Virtual Server - Technical Info

A virtual server compromises of units of memory plus disk space. Each unit of memory consists of 256MB RAM, 512MB of swap space and 50GB of bandwidth. Multiple units may be used on a single virtual server where more capacity is required. All virtual servers come with a 100MB network connection.

Automated server provisioning
Virtual servers can be rapidly provisioned and resized. Servers can be generated from Continuum base images, or from snapshots saved from existing Virtual Servers.

Back up
Off-site backup includes the Operating System and data. Restoration is via a web based tree structure allowing you to drill down to restore individual files, directories, or the entire image.  Individual files can be downloaded in your web browser or with wget.

Boost
A daily increase of memory size of the virtual server.  This feature expands capacity for short term peak requirements. We cannot guarantee the availability of Boost, and it may be disabled without warning in the event of live migration.

Development Server
A developmental server to be configured at a minimal size (128MB RAM and 2GB of Disk space). This server can then be scaled up to meet your website requirements when your website is ready to go live.

Fault Monitoring
Should fault monitoring indicate impending hardware failure a virtual server will migrate to alternate hardware.

IP Address
Each virtual server comes with 4 public IP address with more are available on request.

Live Migration
When fault monitoring detects that a server is likely to fail then any Virtual Servers are Live Migrated to other server hardware with no down time.  Live Migration is also used if monitoring shows that the load on a physical server is getting excessive.

Mirrored Data
We provide scalable Virtual Server with RAID1 mirrored storage between the server and the iSCSI SAN.  The iSCSI SAN uses RAID5 protected storage.

Performance Monitoring
Continuum's user performance monitoring guarantees our customers fair usage of processing power in line the virtual server size.

Restoration
Direct access to backed up data and OS files via the admin area. No waiting for the first line support engineer to get back to you. Individual files, or directories can be downloaded, or the entire image can be restored.

Snapshot
A Snapshot of the virtual server can be taken before any major changes or updates are made.  It is possible to roll the virtual server back to the snapshot within a few minutes if the changes fail.  The snapshot can also be backed up if required.  A Snapshot can also be used as the starting point for a new Virtual Server.

Scheduled back up
Define each virtual server a unique backup schedule.

Server Size
Control to increase and decrease the virtual server memory. The virtual server can be changed on a month by month basis. If a large increase in server size is required then a reboot of the virtual server may be required due to limitations of the Linux kernel.