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Could a cloud enable me to copy/paste a VPS from one physical server to another?

I run a few VPS machines and am curious to know if a cloud would benefit me.

What would be really cool is if a cloud would enable me to copy/paste a VPS from one physical server to another, rather like how Oracle VM Virtualbox allows virtual machines to be duplicated, started and stopped.

Please don't mock me. I have read lots of info from cloud suppliers but all I can find is sales and marketing crap. I want technical stuff.

Nigel

Nigel Alderton
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    I'm not sure how [water suspended in the atmosphere](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud) could help you 'copy/paste' VMs. ;) There is no technical stuff; it's all sales jargon. If you're talking about migrating VMs, many hypervisors will do that. Take a look at Hyper-V or VMWare. – rtf Jul 03 '14 at 21:56
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    In the good old days of the early internet the "cloud" was just the internet or anything outside your company. You drew a diagram of your network and it had a line drawn between your router and a "cloud" (the internet). Obviously you've gotten hold of some marketing guff and gotten really confused! – hookenz Jul 03 '14 at 22:33
  • @Matt I should just draw a flow chart :) – Nigel Alderton Jul 03 '14 at 22:48
  • My problem with cloud is that I can never get my servers to stay in it for very long. They keep falling back the ground and breaking in impact. Maybe I need more helium balloons. – HopelessN00b Jul 04 '14 at 01:13

3 Answers3

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Please don't mock me. I have read lots of info from cloud suppliers but all I can find is sales and marketing crap.

That's because the difference between "Cloud" and "VPS" is purely "sales and marketing crap".

If you're looking for "copy and paste" on your VPS, though, you might want to look in to concepts like "live migration" or building new server images from snapshots.

tylerl
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You can move VMs to and from Servers all day long. That would not be a cloud. A cloud basically is a bunch of servers working together to balance out resources to create scaleability for applications.

Cloud Computing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

The cloud also focuses on maximizing the effectiveness of the shared resources. Cloud resources are usually not only shared by multiple users but are also dynamically reallocated per demand. This can work for allocating resources to users. For example, a cloud computer facility that serves European users during European business hours with a specific application (e.g., email) may reallocate the same resources to serve North American users during North America's business hours with a different application (e.g., a web server). This approach should maximize the use of computing power thus reducing environmental damage as well since less power, air conditioning, rackspace, etc. are required for a variety of functions. With cloud computing, multiple users can access a single server to retrieve and update their data without purchasing licenses for different applications.

What you want is to setup a bunch of dedicated servers that would work as a cluster that would allow you to migrate VMs to and from servers.

Jason
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    What about [My Cloud](http://m.wdc.com/en/product/1140)? – ewwhite Jul 03 '14 at 21:56
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    I assume that is a sarcastic comment lol? But yea, to comment on my post above. Cloud has become a marketing plow and commonly refers to a backup solution. I work with so many small businesses and their understanding of the word "cloud" makes me facepalm so many times a day. – Jason Jul 03 '14 at 22:08
  • Thanks but the wikipedia quote doesn't really help me. **"maximizing the effectiveness of the shared resources"**. That doesn't mean anything. Likewise **"maximize the use of computing power thus reducing environmental damage"** – Nigel Alderton Jul 03 '14 at 23:01
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What you are looking for is typically called "cloning" a server. All the major (and a vast majority of the smaller) providers support this. Your comment below reads:

I've looked at Linode, DigitalOcean and Rackspace but there does not appear to be a "clone" facility on their VPS offerings. I'd be delighted if there were.

That is demonstrably false, as you'll see:

Linode

Contrary to your comment below, there's a great big "Clone" button on the Linode management web interface for your server.

DigitalOcean

Take a snapshot of a droplet, then restore then create a new droplet from that snap.

Rackspace

Create an image of a server, then you can restore that image.

AWS/EC2

Right-click on a server, choose "create image", then you can launch a new server from that image.

(Old answer, regarding live migration, is below)

VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, and Xen (others too, I'm sure) all have mechanisms by which virtual machines can be live-migrated between machines. Without getting too much into the technical detail, the mechanisms behind this are broadly:

  1. two physical servers connected to a shared storage device. This storage device is where the VM's backing disks are kept.
  2. migration is initiated by the user or perhaps by the virtualization resource planning system (VMware vSphere DRS, for example), at which point the source server starts copying the VMs RAM, CPU state, etc. to the target system over the network
  3. when the two servers are in agreement about whether or not the VM is ready to be "moved", that VM's state is moved from source to target and the VM has now moved hardware
  4. at the moment the switch happens, the VM's networking MAC address (or addresses) is moved from one server to the other. This can involve some networking gymnastics on the part of the hypervisors to ensure that the upstream switches know where the MAC's new location is on the network

If you're using a well-configured and well-resourced infrastructure, live migration can be done without even dropping as much as a single ping.

None of this really has anything to do with "cloud". Cloud is a nebulous term used to describe a collection of servers, working together in some fashion. No more or no less can be said about it.

Most "cloud providers" do not support live-migration of virtual machines. If this is a requirement, you likely need to run your own virtualization infrastructure or retain the services of one of the few very high-end (read: expensive) providers that do support live migration.

EEAA
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  • Live migration is more than I need. What I would like is VPS copy/paste between physical servers. Regarding server cloning, I've used many VPS providers and I have never seen a "clone" button. – Nigel Alderton Jul 03 '14 at 22:21
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    @NigelAlderton - then start looking for that requirement when choosing a provider. Linode, DigitalOcean, AWS, Rackspace, etc. They all support this. – EEAA Jul 03 '14 at 22:21
  • I've looked at Linode, DigitalOcean and Rackspace but there does not appear to be a "clone" facility on their VPS offerings. I'd be delighted if there were. – Nigel Alderton Jul 03 '14 at 22:41
  • @NigelAlderton You're not looking particularly hard in their docs, then. In most cases it'll be called "snapshots". You can snapshot a VM and launch exact copies of it. – ceejayoz Jul 04 '14 at 00:39
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    @NigelAlderton - Are you serious? I'm beginning to think you're trolling here. Look at [this screenshot](http://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-FqBQJK6/0/O/i-FqBQJK6.png) I just took of one of my Linode accounts. – EEAA Jul 04 '14 at 02:39