LuxSci has long offered Basic and Premium dedicated servers for customers with requirements that are not ideal for our shared server offerings.  I.e. large numbers of users, large amounts of disk space, enhanced security and privacy, relaxed usage limits, and custom configurations.

The major differences between the Basic and Premium dedicated server offerings relate to:

• The quality of the data center and network infrastructure
• The security inherent in the infrastructure
• The SLA and privacy policies
• Dedicated HIPAA-compliant hosting is only available on Premium

So, while from a cost perspective, Basic dedicated servers offer a lot of capacity for a low cost entry point, customers who require a higher level of reliability and security really only have one option: Premium dedicated servers.

Enter “Private Cloud Servers”

LuxSci’s Private Cloud Servers are dedicated virtual servers running on VMWare ESX hosts in LuxSci’s dedicated Rackspace infrastructure.  These provide all of the advantages of a Premium Dedicated Server at a fraction of the price — if you only need a fraction of a server based on your requirements.

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Public cloud servers are great for many things; however, sending email is not one of them.

Why Cloud Servers are Bad for Sending Email

The IP address spaces used by the major public cloud vendors (i.e. Amazon, Rackspace, etc.) for their cloud servers are well known and are generally black- or gray-listed by anti-spam systems. Additionally, many of the IP addresses in use by these systems are already “polluted” from previous abusive use by spammers.  When you set up a new cloud server, you could be easily assigned a “bad IP”.  Even if you do not inherit a bad IP reputation from the previous user(s) of your new IP, your server is still in the general set of IP addresses of the cloud and thus considered a possible spam source.

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There is a lot of hype about Cloud Storage, Cloud Computing, Cloud Servers, and related things that can be accomplished in the pervasive land of distributed, abstracted computers.  LuxSci now also offers the option of running on dedicated servers in the cloud, in addition to the more common options of running on shared server(s) and on real dedicated servers.  However, this all begs the questions:  “What exactly is a cloud server?”, “How powerful is it?”, “How reliable is it?”, and “When is a Cloud Server a better solution than a Basic or Premium Dedicated Server?”

Here we answer those questions for you, at least in the context of the Cloud Servers within the Rackspace Cloud — which are the servers  offered by LuxSci. 

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