Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a peace-of-mind experience created by Virtuozzo and delivered by MassiveGRID.
It is ideal for developers who need to host their applications on a reliable platform with all the available tools. Developers can develop, run, and manage applications without having to face the complexity of building and maintaining the associated infrastructure.
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Specifications
Automated Provisioning via UI and API
The production and dev environments are created in minutes within user-friendly topology wizard, or via API, SSH, CLI. Run Java, PHP, Python, Node.js, Ruby, .NET, Go, Docker Swarm or Kubernetes based applications using a rich variety of SQL and NoSQL databases, app servers, balancers and storage containers with no manual configurations required for installation.
Zero Code Change Deploy
Deploy and run legacy monolithic applications and cloud-native microservices with no code changes and zero lock-in. The deployment can be easily performed using GIT or SVN with automatic updates, archives (zip, war, jar, ear) right from the dev panel or via integrated plugins like Maven, Eclipse, NetBeans, IntelliJ IDEA.
Cloud-Native and Traditional Applications Support
Application and system containers support, as well as zero code change approach provide the ability to run both cloud-native microservices and legacy monolithic applications. Virtuozzo Application Platform team provides assistance while migration of traditional applications to the cloud.
Automatic Vertical and Horizontal Scaling
Elastic automatic scaling enables granular resource allocation based on the load level. This ensures high performance, application availability and uptime, at the same time, cost efficiency by paying only for really consumed resources.
Managed Clustered Solutions within Marketplace
Already prepackaged templates of clustered WordPress, Magento, MySQL, PostgreSQL, NGINX, Tomcat, GlassFish, WildFly, Docker Swarm, Kubernetes and other solutions are available in the Virtuozzo Application Platform Marketplace. These highly-available clusters are automatically deployed, scaled and replicated, so minimum effort is required for support and management.
Pay-per-Use Pricing Model
There is no need to reserve resources, as the platform allocates them automatically based on the current load and using a small scaling step (128 MiB of RAM and 400 MHz of CPU). As a result, the consumed resources are billed only but not the VM limits. There is also a free trial to get started with the cloud platform.
Multi-Cloud and Multi-Region Distribution
Virtuozzo Application Platform PaaS is available across over 100 data centers in 36 countries. The infrastructure and local support are provided by the decentralized network of hosting partners listed in Cloud Union. You can deploy applications within hardware regions of a single cloud provider or across multiple using the same technology, same API and automation scripts.
Free SSL Certificates
A free SSL certificate is offered to all our customers, regardless if they are using the predefined hostname of the environment, or their custom domain. The SSL certificate is valid for 90 days. It renews automatically 30 days before expiration. The customer can adjust the renewal procedure.
Transfer an environment to another region
You can easily migrate an existing environment, from the region it is hosted to another of our available regions. Just select the destination region, verify your actions and everything is done automatically. The private IP addresses of the environment will be changed. If you have attached a public IP, it will also be changed. Manual actions will be needed from your side for your applications to work again properly, in case they use somewhere the private or public IP addresses.
Benefits of PaaS
Innovate faster while saving money
- Simplify, automate, and avoid the costly steps of setting up the foundation for your application
- Build, deploy, iterate, adapt and manage your application more rapidly over time
- Reduce the cost of server storage and overhead, network bandwidth, maintenance, and support personnel for end-users
Simplify operations and management
- Minimise the operational complexity by leveraging cloud-based platforms to automate and consolidate processes with easy integration using APIs
- Provide a more uniform and predictable OS/middleware environment by having service providers automate and control it
- Streamline application management, while maintaining complete application control and eliminating underlying infrastructure duties
Boost technology and offerings
- Get the latest technology with faster page loads and better uptime, combined with an enhanced user interface and experience
- Offer a wide range of applications and build unique solutions by tapping into the many niche market options offered by PaaS service providers
- Simplify and enhance the end-user experience by allowing them to seamlessly share data between solutions
Scale apps, not costs
- Keep costs low and easily optimize resources and costs as you scale apps. By running App Platform on MassiveGRID’s infrastructure, we make it simpler for you to control costs.
