General
What is Appica?
Appica is a service offered by Profitability.net, an enterprise data center provider with long-standing customer relationships with SMB to Fortune 500’s. The primary Appica data center uses world-class security to ensure the cloud is physically secured, reliability powered, and directly connected to major Internet carriers.
What can I do with Appica?
Appica simplifies the process of provisioning new servers to a 5 minute process. Gone are the days of procurement, rack and stack, OS installation and configuration. The Appica portal enables users to select the amount of CPU, RAM, and storage required for the server and create the instance. Once enabled, users can configure firewall rules, load balancing and high availability settings
How can I get started with Appica?
To get started you must complete the account application form. You can also call 800.556.1369 and a member of the Profitability.net sales team to review your needs, learn about special offers, and discuss migration strategies.
How quickly can my system be running?
Appica is a semi-public cloud which means there is no ability to just signup via credit card. Appica will validate all customers to reduce the risk for our members. Appica customers are looking for a cloud partner who can provide long-term enterprise computing capacity as opposed to a temporary or test environment for a few hours. While the signup process may take a few days, once enabled, users can quickly create servers, upload ISO images and start using Appica.
Billing
How will I be charged for using Appica?
Pricing is based upon the quantity and size of your server instances as well as the amount of resources consumed (IP, data transfer, data backup etc.). Both hourly and monthly pricing are available for specific resources. Appica’s sales team is available to answer your questions Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm EST or sales@appica.com.
What payment methods does Appica accept?
Appica can create monthly invoices, assign purchase order numbers and/or charge a credit card (Visa, Mastercard, or American Express) on a monthly basis.
Hardware Information
What kind of hardware will my cloud server run on?
Your virtual server will be stored in an availability zone at Appica using large cloud computing servers with multiple sockets, large amount of fast memory and 20GB network capacity per compute node. Storage is provided via Scale Computing Intelligent Clustered Storage SAN’s. The network is powered by 10GB high availability Extreme Networks switches.
What happens if a compute node fails?
Appica protects customers from common hardware and server failures. Each compute node uses Raid 1 (mirroring) to protect the server. In addition, all compute nodes use dual power supplies and are fed power from different UPS systems (primary and redundant). Customer data is stored on redundant Scale Computing SAN’s and is persistent or “detached” from individual compute nodes. In the unlikely event of a compute node failure, Appica will automatically restart your instance on another compute node without loss of data.
What size instances or servers are available?
Appica provides six server options from small to quadruple extra large. Pricing is based upon the amount of CPU capacity and memory included. In general for every 1 GHz of CPU capacity you will receive 2GB of RAM. SAN storage, snapshot storage and backup storage capacity are sold per GB.
Does the Appica cloud architecture include any single points of failure?
No. All compute nodes, storage nodes, network devices and management systems utilize high availability (2N or N+1) design.
Security
Does Appica provide firewall functionality?
Appica enables you to acquire Public IP addresses and use NAT for each cloud server or groups. In the control panel you can Add a Security Group to map public ports to private ports and also set the protocol as TCP or UDP. Once you create Security Groups you can apply those port settings to specific instances. It is possible to apply multiple Security Groups to one instance. Security Groups allow you to quickly apply settings to multiple instances and separate security by zone (ex: web security vs. database security).
How can I scan my cloud server to ensure it meets my security requirements?
Appica offers a free vulnerability scanning service that is available via the Appica compliance portal. Scanning is restricted to customer specific cloud instances. You can access the scanner from the customer compliance portal.
What is the best way to protect my cloud servers?
Use the same methods you have in place today for in-house or colocation servers. Security starts with strong password management. You should also adopt a patch management strategy and deployment schedule that makes sense for your applications. Plan on using anti-virus on Windows servers and consider other security options.