After the popularity of cloud servers, traditional web hosting and server rental or hosting are no longer the first choice for webmasters or website hosting. Cloud servers offer better performance and features than web hosting at a lower price than server hosting or renting. However, when purchasing a cloud server, you should carefully check its parameters, and do not be misled by the simple number of CPU cores and memory size. This article will introduce some matters that you need to pay attention to when purchasing a cloud server.
Basic parameters of cloud server
Processor (CPU)
Most servers use Intel® Xeon® processors, and some service providers provide products with AMD processors. For example, Tencent Cloud’s standard SA2 uses AMD EPYC™ processors. Different processors have different performance, but in many cases, service providers only indicate the number of cores on some purchase pages, for example: 2 cores.
Taking the Intel® Xeon® processor as an example, its popular models are (in order of performance from top to bottom):
- Intel® Xeon® Platinum processors : Provides the foundation for a secure, agile hybrid cloud data center, with 2, 4, and 8+ sockets for superior processing performance, designed for mission-critical real-time analytics, machine Built for learning, artificial intelligence and multi-cloud workloads.
- Intel® Xeon® D processors: Deliver workload-optimized performance in space- and power-constrained environments, from the data center to the intelligent edge. These innovative SoC processors support high-density, single-socket networking, storage and cloud edge computing solutions with a range of integrated security, networking and acceleration capabilities.
- Intel® Xeon® E7 Series: Provides real-time analytics, mission-critical business processing, and big data insights. Dramatically improve data center efficiency and proven reliability for any workload, and scale for any workload. Keep your data center running smoothly without interruption.
- Intel® Xeon® E5 Series: This family of processors offers greatly enhanced performance and functionality with software-defined infrastructure and agile cloud architecture. Designed for next-generation data center architectures, the Intel® Xeon® processor E5 family offers versatility to cover a wide variety of workloads in the data center or in the cloud.
- Intel® Xeon® E3 Series: Provides the necessary performance and visual capabilities for small business servers, powerful mobile workstations, entry-level workstations, storage servers, cloud workstations, media transcoding, and edge computing/IoT.
In addition to the different performances caused by the above models, another important parameter is the frequency of the CPU. For example, the maximum Turbo frequency of E7-8890 v4 is 3.40 GHz, while the maximum Turbo frequency of E7-8880 v4 is 3.30 GHz. L2 cache is also different.
RAM
In addition to the memory capacity, people generally ignore the frequency and channel of the memory. Taking a 64-core platform as an example, with 8 channels of DDR5-4800 memory inserted, each core can allocate up to 4.8GB/s of memory bandwidth.
At present, when purchasing a cloud server, you must choose 8-channel DDR4 memory. DDR3 is outdated. It is recommended to buy a cloud server with DDR5 memory (currently, there are few servers using DDR5).
- DDR5: Bandwidth 32GB/s, operating frequency 1600GHz-3200GHz.
- DDR4: Bandwidth 25.6GB/s, operating frequency 4800GHz-6400GHz.
disk
In addition to the capacity of the disk, what everyone should pay attention to is the data throughput performance and security (multiple copies). The read/write (I/O) rate of the disk is definitely much faster than the ordinary hard disk. If it is just a general website, the ordinary disk is enough.
The maximum throughput of a single disk of ordinary disks is generally 100MB/s-150MB/s, while the maximum throughput of a single disk of SSD hard disks is generally 250MB/s-1000MB/s.
Security mainly depends on the number of copies and the snapshot function provided. That is to say, a cloud disk generally has multiple copies. The more copies, the higher the data security. There is also the function of snapshot backup/restore. This function is charged by some service providers. You can understand it before purchasing.
Bandwidth and Line Quality of Cloud Servers
Since it is a network server, its network performance is also a key indicator. Network bandwidth is an important indicator, but due to the interconnection problems of several major domestic operators, the network connection between different operators will generally increase the delay or the rate is unstable, so the BGP line is the first choice.
BGP lines generally integrate the networks of operators such as China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile, but the quality of BGP lines provided by different service providers is also different.
For example, some service providers have a total bandwidth of 100M for converged lines, 50M for telecom, 20M for mobile, 20M for China Unicom, and 10M for other lines. Therefore, no matter which operator user accesses, the rate of 100M cannot be reached.
Another simple way to test the quality of a line is to check its PING value. Generally, for high-quality lines, the average PING value across the country does not exceed 100ms.
The following takes the IP test of the Baidu Cloud Beijing node as an example:
Security of cloud servers
For most cloud servers or well-known cloud server providers, the servers themselves are generally secure. The security discussed here is the security of the cloud environment where the cloud server is located, rather than the security problems caused by the user during use (the security problems caused by different usage scenarios and applications are another matter).
Although most well-known service providers have professional teams to maintain the cloud, there are still emergencies. This can only be differentiated by considering the technical strength, brand and emphasis on related fields between different service providers. Even internationally well-known clouds such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud have experienced large-scale service interruptions and other failures, but the difference is the ability to handle the failure, the processing time, and the remedial measures after the impact on users.
Therefore, on the premise that the price difference is not very large, try to choose a well-known company.
After-sales service of cloud server
Many webmasters or developers have encountered situations where human customer service cannot be found, and robots respond bluntly. This may be a common problem in the Internet service industry. There are also some cloud service providers’ after-sales customer service who don’t have any technical replies other than “Hello, recorded, and feedback” and other anxious words.
Summarize
The purchase of cloud servers cannot be generalized. It is necessary to choose the appropriate configuration and service provider according to their own business characteristics. For example, for domestic websites or applications, try to avoid purchasing overseas servers. It is not suitable for SEO or user experience.