Category Archives: Cloud

Posts related to cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Azure.

Finding the cheapest Virtual Private Server (VPS) providers (<$10 per year)

Sometimes we want to test software or do remote monitoring and testing that you may not want to pay a premium to do, or maybe you just want to do it as a hobby. In this post I will share some tips on where to find dirt-cheap providers of virtual servers (VPS).

I strongly advise against placing any production or critical workflows on any of these; use for testing or fun.

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How to setup dual-stack IPv4 IPv6 Azure VM without a load-balancer

I wanted to document my Microsoft Azure saga in getting a public IPv6 address to work in a virtual machine without a load balancer in front of it. My needs were pretty simple and straightforward I wanted a virtual server that had a static IPv4 and IPv6 public addresses so that I can monitor my home network and other websites.

You would think this would be pretty easy, a few clicks and done? That wasn’t my experience on Azure and setting this up isn’t easy nor straightforward. Below is how to get it done, if this helps you – you can buy me a coffee or beer.

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Running Windows containers in Docker

Microsoft Windows Server 2016 now supports containers, this means we can now isolate windows applications and share the underlying kernel of windows much like we have been doing in Linux for years with OpenVZ or more recently LXC (linux containers).

On January 4, 2017 Rancher announced experimental support for Windows containers (link below).

Official Microsoft documentation on containers.
Rancher v.1.3 has implemented experimental windows container support.

This is a good reason to spin up a Windows Server 2016 node and experiment in a lab. I’ll be looking forward to trying this when I get some time.

A comprehensive list of hypervisors and cloud platforms

In my last post I discussed Proxmox and SmartOS as possible alternatives to ditching vmware ESXi for my homelab.

Given the amount of information that is out there on the internet and that I spent quite a few hours trying to find other open source projects / cloud platforms that could be other alternatives, I thought why not make a post linking to all the platforms I have come across during my search, this way it will help someone else to simply click thru opening new tabs.
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Virtualization hypervisor and containers all in one

I’m a big fan of virtualization, the ability to run multiple platforms and operating systems (called guests) in a single server (called host) is probably one of the best computing technologies of the past 10 years.

Personally, I have been using virtualization circa 2004. It all took off after 2006 when chip manufacturer’s started bundling virtualization technologies in their processors (Intel VT-x or AMD-v). The reason why “cloud” computing is so popular can also be attributed to virtualization.

In a container world…

However, in the past couple of years a new technology has been making making the rounds everywhere, the words “containers”, “docker”, “orchestration” is picking up steam in the past year. They say that containers are changing the landscape for system administrators and application developers.

Claims that containers can be built and deployed in seconds, share a common storage layer and allow you to resize the container in real-time when you need more performance or capacity are really exciting concepts and I think the time is now for me to jump in and learn a thing of two about this new technology when its hot a new. Continue reading

Overriding Google Compute Engine hostname from getting reset

On my last post, I explained how I am experimenting with Google Compute Engine (GCE) to host my backup DNS service and my post aboutĀ configuring mailjet as an exim mail relay.

I have run into a few issues on Google Compute Engine, it looks like every time the instance gets a DHCP offer the hostname of the machine will get reset to the internal hostname, overriding whatever setting you may have set… this is bad news for a server that needs to respond to DNS settings.

After a few hours of digging and testing out different approaches, including trying to setup a DHCP hook to run the “hostname” linux command I came across documentation from Google talking about “custom metadata”.