1. Cloud servers that behave like real server: Our platform can be understood using familiar terms: server, drive, IP address, public network, and private network. This familiar vocabulary promotes easy adoption and easy migration.

 

2. An open source foundation and an open outlook: Built on Linux-LVM, our platform will run your software without modification. Upload an existing server, upload an ISO, or start from scratch with a pre-installed system: however you start, we provide an execution environment designed to accommodate software without modification. And, as easy as it is to deploy infrastructure with Open Hosting, it’s just as easy to download your servers and go elsewhere.

 


Amazon’s AWS is an easy foil. They are the highest-profile provider of cloud hosting. No other company matches Amazon for its promise of massive scalability or for its range of computing services. For the moment, AWS defines the market. Yet, it remains an awkward novelty. Radical at its introduction, AWS introduced a new infrastructure model and an entirely new vocabulary: EC2, S3, SQS, EBS, Elastic IP, to name a few.

Amazon bravely introduced a platform designed to support the most heavily trafficked websites and largest systems, but to realize Amazon’s promise of scale they ask a lot: your application needs to be designed for AWS, which means made from their toolkit. They are as much a framework as they are host.

To be clear, we’re not selling what they’re selling. More than hosting, Amazon sells a toolkit from which to build software. We sell hosting services designed to run your software without modification, to run it fast, and to provide it with excellent network access.

Also, consider Open Hosting because you want to limit vendor lock-in and increase portability. Or, because you appreciate the elegance of a simple platform that delivers for the majority.

At Open Hosting, we like your software as it is. Upload and run.

 
Addendum

For those unswayed by the above argument, a few final points:
 

1. For the vast majority of applications, we’re less expensive.
2. Our servers are faster with much better disk i/o.
3. We’re the bigger nerds, and we go to eleven.

The scheduled network downtime is from April 20th at 10PM EST to April 20th at 11PM EST, during which period your servers will be unavailable and rebooted once. We don’t expect to need the entire hour, and will make every effort to ensure a quick upgrade.

This is our first planned downtime at East1 for 2012 and we hope it is the last. Yet, with the new gear comes some immediate benefits:
 

• an additional level of network redundancy
• faster public network interface
• faster private network interface for VLANs
• additional network protections from things like DOS attacks
• lays the foundation for some exciting new features and possibilities…

Open Hosting is among the many cloud hosts supporting jclouds.

See “Supported Providers” for o.j.provider/openhosting-east1

PGDay NYC 2012 will be held on April 2, 2012 at the Lighthouse International in New York City. PGDay NYC is an intensive one-day PostgreSQL symposium with technical sessions focusing on the core topics you need to succeed with PostgreSQL. It will cover topics for users, developers and contributors to PostgreSQL.
 

• Hear lessons learned from leading companies who use PostgreSQL.
• Meet face-to-face in the “hallway track” and make lasting connections.
• Engage the best and brightest in a lively job market.
• Interact with the fastest growing PostgreSQL User Group in the world.

 

1. Specify at Least 2 Cores: We’ve found that Windows gets happier with more cores, and we recommend at least two. While the server is shut down, navigate to the server configuration page to explicitly set the number of cores.
   

 

2. Boot and Connect for the First Time: There are two layers of security, VNC and Windows.  VNC will ask for a password, which is found on the dashboard. (In the below example, the password is tH58Sf7T.) For Windows, the username is Administrator and the password can be found by requesting the password hint.

   

 

3. Update the Administrator’s Password: We strongly recommend changing the Administrator’s password immediately following the first boot. Remember, by default it can be found in the password hint, and that’s not at all secure!

 

4. Enable Remote Desktop: VNC is very useful for diagnosing a sick server that won’t boot (and therefore, won’t run Remote Desktop) and it is very useful for configuring a new server. But, it can’t compare to Microsoft’s Remote Desktop for everyday usability. To enable Remote Desktop on Windows 2008, start the Windows Server Manager (right-click on My Computer and click Manage) and click “Configure Remote Desktop.” Once you’ve enable RDP, disconnect from VNC and reconnect by RDP.

 

5. Resize the Partition: From within Windows, it is very important to increase the partition size. Your Open Hosting disk might be 200GB, but by default Windows sees only 10GB. And, while 10GB is enough to boot Windows, it isn’t enough space to run Windows Update.

 

6. Update Windows: Do the prudent thing and run Windows Update before using your server. This might take a while, and require a few reboots. Don’t worry if after rebooting an hour or more passes before the server is again accessible by Remote Desktop. Remember that many of the updates are applied during boot. To monitor Windows during this time, you can use VNC to observe the console.

 

7. Enable a Firewall: By default, Windows Server 2008 has its firewall enabled. We also recommending purchasing and configuring one of our simple and highly effective platform firewalls. With the server shut down, go to the server’s configuration page, click “Enabled” in the firewall section, and specify the ports to open in a space-separated list as “[transport]/[port number]“. For our purposes, you’ll enter “tcp/3389″ to open TCP port 3389, which is the default port for Remote Desktop Protocol.

 

8. Consider Disabling ESC: You’ll probably want to disable Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration or install Firefox.