- Scale horizontally or vertically to handle planned or unplanned traffic spikes.
- Maximize availability with zero downtime deployments. Your apps remain available not only when you scale up or out, but also when you roll out new changes.
Features of PaaS
Easy creation of dev, test, production environments
Automatic vertical and horizontal scaling
Support of microservices and legacy applications
Fast setup of clustered and highly available applications
Zero downtime deployment with automated traffic distribution
Out-of-the-box TCP and HTTP(S) load balancing
Free and custom SSL certificates
Ability to hibernate, stop, restart, clone applications
Integrated CI and CD tools for automation
Built-in monitoring of RAM, CPU, network, storage, IO with alert notifications
Log viewer, file and config manager within native dashboard
Sharing environment and account collaboration with different access levels
Application management via UI, SSH, API and CLI
Deployment via GIT, SVN, FTP and SFTP
Ability to use different hardware or clouds within single portal
Integrated IDE Plugins: IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, NetBeans
Virtual Private Servers (VPS) powered by CentOS, Ubuntu and others
Marketplace with a rich set of preconfigured applications for one click installation
Wide choice of ready to go certified application container stacks
Docker containers support with integrated public and private hub registry
No vendor lock-in with import/export feature and zero code changes
What can you build with PaaS?
Web apps
Build dynamic apps in popular languages like Python, Node.js
Static sites
Create websites that are fast, secure, and highly scalable
APIs
Add automation via APIs
Background workers
Improve efficiency by adding background workers
Pricing
Here we need describe how to use calculator.
MassiveGRID Platform as a Service provides a unique process of automatic scaling with payments based on real consumption instead of server size.
Pay-per-Use Pricing for Ultimate Platform as a Service Flexibility
RAM and CPU consumption is monitored for each container. You are charged only for the resources utilized, not the limits.
You can set up a maximum Scaling Limit for each container, so the resources will be always available in case of load spikes or other consumption changes.
No matter how high the limit – the payment will be only based on real usage. The rest of the allocated resources will be just waiting in the pool for the application to request them, and it is totally free of charge. This is why Platform as a Service is the next generation of Cloud Hosting.
Reserved cloudlets
These cloudlets are reserved in advance (using the topology wizard). You always pay for the configured reserved cloudlets, even if you use fewer resources.
The discount level is the total sum of all Reserved Cloudlets per environment.
| Reserved cloudlets | Cost per Reserved Cloudlet | |
|---|---|---|
| Per Month | Discount | |
| 1 - 7 | $1.33 | 5% |
| 8 - 14 | $1.30 | 7% |
| 15 - 29 | $1.27 | 9% |
| 30 - 59 | $1.23 | 12% |
| 60 - 119 | $1.19 | 15% |
| 120 - 239 | $1.15 | 18% |
| 240 - ∞ | $1.09 | 22% |
Dynamic cloudlets
These cloudlets are reserved in advance (using the topology wizard). You always pay for the configured reserved cloudlets, even if you use fewer resources.
The discount level is the total sum of all Reserved Cloudlets per environment.
| Reserved cloudlets | Cost per Reserved Cloudlet | |
|---|---|---|
| Per Month | Discount | |
| 1 - 7 | $1.4 | 0% |
| 8 - 14 | $1.37 | |
| 15 - 29 | $1.34 | 4% |
| 30 - 59 | $1.32 | 6% |
| 60 - 119 | $1.29 | 8% |
| 120 - 239 | $1.26 | 10% |
| 240 - ∞ | $1.23 | 12% |
Disk space is charged hourly per GB of disk space used in your environment.
| Disk Used | Price per GB / Hour | Price per GB / Month |
| First 10 GB/month | FREE | FREE |
| First 10 GB/month – ∞ | $0.000208 | $0.15184 |
Traffic usage is charged hourly. The discount level is based on the amount of external traffic used per environment in the previous month. Internal traffic is absolutely free!
