April is the month of rebirth. It is where Easter falls. Astrologically, it is when the sun enters Aries – the first zodiac sign that marks the beginning of the new year (happy birthday to all the Aries!). It’s also the start of a new fiscal year, and schools in Japan start in April.
All I’m trying to say is, this is a perfect time for new thing – AlmaLinux, the new enterprise-grade Linux distribution. Upon the beta release last month, the new operating system is now officially launched as CentOS’s replacement.
The mastermind behind is the creator of CloudLinux that we have known for years and loved by over 4,000 tech companies worldwide. With such a solid foundation, expertise, stability and reliability, the license-free AlmaLinux OS is poised to follow CloudLinux’s success in filling the gap of CentOS EOL.
Named after the Latin word for “soul”, AlmaLinux taps into the collective wisdom of the Linux community in its creation and future maintenance. This means the Linux distribution will be owned and governed by the community. Due to its open-source nature, it allows IT professionals to tack on any issues, as well as explore and contribute to the AlmaLinux community.
In the month of rebirth, souls reincarnate. To help you embrace in this exciting journey, LayerStack is excited to announce that we will include AlmaLinux as part of our cloud servers option. Most importantly we are committed to a simple yet seamless transition from CentOS to AlmaLinux with zero downtime for existing users.
If you have an idea for improving our products or want to vote on other ideas so they get prioritized, please submit your feedback on our Community platform. Feel free to pop by our community.
Our engineering team has been working overtime to respond to the needs of our customers and the market. We are excited to announce the upcoming launch of the LayerStack Load Balancer. What to expect? LayerStack Load Balancer autoscales across multi-regions.
LayerStack Load Balancer (LB) maximizes the capabilities of your applications by distributing traffic among multiple cloud servers regionally and globally through dedicated VLAN. LB combines the powerful LayerPanel 2’s ease of use and affordable pricing with the high performance architecture, so you can further boost up the workloads.
Interested in using the LB? Follow us on Facebook/ Twitter/ LinkedIn to stay engaged and get the latest product updates!
If you have an idea for improving our products or want to vote on other user ideas so they get prioritized, please submit your feedback on our Community platform. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the Community.
Ever since the rise of the interwebs and cloud technology, remote working has not been something new. That said, no one would have thought that it took a global pandemic to fully realize what that really means.
But even without the pandemic, Asian countries are poised to be the up-and-coming major hosting powerhouses of data. At LayerStack, we offer powerful, comprehensive cloud computing services that any company that looks to make inroads into Asia can benefit from, regardless of where you are based.
Reliable connection from everywhere
Data center location can be key when it comes to hosting speed and latency. If you are expanding your business in Asia, or expect that the majority of your traffic will be coming from the emerging IT hub, LayerStack is your best bet.
Our data centers cover both ends of the world. In Asia, we have data centers in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo. Across the globe, we set foot in Los Angles.
Our strong network proposition in Asia means the advantage of predictable performance and high availability in the region, regardless of where you physically are. You can be sitting in the office in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles rendering 3D models for a Japanese client, lying in bed with a laptop in your cozy Manchester flat managing a retail website based in Shanghai, or sipping a glass of Margarita by the picturesque beach at sunset in Bali (hopefully soon…) writing a blog post about how thankful cloud technology allows you to work outside the office.
LayerStack is here for your business footprint expansion.
Add-ons that support access across Asia
China’s sheer market size represents a lucrative potential for foreign goods and services, and it is a surprise to no one that businesses from around the world want a share of that pie.
To ease your entry, LayerStack offers direct connections to mainland China, courtesy of the – China Direct CN2 Route (CN2 GIA) add-on service. Available to all of our cloud server plans, the speedy and stable route is backed by top carriers in China for maximum stability and minimum latency. You can enjoy improved throughput and uninterrupted connection that covers nearly 200 cities in the country.
Privacy – or the lack of – makes or breaks your business. Knowing that, we offer a global private network for the sake of true data privacy. The network creates an isolated environment where your data is transmitted through a dedicated, high-capacity VLAN between instances – we call it a “Layer 2 connection”, providing the best insurance against uninvited data breaches. This feature is especially useful when you need to rescue a server by transferring sensitive data from one instance to another, or storing confidential information of your customers in a database that is not publicly accessible. At LayerStack, we give you a secure network that you can trust.