 

9. Consider Cloning: Now that you’ve patched, hardened, and configured your Windows Server, you might want to save a copy of your work.
   

When you add a VLAN interface to Windows Server 2008, you want it to be treated as a private network by the Windows Server firewall. By default, Windows marks it “unknown” and thus it’s given public firewall rules.  In order to make it private (to allow for file sharing, among other things), you’ll need to modify the security settings as follows:
 

1. On your local server, click Start –> run –> MMC –> press Enter

 

2. In the MMC console, select File –> Add/Remove Snap-in

 

3. Select Group Policy Object editor –> Add –> select Local Computer –>  OK –>  OK

 

4. Expand Local Computer Policy –> Computer Configuration –> Windows Settings –> Security Settings –> Network list manager policies

 

5. Double-click Unidentified Networks, and change Location Type to Private.

   

 

How it works: When signing up, ask your friends to select “referral” and enter the email address you use to access your Open Hosting account. We’ll contact both parties to confirm, and after 30 days automatically credit your account.

Your referral may participate in any promotion running at the time they create their account. Our referral program is open to all existing clients.

Please email sales@openhosting.com with any questions.

Behind the scenes, the dashboard issues two API calls. The first API call creates a blank drive of equal size to the one you wish to copy. And, the second API call copies the contents of the original to the new drive.

The demo@openhosting account contains a drive called “source-drive.” To create a copy of this drive we need to know it’s UUID and size. A simple call to the API returns this information for all drives in the account:

$ ./openhosting.sh drives/info
status active
name source-drive
drive 1181a421-e490-47c7-96a4-b29b5d6abe44
encryption:cipher aes-xts-plain
user d2d23ab0-4b3f-4b73-858f-4d2c9c2262c4
size 1073741824

Alternatively, by pressing the “configure” button on the dashboard, the drive’s UUID is displayed just above the name.

Now to create a drive of the same size using an API call documented on our API page:

$ ./openhosting.sh -c drives/create << EOF
name source-drive-copy
size 1073741824
EOF

Following execution, the API returns the new drive’s UUID, which we need for the final copy command:

status active
name source-drive-copy
read:bytes 4096
write:bytes 4096
drive 26df0e85-9f9b-4862-931b-644a31dd7df7
encryption:cipher aes-xts-plain
user d2d23ab0-4b3f-4b73-858f-4d2c9c2262c4
read:requests 1
write:requests 1
size 1073741824


The copy command requires two arguments, the DRIVE to which you are copying and the SOURCE of the copy;

./openhosting.sh drives/DRIVE/image/SOURCE[/CONVERSION]

Before executing, be sure both drives are unmounted. In this particular example, the call would be:

$ ./openhosting.sh drives/26df0e85-9f9b-4862-931b-644a31dd7df7/image/1181a421-e490-47c7-96a4-b29b5d6abe44

This call produces no response. You can can check on the status of the copy by checking the dashboard or asking the API:

$ ./openhosting.sh drives/26df0e85-9f9b-4862-931b-644a31dd7df7/info
status active
name source-drive
read:bytes 1182932992
user d2d23ab0-4b3f-4b73-858f-4d2c9c2262c4
write:bytes 1643388928
drive 26df0e85-9f9b-4862-931b-644a31dd7df7
encryption:cipher aes-xts-plain
imaging 52%
read:requests 288802
claimed 0003eba7-21ba-4dfc-9f69-3137c6c13937:imaging:30476
write:requests 401620
size 1073741824

Copying is 52% percent done, and when it completes the copy will be bootable.

This is a case where our principles are aligned with the best interests of our clients and the best interests of Open Hosting. SOPA threatens to infect the Internet with a virus worse than anything that could be written in code.

Join us and take action to stop this harmful legislation.

Where do your elected representatives stand?

Both the Open Hosting platform and Windows 2008 have their own firewalls, which are controlled independently. Our firewall is optional, but highly recommended, especially with Windows. Theirs is standard. Another key difference is that our firewall is implemented at the platform-level, which mean traffic is blocked before it contacts your server.

If you’ve purchased a firewall from Open Hosting and you intend to access Windows over the Internet by Remote Desktop, you’ll need to add an exception in our firewall. To do so:
 

1. With the server shut down, go to the Server Configuration page and enable Firewall.

 

2. Specify the ports to open in a space-separated list as “[transport]/[port number]“. For our purposes, you’ll enter “tcp/3389″ to open TCP port 3389, which is the default port for Remote Desktop Protocol.
   

 

3. Save your changes, and start the server.

 

 

Enable Remote Desktop using VNC…

VNC is very useful for diagnosing a sick server that won’t boot (and therefore, won’t run Remote Desktop) and it is very useful for configuring a new server. But, it can’t compare to Microsoft’s Remote Desktop for everyday usability. To enable Remote Desktop on Windows 2008:
 

1. Use VNC and connect to the server.

 

2. Start the Server Manager (right-click on My Computer and click Manage).

 

3. Click Configure Remote Desktop.

 

4. Select an option and configure users, if needed. The second option, “Allow connection from computers…” has the benefit of supporting Linux-based clients like, Remmina.