Exoscale

Exoscale is a European cloud computing service provider that offers IaaS and PaaS solutions. This platform emphasizes simplicity, scalability, and safety for SaaS companies and web applications and makes complex infrastructure concepts understandable. Exoscale is a self-service platform with automation support that helps IT managers get a turnkey IT hosting solution to offload large processing tasks to a reliable hosting service.

Exoscale offers a range of features and capabilities, including high-performance SSD cloud servers, self-sustained zones for resilient server deployments, full-control plane life cycle management, and a fully managed DBaaS.

Exoscale Features

Exoscale offers a wide range of on-demand resources to help users build their applications. Users will be able to set up virtual machines, store petabytes of data, and integrate on-premises or multi-cloud deployments while taking advantage of common DevOps tools. Some of Exoscale’s featured products are the following:

Compute instances

Users will be able to take advantage of a cloud server to host anything from simple applications to complex architectures. The server is easy to set up, run, and scale and can be integrated with Exoscale’s API and tools to automate the infrastructure.

Exoscale’s cloud server features include high-performance KVM-powered VMs with scalable pre-defined instance sizes of different core counts and gigabytes of storage, enterprise-grade RAID 10 SSD storage, virtual machine snapshot backups, cluster-friendly traffic, Linux and Windows support, anti-affinity groups, live migrations, integrated IAM, custom templates, instance pools, and multiple backup solutions. These features ensure that users have a secure and robust cloud server set up to keep them from losing data in the event of hardware failure.

Scalable Kubernetes services

Exoscale’s SKS is a privacy-minded public cloud that can be managed with a web portal, CLI, API, or other tools. Users will be able to start their Kubernetes clusters in 100 seconds, resize their clusters, and add nodes to their applications in seconds.

The different Exoscale features include access to all compute instance types, integration with NLB and instance pools, a full cluster life cycle, a high-availability control plane, and clusters that are deployable anywhere.

The Exoscale SKS is certified by CNCF within the Certified Kubernetes Conformance Program, which guarantees total data reversibility and support for required APIs.

Database as a Service

The DBaaS offered by Exoscale is powered by Aiven, a leading European company for managing cloud-based, open-source data infrastructure. This allows users to host their data and databases in the cloud with an end-to-end encrypted DBaaS offering that can reduce the costly database administration and maintenance requirements.

Users will also be able to stay flexible with how they configure and scale their databases, eliminate the need to rely on on-premise solutions and set up databases from scratch, and reduce overall costs by only paying for what they need. Also, users will be able to pick from an SQL database, a NoSQL database, or a DBMS.

Exoscale’s DBaaS features include no vendor lock-ins, termination protection, automatic backups, availability in all zones, GDPR compliance, and availability of multiple plans.

Object storage

Users will have access to an S3-compatible object storage solution to support their applications, backup, and server data from any Exoscale zone. It is possible to integrate Exoscale’s S3-compatible object storage into any existing workflow or application, get better scalability and reliability, and use the solution for static assets, backups, and user uploads.

Exoscale’s object storage has several features for cloud-native implementations, including an S3-compatible API, H/A Object Storage replications, direct HTTP/s access, metadata support, ACL and CORS support, and multiple backup solutions.

GPU instances

It is possible to supercharge workloads with Exoscale’s GPU instances that provide unparalleled performance through one of three GPU offerings. When handling machine learning and rendering projects, users can be confident that they’ll find the best GPU for their projects and workloads as they move them to the cloud.

Exoscale’s features for its GPU instances include optional dedicated hypervisors, cloud-native NVIDIA-based GPUs, short-term commitment with instances, and three choices of GPUs: the Tesla P100-based GPU1 for high-performance computing, the Tesla V100-based GPU2 for deep learning, AI and neural networks, and the A40-based GPU3, which is an all-rounder for rendering, AI, AR, VR, and simulations.

Networking

Exoscale provides users with different networking products to use with their instances. Included in the offerings are a fast and reliable network load balancer, private networks, elastic IP, L2/L3 firewalling, and one-click IPv6.

Dedicated cloud servers

Users can make their own Virtual Private Cloud and deploy virtual servers on dedicated hypervisors. The VPC is managed with a simple interface and several features that include 2FA, aggregated billing, and direct connectivity to Exoscale with Private Connect or other VPN options.

DNS

Exoscale provides users with simple and low-latency DNS zone hosting with per-zone pricing and unlimited queries. The Exoscale DNS features include geo-replication, ALIAS support, easy redirects, and anycast DNS.

CDN

Users will be able to accelerate the delivery of their assets by caching them in multiple locations and using the closest location to fulfill requests through the CDN. Exoscale’s CDN can be enabled on a user’s object storage bucket and has several features, including world-class delivery availability, modern protocol support, QUIC support, and improved download completion rates.

Exoscale Benefits

Companies using Exoscale will be able to take advantage of several features that make processing tasks easier to handle. Using the platform will allow users to enjoy some of the most notable benefits, which include the following:

RAID 10 SSD servers

Exoscale uses RAID 10 SSD servers to secure data, which combines RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 0 (striping) to provide hardware-level data protection and faster storage performance. Therefore, users won’t have to worry about losing any of their project data and still enjoy fast speeds.

Pay-per-use pricing

Companies won’t overspend on features that they don’t need since Exoscale charges per use and the scale of its offerings according to user requirements. For example, once GPU instances are no longer used, users won’t be charged for them.

Users can also tailor the plan they need according to their requirements to upscale or downscale their operations.

Compliance with regulations

Exoscale takes data security seriously and ensures that workloads that started in certain countries stay in those countries. Exoscale is ISO 27001-certified for its ISMS, ISO 27017-certified for its Certified Cloud Security, and ISO 27018-certified for protecting personal data, compliant with GDPR, certified with US HIPAA, and compliant with Swiss FADP.

Exoscale Pricing

Exoscale offers pay-per-use pricing, users can calculate the cost of their plans using Exoscale’s pricing calculator.

The different available instance families include the Standard instance that has a balanced memory and core count, low minimum storage, CPU Optimized instance that focuses on core counts, Memory Optimized instance that focuses on RAM over core count, Storage Optimized instance that balances memory and core count, and has high minimum storage and GPU, GPU2, and GPU3 instances that have high RAM and core counts and at least one GPU.

Exoscale also has a marketplace to access a collection of solution templates, components, and services to boost productivity. Some of the templates and services available are free, cost money, or require users to bring their license.

Exoscale does not offer any free trials or freeware for its IaaS solution.

Conclusion

Exoscale is a robust cloud-hosting IaaS solution that focuses on simplicity, scalability, and safety for SaaS companies. Users will be able to tailor the pricing according to their requirements, making it affordable for smaller companies while still allowing bigger ones to take full advantage of the available features.

Users will have access to high-quality servers and instance sizes for any workload and only pay a simple hourly price until they no longer need the instance. Exoscale’s powerful concepts and simple interfaces make it easy to keep data safe from bad actor attacks. Through Exoscale, users will be able to run mission-critical production workloads in the cloud without having to invest in costly hardware or worry about compliance, as Exoscale will handle it themselves.

Using Exoscale helps companies save time and money running critical workloads while also having a secure solution to work with. Should they need support, they can get it from real engineers working on Exoscale with just one click. What’s arguably the best thing is that users can tailor the solution according to their needs and limit their expenses by stopping an instance when they no longer need it.