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Updated atMarch 21, 2024   12:35 PM

Cloud Servers overview

Cloud Servers is a cloud computing service for managing virtual machines on the VK Cloud.

Virtual machines

A virtual machine (VM) is a collection of resources that emulate the behavior of a real computer. For its operation, the virtual machine uses the resources of a physical server (host). Multiple VMs can be hosted on the same host.

When creating a virtual machine, its configuration is set:

  • number of processors (CPU);
  • the amount of RAM;
  • disk type and size;
  • availability zone;
  • operating system.

Server Group

A server group is a collection of servers within a cluster that are combined in accordance with a specific policy. The server refers to resources:

  • virtual machines;
  • DB instances;
  • K8s clusters;
  • application instances from the App Store.

The policy determines the allocation of resources on the platform compute nodes. Supported policies:

  • affinity — place a VM on a single compute node;
  • anti-affinity — place VMs on different compute nodes;
  • soft-affinity — if possible, place the VM on one compute node (if there is not enough space on one node, instead of a creation error, as in the case of affinity, a server will be created on another compute node);
  • soft-anti-affinity — place the VM on different compute node, if possible.

Example of using a server group: deploy multiple application VMs on only one node to speed up communication between these VMs.

Flavors

On the VK Cloud platform, the number of processors and the amount of RAM of the VM are set using flavors. Ready-made flavors are available to users, as well as individual (on request).

Virtual machine categories

VMs are grouped into categories in a personal account:

Category
Description
Display condition
Intel Cascade Lake (Intel Xeon Gen 2)
VMs located on servers with Intel Cascade Lake CPU
Available by default
Intel Ice Lake (Intel Xeon Gen 3)
VMs located on servers with Intel Ice Lake CPU
Available by default
Archived VM types (legacy)
Old VM configuration templates
Not displayed by default filtration
High-performance CPU
VMs located on servers with increased CPU clock speed
Displayed when ordering the types of VM through technical support
Virtual machines with GPU
VMs with connected graphics card
Displayed when ordering the types of VM through cloud.vk.com
VMs with local disks
VMs with the ability to use local hypervisor disks
Displayed when ordering the types of VM through technical support
VMs located on dedicated servers
VMs located on hypervisors dedicated to the needs of one client
Displayed when ordering the types of VM through your manager

By default, only actual configuration templates are displayed: on servers with Intel Cascade Lake and Intel Ice Lake CPUs, as well as VMs with a connected graphics card, on high-performance or dedicated servers, if they were added to the project.

Select the Archive VM types category to find the old VM configuration templates. The server for VMs of the old configuration is selected randomly: Intel Cascade Lake or Intel Ice Lake, but charged at the price of Intel Ice Lake. If the server is unavailable (for example, during maintenance work), these VMs can move to a server of a different generation.

To create additional VM templates (for example, with a large amount of resources) contact technical support. The cost of a VM in this case is calculated individually for each request.

Name of VM configuration templates

The name of the VM template on servers with Intel Cascade Lake, Intel Ice Lake CPUs and a VM with a connected graphics card is formed as follows:

<category><CPU generation>-<number of CPUs>-<amount of RAM>-<options>-<GPU model>-<number of GPUs>

Examples:

VM template name
Description
STD2-2-4
VM with Intel Cascade Lake processor, 2 vCPUs and 4 GB of RAM
STD3-4-8
VM with Intel Ice Lake processor, 4 vCPU and 8 GB RAM
GPU1A-32-96-A100-1
VM with AMD EPYC 7662 processor and one connected Nvidia Tesla A10040GB graphics card

CPU generations

The performance of a VM depends on the resources of the host on which it is hosted. The VK Cloud platform provides server hardware that allows you to configure VMs of different performance levels.

VK Cloud platform has different CPU for VM hosting:

CPU
Type and generation of CPU
Availability
Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6230 CPU @ 2.10GHz
Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6238R CPU @ 2.20GHz
Intel Cascade Lake (Intel Xeon Gen 2)
Available by default
Intel Xeon Gold 6338 @ 2.0GHz
Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 CPU @ 2.3GHz
Intel Ice Lake (Intel Xeon Gen 3)
Available by default
Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6230 CPU @ 3.40GHz
Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6238R CPU @ 3.70GHz
Intel(R) Xeon(R) Platinum 8380 CPU @ 3.4GHz
High-performance processors
Available on request
AMD EPYC 7662
Select GPU VMs only
Available on request

The configurations available by default allow you to create VMs on servers with standard CPU.

