Technologie and infrastructure

Technical questions

How does GRN.CLOUD ensure high availability across our public cloud?

We have a Distributed Mesh of special-purpose Micro-DataCenters deployed throughout the country as our Cloud Regions, and we use proven common Cloud fail-over techniques like Geo-Loadbalancing using BGP-Anycast with BFD for fast failover. It is your responsibility to deploy your Application redundantly across our Regions. Free of charge!
We have provided all the necessary tools to easily do that. We even proactively alert you if we think you are at risk of losing availability.

Can I customize resource allocation in a Shared Public Cloud (SPC)?

CPU, memory, and storage can be flexibly allocated according to workload requirements.
You pre-buy a bundle of Resources and can allocate that dynamically to VM, Containers, Function, Load-Balancer, or any other resource. And you define standard Kubernetes quotas & Limits for auto-scaling and budget-constraining your workloads.

What isolation level can I expect on a Dedicated Private Cloud?

Full hardware and network-level isolation guarantees maximum security and predictable performance.
If you need it in your own datacenter please check out our On-Premise Private Cloud (OPC) product.

How quickly can I provision a VPS?

VPS instances are ready within seconds, enabling rapid deployment and scaling. Make sure you have enough resources available by topping up your wallet.

Can I run Kubernetes clusters on GRN.CLOUD?

Yes, we provide instant full-featured Kubernetes clusters optimized for different use-cases like AI, VDI & AppDev. Choose with one click from our Marketplace. Managed or Unmanaged. Comes standard with Backup & Monitoring and a great WebConsole for self-management.

How is network latency handled between regions?

Just like any other big Cloud Provider, we use low-latency, high-speed backbone fiber networks and optimized routing to as many Internet Exchanges and Carriers as possible for near-edge performance. The Netherlands is the most dense fiber-network country in the world.

Can I integrate GRN.CLOUD services with existing on-prem infrastructure?

Yes, hybrid deployments are supported via VPN and Direct Connects.

Can I resize my VPS or cloud instances on the fly?

Yes, resources can be auto-scaled vertically using VerticalPodAutoScaler and horizontally using HorizontalPodAutoScaler, both without downtime.

Are Kubernetes updates handled automatically?

Yes, we manage patching, upgrades, and security fixes with zero downtime

How does GRN.CLOUD handle backup and disaster recovery?

Automated snapshots, geo-redundant backups, and seamless auto recovery options are available.

What level of monitoring and logging is available?

Real-time tracing, metrics, logs, and alerts are available via our Observability dashboards and APIs.

How does GRN.CLOUD support compliance requirements?

We are GDPR compliant.

Can I choose specific hardware types for Dedicated Private Cloud?

Yes, many optimized CPUs, GPUs, and storage types can be chosen from our Marketplace or be tailored to your own needs.

How easy is it to automate deployments and CI/CD pipelines?

Our platform is Kubernetes-based with support for ArgoCD GitOps and Helm Charts by default. Furthermore, our Marketplace offers any other popular DevOps Tool as a one-click Deployment with instant Platform Integrations like SSO, Scaling, Backup, & Monitoring integrated immediately.

Is there support for hybrid Kubernetes clusters across on-prem and cloud?

Yes, cluster federation and hybrid orchestration options are available across AWS, Azure, GCP, & On-Prem

How are security patches applied?

A fundamental thing to understand about Cloud-Native (Containerized Environments) is that Pod restarts can happen at any time. Either because of Maintenance, Failover, or Errors. A true Cloud-Native Application (VM, Container, Function) is architected to withstand these restarts using redundant deployments. Our Platform is Cloud-Native, meaning your application will be deployed High-Available by default with all the bells and whistles like Load-Balancers, Storage Replication, Auto-Recovery, etc. This allows us to apply maintenance patches whenever we want. Most of the Managed Services (e.g., Postgres, MariaDB, VM, Redis, Nextcloud) are Kubernetes Operators on Auto-Pilot, meaning they will get updated as soon as upstream patches come out. Other Operators will ask you for a Confirmation through Notification in our WebConsole.
VM’s will be LiveMigrated without downtime if we do any Node (Hypervisor) maintenance. VM OS Patching for Unmanaged VMs is the responsibility of the Customer.
Managed VM OS Patching will happen daily at night through the respective Package Managers' upgrade command.
VM & App Images in our Marketplace are updated nightly based on upstream updates, and you can choose to auto-trigger Deployment rollouts or CI/CD Pipelines on these ImageChanges.

Can I test and benchmark before committing to production?

Yes, by default, you get 1core CPU, 1 GB memory for free as a trial upon account creation.
Within an Account, you can define as many Namespaced environments as needed, free of charge. Namespaces are sandbox environments that are isolated using RBAC, NetworkPolicies (Firewalls), and Resource Quotas. Ideal for DTAP.

Can I run GPU-intensive workloads in GRN.CLOUD?

Yes, GPU-enabled instances are optimized for AI, ML, and HPC workloads.
See our Pricing Page for more details.

How is network security handled in VPCs?