| External traffic last month | Discount | Free / hour | Price per GB | |
| 1GB – 9GB | 0% | 1GB | $0.045 | |
| 10GB – 39GB | 6% | 1GB | $0.0425 | |
| 40GB – 99GB | 22% | 1GB | $0.035 | |
| 100GB – 349GB | 22% | 1GB | $0.035 | |
| 350GB – ∞ | 56% | 1GB | $0.02 | |
Virtuozzo Application Platform SSL
This is a protocol which establishes a secure connection between your client and your Virtuozzo Application Platform environment. The charge is taken hourly.
| Name | Price / Hour | Price / Month |
| Virtuozzo Application Platform SSL | FREE | FREE |
External IP
This is an external IP address which is directly accessible from outside of the cluster. The charge is taken hourly.
| Name | Count | Price per IP / Hour | Price per IP / Month | |
| Public IPv4 | 1 – ∞ | $0.00278 | $2.03 | |
Applications
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Frequent PaaS Questions
What is Platform as a Service (PaaS)?
Platform as a Service, or PaaS, is a type of cloud-based service that is ideal especially for developers. It can be deployed both on public cloud and private cloud environments.
With PaaS you gain access to a cloud-based platform that allows you to focus on the development, deployment and management of all kinds of web applications, web sites and databases, without having to also manage and upkeep the associated IaaS Infrastructure (servers, etc.)
What is a Cloudlet?
At Virtuozzo Application Platform, resources are measured in cloudlets – a special measurement unit, which includes 128 MiB of RAM and 400 MHz of CPU power simultaneously.
Being highly granular, it allows to accurately determine the required capacity for each server in environment, which ensures the truly fair usage-based pricing so you do not overpay for the unused resources.
Reserved & Dynamic Cloudlets
There are two types of cloudlet at Virtuozzo Application Platform, available to be setup for every server in environment via the Vertical Scaling per Node topology wizard section: Reserved and Dynamic.
Herewith, if a layer contains multiple nodes, these limits are configured for all of them at once, i.e. are stated equal for each instance.
Here, each toddler corresponds to a particular cloudlet type:
- Reserved Cloudlets – these ones are reserved in advance and will be charged irrespective of your actual resource usage. In exchange, you’ll get significant automatic discounts based on their number.
Dynamic Cloudlets –are added & removed automatically according to the amount of resources that are required by your application in a particular moment of time – i.e. they’re assigned when load goes up and removed again as soon as it drops down. As a result, you pay based on your actual resource usage.
This type of cloudlet helps to cope with unexpected surges in demand without any pre-planning, special coding or overpaying for resources you won’t need the majority of time. In such a way, with the Dynamic Cloudlets slider you set the container’s Scaling Limit, defining the maximum possible number of cloudlets available to be allocated for it.
In order to gain the maximum profit, it is recommended to use Dynamic Cloudlets alongside with the Reserved Cloudlets to get all the advantages of your application’s automatic vertical scaling and, simultaneously, to benefit on automatic discounts.
Cloudlet Consumption Calculation
Number of used cloudlets is calculated on hourly basis in the following way:
- for RAM – the peak value (i.e. the highest RAM consumption over the hour)
- for CPU – the average usage
The greater of these values (but not both of them combined) is considered as the actual environment consumption, which will be charged from your account according to the provider’s tariff.
For example, if during one hour your average CPU usage is 2400 MHz (6 cloudlets), and your highest RAM usage is 1024 MiB (8 cloudlets), you’ll be charged for 8 cloudlets only – not for the combined total of 14 units.
Consumption Tracking
The current resource usage of your environment in general and for every layer/node it comprises in particular can be seen within the corresponding Usage column at dashboard:
And in order to review your servers’ consumption level for a particular period of time, you can use the corresponding Statistics section or check the applied account charges within your Billing History.
