What is a vGRID Virtual Server?

To differentiate vGRID from other providers we focus on two very prominent benefits – all VMs on the vGRID platform enjoy unparalleled resilience and industry-leading performance.

A virtual server or machine (VM) is a mixture of computing and storage resources consumable in the same way a physical machine would be, but with a significant number of additional benefits.  The use-cases for a VM are widespread, anything from a web application through to enterprise software solutions, delivered across a VPN or a direct LAN extension. 

Resilience

Operating a VM on the vGRID platform means the server resources are delivered from an inherently resilient cluster of compute nodes, all with multi-path attachment to highly resilient storage area networks (SAN).  The following diagram shows the structure of a typical vGRID compute cluster.

Every compute node connects to multiple controllers and every controller connects to every other controller as well as the storage environment (mesh architecture).  If the compute node that a VM is running on has any sort of failure or fault, the VM will immediately reboot on an alternate compute node and continue, minimising the impact of any unforeseen hardware or system failure.

Performance

With HPE 3PAR StoreServ at the core of every vGRID cluster, boasting the latest in disk technologies and performance management, customer applications can rely on and expect a consistent level of performance.  With tiered storage and live migration technologies in the stack, customers can also move workloads into higher performing or lower-cost modes as and when required.

The performance of any application requires a balance of resource capability, CPU / RAM / Disk, able to deliver what the application needs when it needs it.  Improper balance can cause unforeseen bottlenecks, for example too much RAM and not enough CPU can create a situation where the server becomes ‘CPU Bound’ because too much CPU resource is being tied up dealing with RAM allocation, addressing and coping with all the pages of data stored in memory.  On the flip-side, too many CPU’s and not enough RAM can result in a combination of excessive CPU load not related to the application itself and increased disk IO caused by the constant need to swap pages of data out of RAM and onto the disk storage to free up RAM for active threads.

Whilst there is no avoiding the need to plan and tune the resources assigned to a server, the vGRID platform ensures that all resource elements are high performing and able to cope with even the heaviest workloads.  Taking this one step further, the vGRID platforms offer multiple tiers of storage based on performance requirements, aligning storage costs with storage performance.

• All VM infrastructure is delivered via VMware vCloud v6.x and is vCloud certified
• All backups are performed using 'Veeam Backup and Replication Availability Suite.