the optimal way they can cause load on the server. However, we are not forcing the customers that use the old Cloud VPS solutions to migrate to the new hosting service.
Alessandro
Hi, The new cloud platform looks pretty cool, except for one thing: storage. What if more than 200gb storage is needed? Regards
Finn Hyttel
Hi at SiteGround, It sounds like a dream coming through. In this months we would have signed up for an alternative and external Cloud platform. Like Alessandro above - I only have one question; what if more then 200GB is required in 4-6 months? Thank you and best regards, Finn
Hristo Siteground Team
I am afraid that at this time we cannot provide more than 200GB storage per account on our new Cloud hosting platform. Storage hosting has never been our main focus, although 200GB is quite a lot of space for that kind of hosting platform. However, we’re constantly testing new technology and functionality and hopefully we will be able to provide more storage for our Cloud hosting users in the future.
John
Can we install the performance booster with APC on this new cloud platform?
Hristo Siteground Team
Yes, please open a ticket in your Help Desk and my colleagues from the support team will tell you how to do this.
Dwaynne Villiers
So, can I log into my account and click update to get on-board? Any downtime? What is the comparable LXC offering for my current Cloud 3 plan? Business Plus?
Hristo Siteground Team
Basically, our admins move your entire content on the new server and setup IP redirects while the DNS propagation is over which means that there should be no downtime at all for your website. As to your other question, the new cloud service doesn't match 100% our previous plans in terms of resources. However, the new Enterprise plan should handle your site similarly to the old Cloud 3 VPS. I would recommend that you monitor the load on your site closely and scale it so it fits your needs in the best way.
Damon Maldonado
Will this require updating the IP addresses at the nameserver level for any sites that are not using your nameservers? Thanks
Hristo Pandjarov Siteground Team
Autoscaling does not require changing of your nameservers.
Alvir
Hello I went customer VPS / Cloud SiteGround. Month, past I stopped. The service not what it seems, is a lot of false advertising. I have my support tickets that can confirm what I say. My plan was - 3CPUs and 2GB memory. I complained several times about the performace of CLOUD / VPS. And whenever the answer has been that the GOGEEK plan is stronger than a CLOUD / VPS 3CPUs and 2GB memory. But GOGEEK plan is much cheaper than CLOUD / VPS. And now SiteGround? how to explain it? Place items in the SiteGround website is easy, you can say what they want. But the reality is not that I am a witness that this CLOUD / VPS is not what they promise. Unfortunately, I could never imagine SiteGround could do something so misleading! Unfortunately after that, I do not believe in the SiteGround advertisements It is always good to speak the truth!
Alvir
Another thing, The announcement says that you will have more flexibility as it will not be in a shared place and can put whatever you want. That's a lie. You only have autonomy to sign a DEDICATED SERVER CLOUD sign a plan that SiteGround is offering as a WONDER, and ask to change a routine php, or one php.ini, and will know what I mean. Another thing, The technicians put former locks into place where you can move. So you never know that was blocked. If you have experience with webhost easily discovered the ruse when made. But if you simply are a User web end, had been never knowing, and will believe support when they write saying that the error is in the structure of your website, and you need to contact the developer of your website. Finally yet! One more thing SiteGround does not show the FUTURE CUSTOMERS, but after you are signed mistaken. I ordered the refund money because it never worked right, did three days of VPS / CLOUD, the value was 80.00 dollars and did not get the money back, as promised on the website. They were simply trying and trying to make the cloud work right, and in that time I was mistaken, and did not get the money back. SiteGround is a lie, a lie SiteGround
Angelina Micheva
Hello Alvir, We are sorry that you have experienced these issues, but please note that the cloud server that you were using was configured properly and working as intended. Our Support supervisors have checked on several occasions your server performance in detail and there were no service issues related to it. The reason for the experienced issues were a lot of requests and slow Mysql queries as explained in several tickets, which cannot be resolved without optimizing the website itself. Unfortunately development work is beyond the scope of our services. In regard to the comparison you make to our GoGeek plan, please note that the Cloud server provides you with no limits except for the hardware ones and allows you to be able to have more flexibility regarding the setup, while the setup of our GoGeek servers can not be changed per customer's request and you are sharing its resources with all other users on the shared server. In regard to our refund policy - we do offer 30 days Money Back guarantee for our Shared hosting plans. As per our TOS Cloud servers are not subject to refunds since they are premium hardware that we prepay in advance on a monthly basis. Nevertheless our team was ready to provide you with refund (in a ticket from February 8th) in case you were not satisfied with the resolution of the issue. As we can see from our records you requested a suspension of the service on February 25th (1 week before the actual expiration date) and did not request a refund at that point.
Alvir
hello Angelina Micheva I did requested a refund on the first week because the server did not work, and if you check the labels that exist, own support SiteGround said that something was wrong, was the first ticket, if I can remember. Then the bracket was delayed my time with so many promises to resolve What am I supposed do if had taken money from my credit card? simply hire another hosting elsewhere? and let SiteGround be right, I know that SiteGround WAS WRONG? Were just promises to put away the server support, and did not work. So this VPS Cloud is a lie. I requested reimbursement of the value the first 3 days, but I had to wait to solve the problem that was the installation of the cloud. So just support senior says this all sorted and I make it with prejudice. With $ 80 I could pay six months of GOGEEK. I ask you if SiteGround is as honest as it seems, because it does not refund this value with 6 months of GOGEEK hosting? Alvir
Angelina Micheva
Alvir, Thank you for raising the issue to our attention. We will review your case again and will notify you via email about possible actions.
Kurnia D
Hi Angelina, I have the same experience as Alvir. There are many downtime of my cloud server. I just upgrade from GooGeek to cloud with the understanding I lack of bandwidth. In Googeek, I never get downtime due to "error in database connection". I have been experiencing several times downtime during this week and today on 4/29/2015, I got 2 x downtime. The reason is the SAME as Alvir's case, because of a lot of request and slow mysQl Query. Some technician told me to maximize the database etc etc, but please... my website is quite small with only more than 100 articles and less than 100 products. The recent and last explanation is due to a lot of request in time to time, I lack of RAM. Well, now I am trying to expand the RAM on autoscale, adding 1G and monthly cap of 3G. I hope that there would be no downtime again in the near future. As you know, despite it is small site, some traffic I advertise it on Google adwords. When the site down and no acknowledgement to me, Goog will alert and penalize me and hold the ads from running. It need days to make it run again and I have to promise them it would not happen again since it will violate google terms. I really satisfy with siteground people service, which is fast. But, I do not satisfy with the cloud server performance at all. The price that I pay, do not appear what I get, despite my site is small site with visit around 600 session per day and 3,000-4,000 page views (according to google analytics). Any comment?
Angelina Micheva
Hello Kurnia, Thank you for sharing your comments about the cloud service. I see you have submitted tickets about the issues with the account, and our support team has resolved the problems raised. We have also given you a compensation for the inconvenience by extending the expiration date of the account with an extra month and twenty days. We will escalate the issues on the service performance to our senior support for review and we wil get back to you via email after they evaluate your case. Regards, Angelina
Kevin with iD Web
Just FYI, we see issues across the board on Joomla sites that have the jSGCache plugin. A 500 error will come up on most backend actions unless this plugin is manually removed.
Marina Yordanova Siteground Team
It would be best to post a ticket to our Technical team. They will need more details to recreate the issue and/or access to the affected Joomla site. This way they will be able to investigate and offer a solution. Regards!
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