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Description

Provides a high-level explanation of the architecture differences between the different types of Managed Cloud Platform (MCP) offerings, highlighting the changes to network functionality.

Content / Solution:

We offer two types of data center locations, each with different network architectures. The differences are described at a high-level below:

MCP 1.0

MCP 1.0 Data Center Locations are the original CloudControl architecture that was introduced in 2009. They provide the ability for users to deploy servers with a single NIC on a Cloud Network that provides IPv4 services, ACL firewall, and load balancing capabilities. They key components here are: 

  • Cloud Networks with a single VLAN on which they can deploy Cloud Servers
    • Each Cloud Network receives a pre-defined, Private IPv4 address range. This range cannot be defined or edited by users.
    • Each Cloud Network has its own firewall with ACL capabilities traffic to regulate both public and private IPv4 traffic in and out of the Cloud Network
    • Each Cloud Network has a set of Public IPv4 addresses that can be mapped to the Cloud Servers using NAT and VIP functions. These Public IPv4 addresses are pre-assigned from our pool and cannot be defined. However, users may add or delete blocks of these IPv4 addresses from the Cloud Network.
  • Cloud Servers can be deployed with a single NIC that is attached to a specific Cloud Network
    • Users can define the specific number of vCPU and amount of RAM associated with a Cloud Server
    • Users can also define the local storage associated with a Cloud Server, which are virtual disks presented to the Guest OS on a local SCSI bus
    • Each NIC is assigned a private IPv4 address that's part of the Cloud Network's pre-defined Private IP address range. Users can define the private IPv4 address to be used for a specific server.
  • Private IPv4 addresses are routable between Cloud Networks, even if they are associated with different customer organizations. For more details, see How does Outbound Traffic Work on a Cloud Network in a MCP 1.0 location.

For further details, review the documentation associated with MCP 1.0 data center locations.

MCP 2.0

MCP 2.0 Data Center Locations represent the next generation of architecture and were introduced in 2015. These data centers provide the ability for users to deploy servers with multiple NICs, each of which can be associated with a separate VLAN. One or more VLAN's can be deployed within a virtual private data center with private IPv4 addressing that is defined by the user. VLANs will also support pre-defined IPv6 address ranges. Clients can deploy multiple virtual private data centers within any given data center location, allowing them to isolate different environments from each other.

These locations will use different UI and API functions and introduce changes in how both server and networking functions are used. The key components associated with MCP 2.0 are

  • Cloud Network Domains represent a virtual private data center within the Cloud infrastructure. This is a new concept unique to MCP 2.0 data center locations that does not exist in MCP 1.0 architecture with the following features:
    • Each Network Domain hosts VLANs and Cloud Servers that exist in an environment that's isolated from a private IPv4 networking perspective from all other Network Domains and MCP 1.0 locations
    • Each Network Domain includes Firewall Rule capabilities that allow you to regulate traffic both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic in and out of the Network Domain and to regulate traffic between VLAN's within the Network Domain
      • This is a more centralized management approach than MCP 1.0.
    • Each Cloud Network Domain can be assigned system-determined Public IPv4 addresses that can be mapped via NAT functions to any private IP address on the Cloud Network Domain
    • Network Domains with the Advanced Network Domain service level also include VIP functionality to allow load balancing services to addresses on the VLANs within the Network Domain and Anti-Affinity support.
    • Network Domains with the Enterprise Network Domain service level add Network Domain Static Route and Detached VLAN functionality to support complex networking requirements such as those documented in Introduction to Detached VLAN Use Cases.
  • Multiple VLANs can be deployed in the Network Domain. These VLANs are different than Cloud Networks in MCP 1.0 in several ways:
    • Users define the private IPv4 addresses supported on the VLAN (choosing from RFC 1918 space)
      • These IPv4 addresses are routable within the Cloud Network Domain, but they are not routable between different Cloud Network Domains
    • The system also defines an IPv6 address range for each VLAN. This IPv6 is directly routable to the Internet if desired
    • The VLANs have no firewall, load balancing, or NAT capabilities. All of those services are provided by the Cloud Network Domain
    • The Private IPv4 on these VLANs can only communicate with other VLANs in the same Network Domain
  • Cloud Servers work similar to the those in MCP 1.0 with the following changes:
    • Each Cloud Server can have multiple NICs, each of which can be attached to a different VLAN in the Network Domain
    • Each Cloud Server will receive a user-defined IPv4 address and a system-assigned IPv6 address for each NIC attached to a VLAN in the Cloud Server
    • Public MCP 2.0 locations will support higher vCPU, RAM, and Storage limits per Cloud Server:
      • Up to 32 vCPU (up from 16 vCPU)
      • Up to 256 GB RAM (up from 128 GB RAM)
      • Up to 30,000 GB of total local storage (up from 10,000 GB)
  • Routing works differently in MCP 2.0 locations. For more informatIon, see

This is only an overview of MCP 2.0 capabilities. For further details, review Introduction to MCP 2.0 Data Center Locations and Cloud MCP 2.0 documentation in the Documentation site.

Documentation Impact

The documentation site has separate areas for MCP 1.0 and MCP 2.0 documentation. Articles that apply to both MCP 1.0 and 2.0 are cross-posted to each category. Ensure you are using the correct documentation for the data center location you are using. 

API Impact

The Cloud API 2.x version was introduced to support for the MCP 2.0 functions. API 2.x supports both REST and JSON integrations. Most functionality used by MCP 2.0 is supported in the API 2.x versions, but many MCP 1.0 functions are only supported in the older 0.9 version. For more details on API, see the API documentation located here:

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