Built-in firewalls (NetworkPolicies), private subnets (NetworkAttachmentDefinitions), and customizable security groups (RoleBindings) provide granular control over every single component of the platform. With SELinux and Kyverno Policies for Runtime Security, and our own Security Monitoring will proactively alert on any deviation.

Can I attach custom storage volumes to my VPS?

Yes, File, Block & Object Storage is available and can be dynamically provisioned to VMs, Pods & Functions. It supports high IOPS, triple-redundancy, region-replication, compression & encryption. For GPU/AI workloads, we have special NVMe-oF storage supporting GPUDirect.

Are load balancers included in the cloud offerings?

Yes, managed load balancers with auto-scaling and health checks are included by default at no additional cost.

How does GRN.CLOUD handle container orchestration beyond Kubernetes?

We are a pure-play Kubernetes provider; we do not support other Orchestrators.
We do provide other Orchestrators through unmanaged VM Images that you can deploy yourself.

Can I run stateful applications in Kubernetes on your cloud?

Yes, persistent volumes and dynamic storage provisioning are available.
And our DBaaS Products (PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Redis) are on autopilot to make streaming off-site backups for auto-recovery and region mirroring.

What monitoring tools are integrated with GRN.CLOUD Kubernetes?

Prometheus for Metrics collection, including App Health and Resource Usage.
Grafana for Visualization dashboards, AlertManager for alerting Tempo & OpenTelemetry for Tracing.

Other Commercial Tools like Dynatrace and AppDynamics are available through the Red Hat Marketplace.

Is multi-cloud deployment supported?

Yes, hybrid and multi-cloud strategies are supported.
1. Our Cluster Management Console supports managing external Kubernetes Clusters, from LCM upgrades to Monitoring & Backup.
2. We support VPC Network Peering using Submariner, regular VPN, or Direct-Connect Fibers.
3. When using OpenShift-Storage on both sides, you can enable asynchronous Storage Replication.
4. Streaming data replication through external S3 Object storage is supported by Velero Backup, PostgreSQL, MariaDB & Kafka Operators.

Can I enforce custom security policies at the container level?

Yes, PodSecurityPolicies, Kyverno Policies, and NetworkPolicies are supported self-service features.

Can I scale Kubernetes clusters automatically?

Yes, all our Virtual (VM), Dedicated (Bare-Metal) & On-Prem Private Cloud clusters support manual and auto-scaling through a NodePool on our Cluster Management Console. Auto-scaling trigger on user-set usage threshold and stops at user-set Max Nodes. All our Cloud Products, including our Shared Public Cloud, support Horizontal Pod autoScaling & Vertical Pod AutoScaling for scaling Containerized Workloads and support VirtualMachine auto-scaling through a Virtual Machine Pool..

What options exist for private networking between instances?

Within a Cloud, tenants are isolated using Namespaces.
You can define Private Subnets using Network Attachments and define fine-grained Firewalls at the Namespace border using Network Policies.

How do I migrate workloads to GRN.CLOUD?

For VM’s, we have a Migration Tool to connect your existing VMware, RHV, or OpenStack platform and make seamless migration plans.

For Containers and other Cloud-Native functions use GitOps to re-deploy Kubernetes Manifests.

For Data use Velero Backup & Restore to easily import you data from other Kubernetes clusters. See our Marketplace for easy Velero deployment templates.

To start greenfield see our Marketplace for one-click deployment Templates.
Once your application or VM is up & running you can import your data at the Application level.

For Data Scientists looking to create a Data Lake for Machine Learning we provide OpenDataHub as our AI platform to easily create KubeFlow Pipelines to import and transform (ETL) data.

Is role-based access control (RBAC) available across all services?

Yes, with audit logging and API key management.

Can I host multiple Kubernetes clusters in the same account?

Yes, isolated clusters can be created as you like: per project, environment, or team. Fine-grained RBAC in our Cluster Management Console allows you to assign Cluster Management per Team or User.

How is storage performance guaranteed?

Tiered storage with configurable IOPS, SSD/NVMe options, and redundancy is available.
For Dedicated & On-Prem Private Cloud, we offer the fastest possible local NVMe disks. Either configured as raw block for the fastest performance or as a Shared file system for more functionality.
For Shared, Virtual & Dedicated Private Cloud, we use distributed NVMe-oF Disk Arrays with redundant 100GE Network Switches optimized for RoCE Data Transfers. Storage Pools are assigned per Application Profile so that storage is optimized for your use-case, whether it be raw-block storage for AI & Database or File & Object storage for Office & Web use-cases, we got you covered. IOPS is monitored, and we make sure we always have at least 40% overcapacity in Storage & Network bandwidth.

Can I deploy serverless workloads?

Yes, serverless containers and functions are integrated with Kubernetes using KNative.

How does GRN.CLOUD optimize costs for cloud workloads?

Usage analytics, auto-scaling, reserved instances, and cost dashboards and alerts help optimize spend. We work with a prepaid wallet system as budget allocations, making sure you will never over-spend unexpectedly.

What support is available if I face technical issues?

24/7 engineering support via tickets (email), live chat (Slack), and dedicated SLA support for production that includes Monitoring & realtime pro-active Disaster Recovery by our engineers based on your Monitoring instructions.