What’s New – QuickCloud Colocation

Your hardware. Our datacentre. One connected cloud environment.

QuickCloud Colocation gives you space for your own physical hardware in our UK datacentre, while connecting it directly into the same QuickCloud platform as your cloud infrastructure.

From a Raspberry Pi, NAS or desktop system through to rack servers and complete racks, your equipment can live alongside your Cloud VMs, firewalls, storage and other QuickCloud services.

Colocation for almost anything

Not every workload belongs in a virtual machine.

Sometimes you need your own hardware — whether that’s specialist equipment, a storage appliance, a high-performance server or an entire rack.

QuickCloud Colocation supports:

• Raspberry Pi and small devices
• NAS and storage appliances
• Desktop and tower systems
• Rackmount servers
• Quarter racks
• Half racks
• Full 42U racks

That means you can start with a single device and grow all the way to a complete rack without moving to a completely different platform.

Your own private VLAN

Each colocation environment can be connected to its own private VLAN inside QuickCloud.

This is where things get interesting.

Your physical hardware doesn’t have to sit on an isolated network. It can become part of the same private infrastructure as the services you create in QuickCloud.

For example, you can launch a Cloud VM directly into the same VLAN as your colocated hardware.

That means a VM can communicate privately with your physical server as though they were sitting on the same local network.

Mix physical and cloud infrastructure

QuickCloud lets you combine colocated hardware with cloud services instead of forcing you to choose between the two.

Your private VLAN can include:

• Cloud VMs
• Dedicated Servers
• Cloud Firewalls
• Load Balancers
• Backup Storage
• Network Storage
• Managed Databases
• Other colocated equipment

You can build the infrastructure that suits the workload rather than trying to make every workload fit the same type of server.

Put your colocation behind a Cloud Firewall

Need more control over how your equipment reaches the Internet?

A QuickCloud Cloud Firewall can be deployed and connected directly to your colocation VLAN.

That allows you to place your physical hardware behind an OPNsense firewall and manage:

• Firewall policies
• NAT
• VPN access
• Site-to-site connectivity
• Internet access
• Private networks
• Remote administration

You can also use high-availability firewall pairs where additional resilience is required.

The firewall itself remains managed from QuickCloud alongside the hardware it protects.

Add cloud capacity whenever you need it

A major advantage of combining colocation with QuickCloud is that physical capacity no longer has to be the limit of your environment.

If a workload suddenly needs additional compute, you can create Cloud VMs and place them onto the same private network.

Need a temporary application server?

Create a VM.

Need additional storage?

Add QuickCloud storage.

Need a load balancer in front of physical and virtual servers?

Deploy one.

Your colocated hardware becomes the foundation of a hybrid environment rather than an isolated rack.

Private connectivity without using the public Internet

Traffic between compatible QuickCloud services and your colocation environment can remain on our internal network.

That means services can communicate privately without needing to send traffic out across the public Internet and back again.

This is useful for environments such as:

• Application and database clusters
• Backup networks
• Private management networks
• Storage infrastructure
• Hybrid cloud platforms
• Development environments
• Virtualisation hosts
• Business continuity systems

Everything managed through QuickCloud

Colocation is managed alongside your other services inside QuickCloud Workspace.

Depending on your service, you can manage networking, IP addressing, connected cloud services and infrastructure from the same platform.

The aim is to remove the traditional divide between “my physical equipment” and “my cloud infrastructure.”

To QuickCloud, they can simply be different parts of the same environment.

From a single device to a full rack

You don’t need an entire cabinet to use colocation.

QuickHost offers options ranging from individual devices and rack servers through to complete private rack space.

Rack options include:

Quarter Rack — 9U
Half Rack — 20U
Full Rack — 42U

Single rack servers and smaller devices can also be accommodated.

This makes colocation practical for small deployments as well as larger infrastructure environments.

UK datacentre infrastructure

QuickCloud Colocation is hosted from our UK datacentre infrastructure in High Wycombe.

Our facility includes resilient power, UPS and generator protection, redundant cooling and diverse network connectivity.

Colocated equipment can also take advantage of QuickHost networking, IP services and DDoS protection.

Colocation without the isolation

Traditional colocation gives you somewhere to put a server.

QuickCloud Colocation goes further.

Your physical equipment can become part of the same platform as your:

• Cloud VMs
• Dedicated Servers
• Firewalls
• Load Balancers
• Storage
• Backups
• Databases
• Private networks

You choose which parts should be physical and which should live in the cloud.

Your hardware remains yours. QuickCloud connects everything around it.

Get started with QuickCloud today!