Unlimited traffic and transparent, predictable pricing
LayerStack’s cloud packages offer unlimited data transfer – yes, you read it right – unlimited, all of them. Unlike Azure, AWS and Google where users are charged for every GB of data transferred, or Linode and DigitalOcean where transfer capacity is capped for every billing cycle, LayerStack promises unlimited bandwidth traffic, both inbound and outbound. When data usage reaches the “fair usage” threshold, our cloud service continues with a reduced network speed without taking away your right for data transfer or charging extra. That way, we help you keep your expenses under control.
If you have ever got a bill from your cloud service provider and got confused because the numbers don’t quite add up, you are not alone. It turns out many cloud users find the pricing perplexing – charges for reserved instances, unmentioned cost for orphaned snapshots, hidden fees for additional customer support – you name it. On the contrary, LayerStack provides straight-forward price structures and absolute billing visibility. Every cost is clearly detailed and presented on our price lists and bills.
And there’s more to that. LayerStack guarantees that you get the most bang for the buck with our cloud packages. Apart from free add-ons such as Templates for fuss-free scaling and provisioning, highly-customizable Firewalls that safeguard your environment and Automated Backups that spare you from disasters, we offer the best performance for our price among major hyperscale providers, as anointed by independent benchmarkers – VPSBenchmarks.
Quality performance and after-sales services
A lot needs to be dealt with when running a business in a new area, and we are glad to take it upon ourselves to make things easy for you and unload some of your burdens. You don’t have to worry about deploying the system as we will do it for you – in just 1 minute. You head to the washroom, wash your hands properly (for at least 20 seconds please, with soap), come back and it’s done.
Once the cloud service is deployed, you are ready to get down to business. Our service agreement guarantees a 99.95% uptime, because we understand how a service downtime can cost not only your business but also your reputation (remember what happened to Visa?). Just like our pricing, we are transparent about the performance of our infrastructure too. Feel free to run a speed test and check out our real-time system status. We simply have nothing to hide.
If something has gone wrong, panic not. Our tech experts are available 24/7, all year round, to answer any and all questions and resolve issues that you may encounter. Simply call us or reach us through our support ticket, live chat or WhatsApp in Cantonese, English or Mandarin.
We hope you’ll give the new products and updates a try. If you have an idea for improving our products or want to vote on other user ideas so they get prioritized, please submit your feedback on our Community platform. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the Community.
Opting for a cloud service seems to be a big source of anxiety for many start-ups. It’s true that it takes a certain level of technical know-how (and to be completely honest, it’s not for everybody). Infinite scalability sounds like a synonym for infinite cost. And even with all the benefits that come along with cloud technology, those countless hours spent in tending the cloud just don’t seem to make it worth the pain.
We hear you. Start-ups have enough anxiety as they are without these stressors, and LayerStack is here to at least take these worries of yours out of the equation.
Intuitive and powerful control panel
A centralized panel is a key to effective management, and LayerStack has just that. Not only is it user-friendly, this comprehensive control panel allows you to monitor every detail of the servers – CPU and RAM usage, disk read/write, bandwidth usage – in the forms of intuitive charts, graphs and track systems, all through a web-based interface. It is also a place where you can manage a slew of features – including scale-ups and spin-downs – with just a few clicks.
If you have what it takes, the API that comes with our solutions gives you the option to customize the server with ease. You can build, scale and manage your cloud, exactly the way you want.
The same is also true when it comes to information access. Through the user permission management tool, you can assign users to various permission sets and have complete control over who can access what. All users will only see what you want them to see.
Predictable pricing
It is not uncommon that a cloud service provider charges based on data usage. It sounds logical – and it is. But when coupled with the instant scalability that cloud technology boasts, it could descend into a virtual nightmare, long before you realize it.
Many start-ups choose to use a cloud server for the very reason that it can handle unexpected traffic spikes, and you know what start-ups can’t handle? An unexpectedly huge bill.
At Layerstack, we offer cloud solutions with fixed, fully-transparent prices and unlimited bandwidth traffic. When data usage exceeds the “fair usage” threshold, our cloud service continues with a reduced network speed during the rest of the billing cycle instead of charging extra, keeping unpleasant surprises at bay. Plan upgrade is only a few clicks away if you want extra data credits with a guaranteed normal speed.
Necessary resources and the LayerStack Community
Even the most experienced IT experts may be stumped by the smallest technicalities, so if you are managing the infrastructure as a layman in a start-up, more power to you! LayerStack makes sure you will get the help you need, whenever you need it.
Make use of the preponderance of product documents and step-by-step tutorials – doing backups, setting up firewalls, protecting against DDoS attacks, addressing billing issues, and everything in between – available for free on our website.