PaaS vs IaaS vs SaaS
We’ll do our best to keep it simple, like the picture below;
We need to define what each cloud model offers;
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): It provides the necessary IT infrastructure, servers and provides unmanaged or managed cloud services. It is the basis of the pyramid.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS): It provides the necessary tools and removes otherwise persistent obstacles to develop, test, deploy and manage a new application, database, website and also allows developers to combine these components to form complete software solutions.
- Software as a Service (SaaS): It is the most usual IT application in the business world. Software that are designed to serve a specific purpose, or service. There is nothing to manage, deploy or orchestrate, you just use the software for its intended use. Especially cloud-based software provide fast and highly specialized business solutions. However, there is no room for customization and with every business facing different challenges, PaaS gains momentum for those who can actually utilize it to benefit from it.
What Business Types Can Benefit from PaaS?
IaaS PaaS and SaaS are all crucially important for the business world.
However, depending on your business’s industry and type you may only benefit from IaaS and SaaS. For example, a company in the Foods & Beverages industry can definitely benefit from hosting its website through IaaS and could definitely benefit from various SaaS applications, such as Salesforce.
On the other hand, it is natural for some types of software and application development businesses to rely on IaaS and PaaS, or even solely on PaaS. Especially software and application development startups have a lot to gain from exclusive PaaS utilization, in terms of cost-efficiency, productivity and speed to market.
However, this strategic decision should include the consideration of the quality of the chosen PaaS Provider. Specifically, startups which have limited resources and need to have increased adaptability to achieve quick and reliable application and software development, should not choose a third-party vendor. PaaS resellers have no access to the cloud infrastructure and an unnecessary organisational level is added, eventually affecting resolution times, communication and overall productivity.
For this type of startups it is necessary to work with a high-availability PaaS provider, whose cloud infrastructures have no single points of failure. This will truly allow your new project to stand on a steady, fruitful ground from which to build towards success.
Which are the Advantages of PaaS?
The benefits of PaaS are segmented in intrinsic benefits, meaning that they are benefits that derive from the structure of the PaaS service by default, and service provider dependent benefits, deriving from the cloud services providers’ offering.
- Intrinsic Benefits
- Simple, Does Not Distract Developers: You can focus on website and app development with all the available DevOps tools, without the hardships and complexity that come with IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service).
- Pay for Resource Usage, not Resource Limits: This could become a game changer at lowering the costs of cloud hosting altogether. When you acquire a server under the IaaS cloud model, you practically reserve the resources regardless of using them or not. With PaaS you only pay for the resources that you practically use, when you use them.
- Cloud Provider Dependent Benefits
- User-Friendly Environment: Since PaaS has a specific target audience, software developers, it is highly optimized for this use case. It removes handicapping factors of IaaS, and of course offers practical freedom in contrast to SaaS. Virtuozzo, the developing company for the PaaS cloud platform delivered by MassiveGRID, has excelled at providing a convenient, usable cloud environment.
- Flexible PaaS Pricing Model: MassiveGRID offers a very flexible PaaS pricing model. Users can purchase “PaaS Recharge Cards” that range from $5 to $500. Depending on the hardware and software resources that the cloud environment consumes, users are invoiced according to their needs, based on hourly billing.
- High-Availability: Even though PaaS allows users to develop, deploy and manage any application quickly and easily, the overall quality highly depends on the servers and overall IT infrastructure it runs on. This is why it is very important that the service provider has a very high quality IaaS offering. MassiveGRID, focuses on delivering high throughput, high reliability and high security computing services. As a result, MassiveGRID’s cloud IaaS offering is based on high-availability architecture. MassiveGRID PaaS runs on High-Availability nodes, deployed exclusively in Tier3+ and Tier-4 Data Centers. This is how we are able to offer a clean and transparent 100% Uptime SLA to our clients.
- 1-Click Deployment of Popular Apps: Virtuozzo’s Marketplace provides a plethora of ready-made apps, databases, even ready made clusters, such as the Magento Cluster. All these cloud-based applications and software can be deployed in literally one click, on their own PaaS environment (something similar to IaaS virtual machines), in just a few minutes.
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