Disks

A disk on the VK Cloud platform is a network block storage device that connects to a VM. The amount of stored data and the speed of access to it depends on the size and type of disk.

The VK Cloud disk subsystem uses network drives. Disk fault tolerance, continuous access to data and their safety are ensured by replication.

Network drives can be partitioned and formatted in the same way as regular locally connected drives. The advantage of network drives: they can be “moved” between VMs located in the same data center.

Low Latency NVME local disks are available in high-performance configurations. To create such a configuration contact technical support.

After creating a disk, you can change its size, type, and availability zone. The disk can be renamed, connected or disconnected from the VM, cloned or deleted. The boot disk can be made non-bootable and vice versa.

Multiple disks can be attached to a VM, but at least one of them must be bootable and contain the installed operating system.

Disks types

The VK Cloud platform supports various types of disks:

Disk Type
Name in the API
Availability zones
Description
Network HDD
ceph-hdd
MS1, GZ1, ME1
An ordinary magnetic hard drive. Suitable for storing large amounts of information. Triple replication to different storage servers
Network SSD
ceph-ssd
MS1, GZ1, ME1
Solid-state drive. High speed of reading and writing information. The performance is higher than that of HDD. Triple replication to different storage servers
Network
High-IOPS SSD
high-iops
MS1, GZ1, ME1
SSD with increased speed of operation. Double replication: both copies are on the same storage server
Local
Low Latency NVME
ef-nvme
nova
SSD, which is located on the same hypervisor with the VM. High-speed operation and fast response. Double replication: both copies are on the same hypervisor

Availability zone

An availability zone is one or more data centers in which components of the cloud infrastructure can be placed. In VK Cloud, the availability zone corresponds to a separate Tier III data center.

Each zone is isolated from failures in other availability zones. Placing virtual resources in multiple zones provides fault tolerance and reduces the likelihood of data loss.

VK Cloud platform resources are hosted in data centers:

  • GZ1 – Goznak data center. Address: Moscow, Prospekt Mira, 105, building 6.
  • MS1 (ko1) – DataLine NORD4 data center. Address: Moscow, Korovinskoe highway, 41.
  • QAZ — QazCloud data center. Address: Republic of Kazakhstan, Akmola region, Kosshy, Republic str. 1.

In the MS1 availability zone, the VK Cloud infrastructure is protected in accordance with the Federal Law of the Russian Federation “On Personal Data” No. 152-FL.

VK Cloud distributes the following virtual resources across availability zones:

  • virtual machines;
  • disks: are placed in network block storage and are automatically replicated within their availability zone;
  • load balancers.

Networks and routers are not tied to availability zones.

Operating system

On the VK Cloud platform, when creating a virtual machine, you can choose an operating system of the Microsoft Windows or Linux family. To create a VM with an operating system that is not in the platform list, use the VM image file with the desired OS.

VK Cloud supports migration of Windows server versions:

  • Windows Server 2008 / 2008 R2;
  • Windows Server 2012 / 2012 R2;
  • Windows Server 2016;
  • Windows Server 2019;
  • Windows Server 2022.

Image

The configuration and data of the virtual machine are stored as one or more files. These files can be used as an image to run a VM in a local environment or to create a new VM.

On the VK Cloud platform, you can create an image based on a VM disk or upload an image file. The resulting image can be used to create a new virtual machine.

An image, the source of which is a disk, allows you to create a copy of a virtual machine with an installed and configured operating system and applications.

The image downloaded from the file can be used for VM migration or to create a virtual machine with your operating system.

File storage

File storage is a virtual file system that can be connected to multiple virtual machines and used to share data. When creating a file storage, the network access protocol to it (NFS or CIFS) is specified.

The size of the file storage is set at the creation stage. If necessary, the size of the file storage can be increased, but the file storage cannot be reduced.

Snapshot creation and snapshot recovery operations are available for file repositories.

Backup

A VM backup is needed to restore the state of the VM saved at a certain point in time. The VK Cloud platform provides a service for creating VM backups in manual or automatic mode.

In manual mode, the creation of backups is started by the user. At the same time, full VM backups are created.

Automatic mode supports GFS strategy and allows you to configure a backup schedule to create full and incremental backups.

Licenses

VK Cloud has the right to license software based on agreements with companies:

  • Microsoft (Microsoft Services Provider License Agreement — SPLA);
  • RED SOFT;
  • BaseALT;
  • Astra Linux.

For more information, see the Licenses section.