You can also benefit from our LayerStack Community where you can ask questions, receive information about the latest features, explore possibilities, send feedback, and interact with fellow LayerStack users.
Cloud server managed service
A 9-to-5 workday can easily spiral into 7-to-10 if the cloud manager lacks the necessary technical knowledge to maintain the infrastructure. In fact, even with a tech-proficient team, overseeing every detail of the infrastructure could take hours. For start-ups, these hours would have been translated to important revenue that keeps the company up and running.
But that doesn’t have to be the case. Our cloud server managed service allows you to focus your time and energy on your business, and leave the heavy lifting to our world-class technical team. LayerStack will provide important API support, help with the operating system installation, carry out preliminary configurations of the server, backup and firewall to fit your needs, and many more. All you need to do is choose a server plan, opt for our managed service, and let LayerStack take the ball and run with it. Your time after hours should be spent on a family dinner, a night out with your friends, a romantic date with your loved one, not worrying about how to set up an e-mail server.
Free migration service
Not unlike moving into a new apartment, server migration is stress-inducing. This is why LayerStack offers free, customized server migration solutions that quell any anxiety you may have. After careful evaluation and planning by our cloud experts, your applications and database will be encrypted and migrated through a secure channel from your existing environment. The process is easy, secure, and fuss-free.
Every big company was once a start-up, and LayerStack has every way to help you power through any technological obstacles regarding cloud technology along the way. If you want to learn more about how start-ups can benefit from our services or need help getting started, feel free to contact us here.
We hope you’ll give the new products and updates a try. If you have an idea for improving our products or want to vote on other user ideas so they get prioritized, please submit your feedback on our Community platform. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the Community.
Cloud technology has brought along endless possibilities, and LayerStack is committed to turning your wildest fantasies and aspirations into reality with our extensive cloud server solutions.
You probably already know that instant, on-demand scalability and unparallel cost-effect ratio are some of the strengths of cloud server hosting. But even with all these benefits, you have got options – as everyone deserves them. LayerStack’s price plans fall into 4 categories:
Standard Cloud Servers
High-Frequency CPU Cloud Servers
Dedicated CPU Cloud Servers
Memory-Optimized Cloud Servers
We will look at them one by one so you can take full advantage of our flexible pricing and services that meet your personal and business needs. (Don’t have time for these? Check out the summary at the end!)
Standard Cloud Servers
First off, we havestandard cloud servers.
Suited for day-to-day computing at a low cost, this solution allows you to flex your web apps and blogs with it, or use it for virtual desktops, microservices or back-office operations. With this standard service that comes with built-in security protocols protecting against any malicious activities or data breaches, you compromise with the price but not your security and, most definitely, not the performance.
Your data is highly confidential, our performance data is not. VPSBenchmarks and other reputable benchmarkers have continuously reviewed our solutions and vouched for many of them. LayerStack’s Standard Cloud Servers beat Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, AWS and Linode in providing the highest value per dollar spent (Result summary shown below; the higher the score, the better).
Need more proof of that? Read the juicy detail of the UnixBench Score and fio Test! LayerStack snatched the crown among Linode, Vultr, AWS, DigitalOcean and other hyperscale cloud server providers.
High-Frequency CPU Cloud Servers
With LayerStack’s high-frequency CPU cloud servers, your service is hosted with 8GB to 32 GB RAM and high-performance architecture – AMD EPYCTM processor with a turbo boost of 3.4GHz and the enterprise PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD.
Optional NVIDIA GPU add-on is available to selected plans and enjoy the uprated computing power and higher precision brought by their proprietary Turing technology. The prowess of this server option has received honorable reviews from various benchmarkers. VPSBenchmarks’s independent testing considered LayerStack’s performant high-frequency CPU cloud servers the cream of the crop among major cloud providers, namely Linode and Vultr.
If your application relies heavily on computing speed, or needs faster processing while storing and retrieving data, our high-frequency CPU cloud servers are just the ticket. Use them for ultra-high demanding A.I. and machine learning applications, computer-aided design (CAD), data analytics and data-sensitive work – our servers will never let you down.
Dedicated CPU Cloud Servers
Traditional dedicated server, while giving you full authority over customization down to the finest details, comes with a price – the lack of scalability. With our dedicated CPU cloud servers, that’s the last thing to fret over.
Promised zero computing power steal from other users and instant scalability, you can enjoy the power of 2 to 32 dedicated vCPUs on top 6 GB to 64 GB RAM and top-notch architecture – AMD EPYCTM processor & the enterprise PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD.
