Scale Your Infrastructure with Hivelocity Bare Metal Clouds

Welcome to the Executive Buying Guide for Hivelocity. In an era where many enterprises are re-evaluating the "cloud-first" mantra due to rising costs and performance unpredictability, Hivelocity offers a compelling alternative through high-performance Bare Metal Cloud and dedicated hosting services.

This guide is designed to help IT leaders, infrastructure architects, and procurement professionals determine if Hivelocity is the right partner for their compute needs. You will learn about Hivelocity’s global footprint, its unique "Instant Bare Metal" capabilities, and how its specialized hardware configurations solve the performance bottlenecks often found in multi-tenant environments. By the end of this guide, you will have a clear framework for evaluating Hivelocity against traditional hyperscalers and niche hosting providers.

• Instant Bare Metal: Automated provisioning of dedicated physical servers in minutes, combining the power of hardware with the agility of the cloud.
• Global Edge Footprint: Access to 40+ data centers across 6 continents, enabling low-latency application delivery to a global user base.
• Customizable Hardware: Unlike fixed cloud instances, Hivelocity allows deep customization of CPU, RAM, and Storage (NVMe/SSD/HDD) to match specific workload profiles.
• High-Capacity Networking: Standard 1Gbps to 100Gbps ports with massive bandwidth allotments, significantly reducing the "egress tax" common in public clouds.
• Self-Healing Infrastructure: Automated monitoring and proactive hardware replacement policies ensure high availability.
• Bare Metal Cloud API: A developer-centric platform that allows for automated scaling and management of physical infrastructure.

• AdTech & Real-Time Bidding: A global advertising platform uses Hivelocity’s bare metal to process millions of bids per second with sub-10ms latency, avoiding the "jitter" of virtualized environments.
• Game Server Hosting: Multi-player game studios deploy Hivelocity servers at the edge to ensure players have low-ping connections and high-frequency CPU performance.
• Big Data & Analytics: Data science teams leverage high-RAM custom servers to run massive in-memory databases (like Redis or Memcached) at a fraction of the cost of public cloud memory-optimized instances.
• Private Cloud Foundations: Managed Service Providers (MSPs) use Hivelocity as the physical layer to build their own multi-tenant VMware or OpenStack environments for their clients.

Hivelocity offers a transparent pricing structure designed for predictability:

• Monthly Subscription: The most common model for dedicated and custom servers, providing a flat predictable rate.
• Hourly Billing: Available for "Instant" Bare Metal configurations, ideal for bursty workloads or testing.
• Bandwidth Options: Includes generous monthly allotments (e.g., 20TB+) or unmetered port options, which are often the biggest source of savings compared to AWS.
• No Hidden Fees: Unlike hyperscalers, there are typically no charges for internal data transfers or basic management tasks.
• Volume Discounts: Enterprise agreements are available for large-scale deployments or multi-year commitments.

• Operating Systems: Compatibility with most x86_64 distributions, including Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, Debian, and Windows Server.
• IP Management: Readiness to manage IPv4 and IPv6 assignments.
• Remote Management: Access is typically provided via SSH/RDP, with IPMI/KVM over IP available for out-of-band management.
• Hardware Compatibility: Ensure your software stack is optimized for the specific CPU architectures (Intel Xeon or AMD EPYC) selected during configuration.
• Automation Tools: If using the API, your environment must support standard REST calls or the Terraform CLI.

To successfully adopt Hivelocity, organizations should meet the following requirements:

• Technical Staffing: Unlike managed PaaS, Hivelocity typically requires a sysadmin or DevOps engineer capable of managing Linux/Windows at the OS level, including patching, hardening, and application deployment.
• Infrastructure Strategy: A clear understanding of your capacity needs. Because physical hardware takes longer to provision than a VM (though Hivelocity offers 'Instant' servers), teams should have a baseline for their compute requirements.
• Network Architecture Knowledge: Stakeholders should understand their networking needs, including public vs. private IP requirements, VLAN tagging, and DDoS protection levels.
• Procurement Readiness: Finance teams should be prepared for a mix of monthly recurring costs and potential setup fees for custom hardware configurations.

Implementation with Hivelocity is significantly faster than traditional data center colocation, following this typical path:

• Discovery & Design (1 week): Identifying hardware specs, global locations, and networking requirements.
• Provisioning (Minutes to 1 week):
  • Instant Servers: Deployed automatically within 6–20 minutes.
  • Custom Servers: Typically built and racked within 24–72 hours.
• Network & Security Setup (1 week): Configuring private networks, firewalls, VPNs, and load balancers.
• Data Migration (Variable): Transferring data from existing providers. Timeline depends on data volume and bandwidth.
• Go-Live: Final DNS cutover and monitoring activation.

Total time to production usually ranges from a few days for standard setups to 3 weeks for complex, multi-location deployments.

Hivelocity is highly regarded for its "human-centric" support:

• 24/7/365 On-Site Support: Real technicians are available in data centers around the clock, not just remote hands.
• Rapid Response Guarantee: Industry-leading response times, often under 15 minutes for ticketed inquiries.
• Phone, Chat, and Ticket: Multiple channels for reaching support, with direct access to senior engineers.
• Managed Services: Optional add-ons for businesses that need Hivelocity to handle OS updates, backups, and security monitoring.
• Extensive Knowledge Base: Comprehensive documentation for API integration, OS configuration, and troubleshooting.

Hivelocity is built for modern automated workflows:

• RESTful API: A robust API allows for programmatic power cycles, OS reinstalls, and bandwidth monitoring.
• Terraform Provider: Full support for Infrastructure as Code (IaC), allowing teams to manage bare metal alongside their cloud resources using standard Terraform scripts.
• Cloud Interconnect: Capabilities to create hybrid environments connecting Hivelocity bare metal to public clouds like AWS or Azure via private, high-speed links.
• Standardized Images: Support for standard Linux distributions (Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian) and Windows Server, ensuring compatibility with existing CI/CD pipelines.

Hivelocity maintains rigorous security standards across its global footprint:

• Physical Security: Data centers feature 24/7 on-site security, biometric access, and CCTV surveillance.
• Compliance: Facilities are typically SSAE-16 SOC1 & SOC2, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS compliant, supporting sensitive data workloads.
• DDoS Protection: Standard 10Gbps-20Gbps DDoS protection is often included, with options to scale to higher mitigation levels.
• Network Isolation: Private VLANs and dedicated physical firewalls ensure that your traffic remains isolated from other customers.
• Data Privacy: Strict adherence to regional data residency requirements, allowing customers to choose exactly where their data is stored.