Features of launching the Jelastic cloud platform on the Infobox

On September 12, we launched a new cloud service based on the Jelastic solution.

The question arises: why does Infobox need another cloud? After all, less than a year has passed since the launch of the Parallels Automation for Cloud Infrastructure (PACI) cloud platform, which solves similar problems.

And why in Russia one more installation of Jelastic? Before that, two other hosters Rusonyx and Reg.Ru have already launched a service based on Jelastic.
What special will we offer on the Jelastic platform?
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All answers are under the cut.

A couple of words about Jelastic

Jelastic is a worldwide known platform for running Java and PHP applications. Jelastic has gained popularity due to the simplicity of deploying applications without having to make complex server environment settings (which is especially important when working with whimsical Java applications for settings).

The platform provides images that are already configured and ready to go. That is, you do not need to install Apache, NGINX, MySQL, PHP and other necessary services. Moreover, the functionality of the platform allows you to install popular CMS with an optimized web environment in one click.

The second advantage is the presence of autoscaling, which allows you to optimize costs at the time of small loads and calmly experience various habra effects. At the same time you can set the minimum and maximum limits of resources that can be allocated to the application. Payment is made only for actually consumed resources, which, however, is typical for the cloud platform.
Allocated resources are measured in cloudlets, which are containers (virtual servers). One cloudlet includes a 200 MHz processor and 128 MB of RAM. Disk space is charged separately upon use. Tariffication of all resources hourly.

That's all the basic information about Jelastic.

Questions to yourself

Now back to the questions that we raised at the beginning of the post.
Why does Infobox need another cloud? After all, we already have a Parallels Automation for Cloud Infrastructure cloud platform .
And why is our Jelastic installation more interesting than other hosters?
We answer in order.

PACI is mostly an IaaS platform focused on corporate Clients who need to place part of the IT infrastructure in the cloud. It is this target audience that uses our service at the current moment. But since a significant part of the Infobox Customers are developers, webmasters and site owners, it was necessary to offer a cloud solution for them too.

We have been familiar with the Jelastic platform team for several years, but the focus of the Java solution has seen a somewhat narrow segment. But as soon as the platform began to support PHP applications, we began launch negotiations. And he took place!
Thus, adding a Jelastic-based solution to our service line is a deliberate, long-planned, logical and surely the right step.

Then another important question arose before us: how to offer potential Clients something that would encourage them to choose our service, and not the service of competitors who already sell Jelastic?

In terms of modernity and power, the servers of all providers are almost the same, it’s hard to stand out. Although, in truth, we are conducting some kind of experiment with "iron" and if everything works out, then we will do something interesting here. But more about that another time.

The functionality of Jelastic in terms of tools and service management is the same for all hosters.

We could only experiment with the automatic installation of applications in 1 click and try to surprise with interesting rates. Not the cheapest, and not like everyone else.

The largest CMS directory for Jelastic

In addition to the CMS included in the Jelastic platform by default, we packed another 12 of the most popular CMS, incl. Russian. At the same time, we optimized the web environment for each of them, achieving the highest possible results. We changed something in the Jelastic installation packages for WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, because the result of their work did not suit us to the end.
In addition to these, we prepared packages for installation of Russian 1C-Bitrix in 3 editions, UMI.CMS, Amiro CMS, NetCat, DLE, HostCMS, as well as MODx, PrestaShop, osCommerce and LiveStreet CMS. Today we offer the world's largest CMS catalog for installation in 1 click on Jelastic.

Of course, we pursued a greater degree not for quantity, but for quality. What does this mean to you?

Suppose you want to order Jelastic from another hoster and install 1C-Bitrix in the “Start” edition on it. To do this, you will need to register, get access to the Jelastic control panel, create an environment, go to the MySQL node, create a database and user, upload the Bitrix installation files to the site directory, spend 10 minutes to install ... And in the end, going to the panel control Bitrix and running a performance index, see about the following result.



This is the average result of the built-in performance test after installing the 1C-Bitrix Start on the environment without additional settings from different hosters providing Jelastic.

If you want to do the same with us, then you just need to choose the automatic installation of 1C-Bitrix Start, enter the e-mail on our website and click the “Install CMS” button.



After that, you will receive a letter with a link, when you click on it, you will see the following window:



Here you just need to enter the address to which you want to create the site, and click "Install".
And in a few minutes you will receive an email with a link to the control panel of the created site and a login / password for access. And here the launch of the built-in performance test will show a completely different result. For example, such.



In order to achieve such results, we worked for several months to create unique environments for each of the CMS, conducted stress tests, consulted with vendors, vendors conducted their tests and gave us recommendations. We did everything so that our Clients could start working with the site within a couple of minutes after registration. In addition, each CMS will show the maximum results.

If you want to see any CMS on Jelastic, then offer options, and we will prepare the most popular packages.
Representatives of CMS vendors are invited to cooperate.

About tariffs

We were always confused by the rather large sheet with the prices for the clouds from other Jelastic providers. This is usually eight gradations for the cost of the cloudlet, depending on how much they are used at a time. On the one hand, it looks profitable: if you use more, you pay less. After all, the maximum discount for providers reaches 55% of the base price. But in reality, this means a significantly higher price for a small number of cloudlet, which is often what the Client needs. Judging by the comments on Habré, it is this pricing policy of providers (and as a result, the high cost of resources) has caused the most criticism among users.

We decided to simplify the tariff grid as much as possible and offer only two types of prices - up to 100 klaudlets and from 100. At the same time creating our tariffs, we decided not to enter into price wars - this is the path to nowhere. We have offered a price for a cloudlet, which, for example, for the entire range from 1 to 100, corresponds to a price from the range of 50-60 from other providers.
This means that closer to 100 cloudsets, our price may even be slightly higher than the others (or maybe not), but with a small number of cloudsets, it is definitely more profitable. Much more profitable. This makes the entry bar for using the cloud platform much lower.

In honor of the launch, we decided to offer another surprise to our Clients. To everyone who starts using our platform by December 31, 2013, we have made the first three cloudlettes free for the whole period of using the service .
And the three clouds are as much as 600 MHz of the processor and 384 MB of RAM. You save at least 540 rubles per month.



Thus, if your application needs a maximum of 5 cloudlets, then you will only pay two. And when the load is minimal, for example, at night or during application testing, you may not have to pay for resources at all! Such is the bonus to all customers from Infobox.

Free beta until October 15

Until October 15, we invite you to participate in the open-source testing of Jelastic from Infobox. At the time of testing, you can use the Jelastic cloud platform for free with us with the following limits:

• Number of environments per account - 3
• The number of cloudlet on the environment - 16
• The amount of disk space per account - 15 GB
• Maximum network load from the account - 4000 Kbps

And at the end of testing, we will remove the limits and give each Client 3 cloudlet for the whole time of using the service so that you do not even have any thought that Jelastic can be used by someone else.

Additional information and registration on the Jelastic beta on the Infobox website