The same as our high-frequency CPU cloud servers, this comes with an optional NVIDIA GPU that provides astonishing acceleration for powerful, faster computing and higher precision.
In January 2021, LayerStack’s dedicated CPU cloud servers – DC108-HK – proudly ranked 3rd in the Best VPS category, in which VPSBenchmarks reviewed 15 similar cloud server offerings for their web performance, raw CPU power, stability and other factors.
LayerStack’s Dedicated CPU Cloud Servers tick all the boxes for services in which CPU power and stability dictate the performance. A.I. applications, machine learning, CI/CD, batch processing and video encoding are just a few of the many examples.
Memory-Optimized Cloud Servers
Memory-optimized cloud servers provide dedicated vCPUs – as with dedicated CPU cloud servers – but with 4x RAM. This option accommodates memory-intensive applications, and your service is housed on 2 to 16 dedicated vCPUs, with 24GB to a staggering 128 GB RAM.
Having extra RAM readily available means our memory-optimized cloud servers are perfect for applications with – you guessed it – ultra-high memory loads. Examples include SQL or NoSQL databases, real-time big data processing, caching solutions and image rendering.
Coupled with low CPU latency and high clock speed, this solution gives you access to private, designated servers with higher visibility of the infrastructure as well as increased control over maintenance operations. 100% CPU power and top data security are guaranteed.
Here is a quick overview of Layerstack’s cloud sever plans:
Rely heavily on computing speed and need faster processing while storing and retrieving data
Heavy workloads that rely on CPU power
Memory-intensive workloads
Web appsBlogsMicroservicesVirtual desktopsSmall-medium databasesBack-office operations
AI, Machine learning, Computer-aided design (CAD), Data analytics, Other data-sensitive fields
AI, Machine learning, CI/CD Batch processing, Video encoding
SQL or NoSQL databases, Large in-memory databases, Real-time big data processing, Caching solutions, Image rendering
LayerStack transforms your aspirations – big ones, small ones.
Be it for global businesses or your personal projects, LayerStack and our array of cloud solutions are here to help. Enjoy our intuitive control panel, API and User Permission Management that come with all our solutions for a streamlined, fuss-free cloud experience.
Not everyone is interested in the nitty-gritty of it all – and we get that. Through our cloud server managed service, our support team will help you with server setup and control panel configuration so you can focus on your part.
Check out our price plans or contact us for a consultation with our sales team and solutions engineers at LayerStack.
We hope you’ll give the new products and updates a try. If you have an idea for improving our products or want to vote on other user ideas so they get prioritized, please submit your feedback on our Community platform. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the Community.
At LayerStack, our infrastructure continues to evolve to best fit your ever-changing needs. This time, we bring you NVIDIA®’s GPU – an add-on now available to LayerStack’s selective plans – and the next-level acceleration that comes with it.
A universal deep learning accelerator sitting on a low-profile 75-watt PCI-e card, the performant GPU is powered by NVIDIA’s latest proprietary Turing Tensor Core technology that enhances thermal management and offers powerful, energy-efficient, mixed-precision computing (FP32 to FP16 to INT8 and INT4) in real time.
Thanks to the new Turing core built specifically for AI inferencing and diverse workloads, NVIDIA’s GPU is 9.3 times faster than using a CPU alone on training, 36 times faster on inference. Its advanced multi-precision computing ability makes it ideal for deep learning and inference applications, machine learning and data analytics. Factory automation and smart sensing are among many other use cases that benefit from the uprated GPU.
Parlaying NVIDIA’s RTX™ technology, the Turing core also boosts its graphics prowess by realizing instantaneous ray-traced rendering and delivering all the horsepower to produce photorealistic objects and environments. The ability to generate physically accurate shadows, reflections, and refractions is no longer curtailed. Equipped with the superlative GPU, LayerStack’s cloud solutions take high-quality video/image rendering tasks and intensive gaming in its stride.
We hope you’ll give the new products and updates a try. If you have an idea for improving our products or want to vote on other user ideas so they get prioritized, please submit your feedback on our Community platform. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the Community.
We once thought that we couldn’t make bricks without straw. Perhaps, in fact, we can’t. But wielding the power of cloud servers, you can run businesses in this technology-forward world without having to maintain on-premises infrastructure.
The real challenge, then, comes to finding a hosting solution – among all the providers, offerings, and cost options available – that fits your need. It is a bewildering task, and hours are spent. Fortunately, independent benchmarking platforms like VPSBenchmarks look at some of the top providers around the world and give credible monthly evaluations of their services.
