What is VPSDeploy and how it works for provisioning "Cloud" VPS servers in modern providers?
VPSDeploy is a new web platform designed to provide users with the ability to “deploy” web-based applications to several different “cloud” VPS servers.
The system was originally designed to support “Ruby on Rails” application deployments, with an underlying application designed to provide users with a “one-click” solution to deploy their applications.
As the popularity of the system has grown, it has diversified into the provision of a number of other services, including those of database provision and CDN integration.
The point of the service is that if you are looking to utilize the MASSIVE wave of new computing resources that have been provided through service providers “in the cloud” (Microsoft Azure, AWS, Rackspace, DigitalOcean, etc.), you need a way to provision the servers you are using.
Contrary to popular belief, you are basically paying for a distributed VPS server that runs on thousands of servers in different data stores. The VPS you run will still require the installation of an underlying operating system (Linux or Windows) and will also need the various libraries / applications necessary for those systems to function properly (usually web server software, etc.).
While “deployment” services already exist (from the likes of Nanobox), the big problem they have is that they are completely focused on providing functionality “by application”. This means that you are basically getting a system that takes care of the provisioning of a single application, running on as many servers as necessary.
It has been created to provide server-centric software capabilities, allowing users to deploy as many applications as they want on their server infrastructure. It works much like the “shared” hosting we all know and love (which basically has a single server box with thousands of user accounts).
How does it work
At its core is a vast API integration system that allows you to directly integrate with the various VPS providers “in the cloud”. Companies like Microsoft, Rackspace, DigitalOcean, and others provide simple APIs that give the application the ability to connect to a user’s account at their provider of choice and configure servers as needed.
This ability gives the application the ability to create, manage, and provision a multitude of different servers at different vendors. For example, if you wanted to route UK traffic to an AWS-powered server cluster, you could configure it alongside the Hetzner cluster of German traffic.
To make this work, the system also includes an “endpoint manager”, which basically helps people to visualize their DNS settings. DNS is essentially your domain names – they direct users to different web servers.
While the DNS side of things has been fixed before, VPSDeploy’s endpoint manager is the first to provide a visual experience, backed by the ability to manage the various public-facing “endpoints” that a user can. wish to use.
Regardless of how the system manages the various infrastructures you may have, the point is that it actually implements a “stack” on every VPS you want to deploy. This “stack” basically installs all the software that makes a server work for the “web” and therefore means that if you are looking to deploy applications on your server infrastructure, you will be able to access the GIT repositories established by the system. and the underlying libraries that you will have installed, all via SSH (so you can do it via several different providers).
It is effective?
The most important thing to remember is that it is not a replacement for providing VPS in the cloud; it is a way of managing it.
The way the system can help you visualize, manage, and optimize the various applications and servers that you have running is one of the most effective systems that a developer could want to use to deploy their applications.
While running web-based applications / services on a VPS infrastructure “in the cloud” is not a necessity, it is certainly one of the most extensible and modular ways to get up and running in a production capacity.
Why would you need it?
The main benefit of using the system is the way it allows you to manage your own infrastructure.
The way the “web” works is exactly the same as your home network (networked computer systems), except we have a huge system called DNS that basically allows us to mask a lot of infrastructure behind names of ” domain”.
Domain names allow us to manage exactly what is shown to a customer when they want to access a particular service or content. This works fine BUT you have a major problem in that if you want to provide your * own * infrastructure (beyond “shared” or “dedicated” hosting), there is currently no way to do it.
The introduction of many “cloud” VPS providers basically gave us the ability to determine exactly what our infrastructure looks like, without having to buy / rent expensive hardware.
The only problem currently is that if you’re going to go the “cloud” route, you need to make sure you have a way to manage your infrastructure * and * (if necessary) determine exactly how that infrastructure will perform. cross supplier.
Other solutions
If you are considering moving (or adopting) to a cloud-centric infrastructure, you will be in the best position to look for a number of different services that can help provision servers across the various vendors.
Some of the most relevant are Nanobox and Hatchbox, the latter specifically for Ruby on Rails. Nanobox works very similar to Heroku, except that it can be deployed on several different services and is very reliable.