VPS Cloud Hosting: Say Cheese!
By Ryan on Tuesday 17 May 2011, 14:57 - Hosting - Permalink
Don't see the relationship between Gandi's VPS cloud hosting and photography? How about if I give you a hint by referring to snapshots? ...now do you get it? 
That's right! The week is starting out on a good foot, with a snapshot system that is currently available for disks that you have created on the new disk platform that has been in place for the past couple of weeks now.
For the uninitiated, a snapshot is a quick 'picture' taken at a given time of a disk (data or system) that belongs to you. This will allow you to, for example, perform a rollback in the event of a risky operation...
You will find this formidable option within the disk interface and not the server's (it is a snapshot of a disk that is taken) and this is therefore only possible on recent disks, since they must be managed by the ZFS filesystem.
How can you see whether or not your disk is compatible with this option?:
You may always make this option available, by replacing your current disk with a new one, however it would be necessary to import a total copy of your old disk into the new one. The snapshot is however, as its name indicates, instant.
And how can I restore a disk from a snapshot? This is just as simple as a snapshot, a button, a confirmation, and your new (well, actually only) disk is reconstituted:
Be careful, however, when using a snapshot: it will totally overwrite the target disk, by destroying it. If you are not 100% sure, then I recommend that you make a copy of the latter first. This brings me to the following point...
What is another use of an instant snapshot? The immediate duplication of a disk! This is also possible from your disk interface, right next to it: a simple click and it's done!
And finally, for those who wonder if it is possible to launch it automatically, I'll say yes... however not right away. We are in the process of fine-tuning our profiles and managing the snapshot calendar; however it should be available in a couple of months, with three different profiles, depending on your use!
For the uninitiated, a snapshot is a quick 'picture' taken at a given time of a disk (data or system) that belongs to you. This will allow you to, for example, perform a rollback in the event of a risky operation...
You will find this formidable option within the disk interface and not the server's (it is a snapshot of a disk that is taken) and this is therefore only possible on recent disks, since they must be managed by the ZFS filesystem.
How can you see whether or not your disk is compatible with this option?:
You may always make this option available, by replacing your current disk with a new one, however it would be necessary to import a total copy of your old disk into the new one. The snapshot is however, as its name indicates, instant.
And how can I restore a disk from a snapshot? This is just as simple as a snapshot, a button, a confirmation, and your new (well, actually only) disk is reconstituted:
Be careful, however, when using a snapshot: it will totally overwrite the target disk, by destroying it. If you are not 100% sure, then I recommend that you make a copy of the latter first. This brings me to the following point...
What is another use of an instant snapshot? The immediate duplication of a disk! This is also possible from your disk interface, right next to it: a simple click and it's done!
And finally, for those who wonder if it is possible to launch it automatically, I'll say yes... however not right away. We are in the process of fine-tuning our profiles and managing the snapshot calendar; however it should be available in a couple of months, with three different profiles, depending on your use!
Comments
Very nice. Which host OS are you using for ZFS?
@Ingmar: There are certain aspects of our infrastructure that we prefer to not elaborate on for the moment, however there are only a limited number of OS that can be used for ZFS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS
@krishnasenonline as a reminder, please address your customer support questions to our team using the online contact form. This will allow for a more personalized and follow-up. In your case, one of the domain's contacts removed the dns; simply log into your account and add DNS for your domain to make it active again.