In this blog post I wanted to touch upon a topic often ignored in the dedicated server world regarding Bare Metal servers. Metanet hosts both standalone bare metal dedicated servers at our New York, NY location as well as a bare metal “cloud” which is managed by a controller and scales rapidly on demand. These days highly scaling businesses need reliable and high-performance computing solutions. Bare Metal Cloud (explained in the video link) is different than a standalone server, and offers a powerful alternative to ‘traditional’ cloud computing by providing users with automatically scaling physical servers rather than virtualized ones. Essentially it’s the good old dedicated server, which may be pre-built and racked, with the OS installed automatically installed and spun up in minutes on-demand by the customer via a control panel. In New York City this is the dedicated hosting solution we have, as opposed to custom built dedicated servers, or singularly provisioned bare metal servers which are offered in our 100 Delwanna New Jersey and 7 Teleport Staten Island data center locations. Customers leasing an entire server dedicated just to themselves, will not share resources, and this will offer better performance, security, and customization for their specific needs.

So… how does it all work?

The magic behind our New York Bare Metal Cloud

The secret sauce lies in its controller software, which automates the process of provisioning and managing these dedicated servers. Instead of manually setting up hardware and configurations, the controller software takes care of everything, making it easier for you to deploy and manage your infrastructure, just like you would with virtual machines in the cloud.

Here’s how it typically goes: When you request a bare metal server, the controller software kicks into action. It interacts with the underlying hardware and then ensures that your server is set up exactly as you need it — whether it’s configuring the CPU, memory, storage, or installing an operating system. Unlike virtual machines (VM) eg) Hyper-V, KVM Linux, AWS, Azure, where resources are quickly allocated, provisioning a bare metal server takes a little longer since it involves setting up actual physical hardware. That is, unless it is a cloud system in which case it scales automatically.

Once your server is up and running, the controller software continues to help manage it. Whether you need to reboot it, scale it, or perform routine updates, automation handles every function. There is no need for manual intervention; everything is streamlined.

Let’s talk about the cloud controller involved in managing it all

Some of the most popular controller software for Bare Metal Cloud include OpenStack Ironic, which helps manage physical servers like virtual ones, and Metal3, which integrates Kubernetes for bare metal provisioning. Other options include Red Hat OpenShift Bare Metal for Kubernetes deployment, IBM Cloud Bare Metal, HPE OneView (this is HP’s fmouseIT automation operator tool), Joyent Triton, and Scaleway Metal. Each of these platforms offers powerful automation and orchestration features for provisioning and scaling dedicated servers.

In short, Bare Metal Cloud is about providing the reliability and stability of physical hardware (which you can keep up to date instead of waiting for AWS refreshes) and then add the flexibility and automation of cloud computing. It’s an outstanding choice for businesses with high-performance needs, like big data analytics or applications needing specific hardware setups. The result end up being the best of both worlds: control, efficiency, and performance at scale.