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Packet vs Rackspace Cloud Servers: What are the differences?
Introduction
Here, we will be discussing the key differences between Packet and Rackspace Cloud Servers.
Billing Structure: Packet offers a consumption-based or pay-as-you-go billing structure, where users are billed only for the specific resources and services they use. On the other hand, Rackspace Cloud Servers follow a fixed-pricing or package-based billing structure, where users pay a set amount for predefined resource packages regardless of the actual usage.
Bare Metal vs Virtualization: Packet specializes in bare metal servers, providing users with direct access to physical hardware for enhanced performance and control. In contrast, Rackspace Cloud Servers primarily utilize virtualization technology, allowing users to create and manage virtual instances on shared physical servers.
Automation and Management: Packet focuses on providing in-depth automation and infrastructure management tools, allowing users to easily automate server provisioning, configuration, and management tasks through APIs and tools such as Terraform and Ansible. Rackspace Cloud Servers, on the other hand, offer a more managed and hands-on approach, providing a user-friendly control panel for server management.
Networking: Packet offers a Software Defined Networking (SDN) solution called "Packet Connect," which allows users to create and manage virtual networks, providing greater flexibility and control over network configurations. Rackspace Cloud Servers also offer networking capabilities but do not provide the same level of customization and flexibility as Packet.
GPU Instances: Packet offers GPU instances specifically designed for high-performance computing and graphics-intensive workloads. These instances come equipped with dedicated GPUs for optimized performance. Rackspace Cloud Servers do not currently offer GPU instances, limiting their suitability for certain specialized use cases.
Bare Metal Access: Packet allows users to access and manage the underlying hardware of their bare metal servers, providing direct control over the entire infrastructure stack. In contrast, Rackspace Cloud Servers abstract the underlying hardware, limiting users' access and control to the virtualized instances only.
In summary, Packet and Rackspace Cloud Servers differ in their billing structure, server type (bare metal vs virtualization), automation and management tools, networking capabilities, GPU instance availability, and level of access to the underlying hardware.
Most bioinformatics shops nowadays are hosting on AWS or Azure, since they have HIPAA tiers and offer enterprise SLA contracts. Meanwhile Heroku hasn't historically supported HIPAA. Rackspace and Google Cloud would be other hosting providers we would consider, but we just don't get requests for them. So, we mostly focus on AWS and Azure support.
Pros of Equinix Metal
- Great performance3
- No multi tenancy3
- Fantastic customer support2
Pros of Rackspace Cloud Servers
- Quick and reliable cloud servers42
- Great customer support29
- SSDs20
- Uses OpenStack10
- Windows server 2012 possible2
- Easy integration with Github2
- Ubuntu1
- Ssh access1