At LayerStack, we strive to provide high-performance and reliable architecture that gives you the most bang for the buck.
With our dedicated CPU cloud servers, you have all resources available – 100% CPU power, clock speed, storage – at your disposal. You can enjoy every ounce of benefits that our superior infrastructure brings so your system can run at peak performance and maximum stability at all times. Market-leading hardware is an integral part of our cloud solutions, including the 2nd Gen AMD EPYC™ (clock speed up to 3.3GHz) and the enterprise PCIe Gen 4 NVMe storage.
Having a dedicating server all to yourself without any CPU steal means performance is predictable and latency is low, making it perfect for workloads that require high and constant CPU processing, such as AI, machine learning, CI/CD, batch processing, and video encoding.
Interested in our other cloud server solutions? We’ve got you covered. LayerStack offers an arsenal of equally performant cloud server plan options that major benchmarking platforms and our clients continuously vouch for. Check below for details.
We hope you’ll give the new products and updates a try. If you have an idea for improving our products or want to vote on other user ideas so they get prioritized, please submit your feedback on our Community platform. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the Community.
Choosing the right cloud servicer can be a grind. You need to do your homework, or let others – namely Geekbench – do the homework for you and you read their results, here.
For most demand-heavy workloads, whether a cloud service is as good as they tell you essentially boils down to two key factors – how fast the CPU is, and how powerful the memory is. With LayerStack, you get the best of both worlds.
LayerStack’s latest high-frequency, turbo-boosted CPU clocking 3.4 GHz outperforms both Intel Skylake and Intel Xeon, according to Geekbench.
In terms of memory performance, LayerStack’s cloud servers get staggeringly better Geekbench scores than Intel Xeon Gold and Intel Xeon. With low latency and lightning-fast read/write speeds, our infrastructure lets you coast through any and all memory-intensive tasks.
VPSBenchmarks did their homework too! Check here to view details.
We hope you’ll give the new products and updates a try. If you have an idea for improving our products or want to vote on other user ideas so they get prioritized, please submit your feedback on our Community platform. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the Community.
LayerStack is consistently committed to improving and providing our valued customers with superior cloud computing services. We have adjusted the plans and offers on LayerPanel as well as introduced new features, the highlights are listed below:
Global Private Network: We are excited to announce that the Global Private Network is officially launched, it is now available in Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. Users can transfer data through the private Layer 2 connection (dedicated VLAN) between cloud servers regionally and globally. Through the private data link layer networks between instances, it increases security and privacy during data transfer by end-to-end encryption.
Cloud Servers with Enterprise PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD: High Frequency CPU and Dedicated CPU cloud servers are equipped with the ultra-fast PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD (enterprise version). NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) SSD enhances consistency, reliability and performance while increasing the efficiency for data storage, management, and accessibility.
Updates in Memory Optimized Cloud Server Plans: The specification of HM24-HK & HM48-HK have been upgraded while HM90-HK has been removed since 09 Feb 2021. Moreover, HM64-HK & HM128-HK have been newly added. For more details, please view the price plan.
We hope you’ll give the new products and updates a try. If you have an idea for improving our products or want to vote on other user ideas so they get prioritized, please submit your feedback on our Community platform. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the Community.
It is pleased to announce the new Dedicated GPU option specially designed for users with intensive and special computing needs. Users can harness the full power of dedicated GPU to achieve ultra-high performance computing cloud servers specialized in Data Parallel Computation, Machine Learning and Graphically-Intensive Projects.
Machine Learning
GPU is widely used in deep learning because of the strong capability of parallel computing. Compared to CPU, GPU has much more cores to learn representations automatically from data such as images, video or text. Thus, it helps to reduce machine learning training time from days to minutes, enabling researchers and developers to obtain faster, more accurate information from deep learning.
Graphically Demanding Applications
Besides, GPU is effective in video and image rendering. The long rendering time is always a major issue to creative professionals that tied up computing resources and stifled creative flow. Modern GPUs enable and accelerate the cloud servers to process video and graphic in higher-definition formats. Obviously, it is also powerful in computationally intensive gaming, providing gamers with smoother and higher-quality gaming experience.
Specification
LayerStack offers NVIDIA® Tesla T4 GPU for intensive users. T4 is a high rating GPU with 2560 CUDA cores and 320 Tensor cores, it has 16GB GDDR6 Memory and 40 RT core. Work together with best-in-class AMD EPYC2 CPU to deliver the best cloud performance for most demanding applications.
We very much value your feedback for future developments, please let us know your comments and suggestions on LayerStack Community.
