Windows Servers in the cloud

Run Microsoft Windows Server products on our cloud servers. Benefit from a free trial period then purchase a Microsoft server license through our integrated system or use your own existing license key. Choose from a selection of pre-installed Windows cloud servers or install a new server from an install CD.

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CLOUD SERVERS RUNNING MICROSOFT WINDOWS

You will notice the difference when using our cloud servers compared with traditional Windows Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting. Unlike most general VPS providers who are dividing large dedicated servers and sharing them between their customers, we run a fully isolated Windows cloud server for you. VPS providers use various technologies to isolate multiple users on the same server from one another whilst at the same time having just one shared instance of Windows. Our platform allows every user to run their own Windows cloud server. This provides a wider choice of server types, deeper configurability, better performance and stronger isolation and security guarantees.

Cloud Servers with Pre-Installed Windows

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012

Experience the power of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 on an instantly scalable cloud computing platform. Creating a new Windows cloud server is as simple as choosing the installation you desire from our public drives library. As with all our preinstalled cloud server systems, the Windows Server system is available for use immediately after deployment in your cloud computing account.

Microsoft SQL Server 2014

We offer Microsoft SQL Server 2014 on our cloud platform. Set up your new database on a highly scalable and flexible infrastructure that ensures your database server keeps performing as you grow.

Microsoft Windows Web Server 2012

We offer Windows Web Server 2012 for installation on our cloud servers. Simply choose the install CD from the library and set up your new cloud server.

We also offer a wide choice of install CDs and ready pre-installed Linux cloud servers as well.

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11 Best Windows VPS and Cloud Hosting Platform

Not every application can be hosted on Linux, or not everyone likes or comfortable with it.

There could be various reasons to use Windows servers instead of UNIX.

Ex:

• Application compatibility
• Legacy application
• A windows-based application like .NET, ASP.NET
• Jump server
• Just need to perform application or site testing.

What’s your requirement?

The following are some of the best platforms to get Windows servers worldwide to host Windows-based applications.

Kamatera

Kamatera offers Windows as a desktop and server both. You can choose between different OS versions and options to host in 13 data centers.

Kamatera servers are powered by Intel Platinum 8270 processors and some of the following benefits.

• Unlimited 40Gbit per second network speed
• SSD storage for better I/O throughputs
• Scalable and one server can go up to 64 vCPU and 256 GB RAM

You can manage servers through a beautiful dashboard or API.

Google Cloud Platform

Deploy the .NET application, SQL server, or anything on GCP. You can choose to host Windows 2012, 2016, and 2019. Pricing is based on size and resources like storage, a network you add, and you pay for what you use—no more annual or monthly lock-in.

Google Cloud database centers are available in 19 regions globally, so you can always find an option to host applications near the users.

Some of the benefits of having Windows servers in GCP are:

• Low latency network
• Secure network, leverage inbuilt firewall to configure who can connect
• Scale up or down based on the needs

Google Cloud is an enterprise-ready cloud solution.

Scala Hosting

The cloud VPS by Scala Hosting comes with a fast SSD space, greater functionality, and dedicated control. They keep three copies of your data over three different servers so that when a hardware failure occurs, your hosting server cloud can be migrated automatically to a healthy and secure node.

It is 100% automated, and you can easily manage your hosting server from the client area anytime. Stop, start, restart, upgrade, downgrade, password reset, access your console, and monitor the resource usage with no hassles. After you order your cloud server, it would be available within a minute.

The cloud servers run over a dual CPU-E5 Intel Xeon with a minimum of 256 GB RAM, redundant uplinks, and dual power supply. Scala Hosting leverages 10 Gbps networks having multiple uplinks and premium upstream to deliver a high uptime.

You can choose the SSD cloud server’s location to get deployed; they have data centers in Europe and the US at present. All their cloud hosting plans include scalable resources, 3 snapshots, high availability, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

The pricing starts at $10/month for 1 CPU core, 50 GB SSD, and 2 GB RAM.

Serverspace

Get Windows 2019 server in New Jersey, Amsterdam, Moscow, and Almaty.

Serverspace works on an innovative hyper-converged vStack platform based on superior Open Source technologies. Lightweight BSD hypervisor and OS FreeBSD with simplified codebase help build new generation virtual machines.

TMD Hosting

The fully-managed Windows private servers by TMD Hosting is something you can count on due to their impeccable speed, security, and reliability. They use Solid State Drives for blazing-fast performance in their infrastructure, which outperforms traditional hard drives, plus delivers 20x faster speed to access information.

For better security, they update their web-based firewalls (WAF) daily to ensure your site is safe from digital threats. Each of the VPS components, including computing, storage, and networking, is redundant to deliver 99.999% uptime and high availability.

TMD Hosting provisions your VPS in a private and isolated network, which improves the connectivity and boosts your page loading speed through a dedicated and secure stream of all your data.

If you plan to host your emails, they also protect your mailbox from spam and unwanted messages using SpamExperts. It is an industry-leading tool for anti-spamming that they allow in all of their servers for your protection in real-time. TMD VPS resides over a resilient and fully-redundant private cloud of OpenStack, operated by certified and trained engineers. They offer daily backups for free, so you don’t lose your data if anything goes wrong.

TMD Hosting cloud VPS’s cost starts at $79.95/month for 80 GB SSD storage, 3 TB bandwidth, 4 GB DDR4 RAM, 2 CPUs, and premium support Plesk control panel, 30-day money-back guarantee, amongst other features.

Take advantage of the AWS ecosystem. Leading cloud platform, AWS offers EC2 for Windows servers.

AWS is scalable and offers varieties of server types to host from small to intensive resources. Microsoft applications like SQL Server, Sharepoint, Exchange, etc.

Another significant advantage is locations; with many data centers, you can host your applications near your targetted users for a better user experience.

Note: if you need a Windows desktop, then you may look into Amazon Workspaces. Workspaces are DaaS (desktop-as-a-service), which runs on AWS, and you can connect from anywhere. It’s like a virtual desktop.

Vultr

One of the cheapest options to get the Windows server is by Vultr.

You can get it started in less than $30 per month with Windows 2012 R2 or 2016.

Vultr servers are built on Intel core CPU and got multiple locations worldwide. There is no long-term contract.

With the inbuilt rich control panel, you can perform administrative tasks such as reboot, re-install, and change OS properties.

Liquid Web

Liquid Web offers both managed and self-managed Windows hosting. One of the reliable cloud hosting providers offers the following under managed VPS.

• Inbuilt backup
• Dedicated IP address
• DDoS attack protection
• One-click scale up or down
• 100% network and power uptime SLA
• Control panels such as cPanel, Plesk, and Interworx

And professional support to fix all the issues. You have an option to host your Windows server in Arizona, Michigan, and Amsterdam.

Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba is not just in retail; it’s everywhere, including the cloud platform.

One of the distinct advantages of the Alibaba cloud is the China data center. They offer an SSD backed cloud server in 12 regions, including the following China locations.

• Hong Kong
• Hangzhou
• Shanghai
• Qingdao
• Beijing
• Zhangjiakou
• Shenzhen

You can get the smaller size of Windows VM in as little as $10 per month.

Azure

Get Microsoft Windows on the Azure cloud platform. If you don’t know Azure, then it’s from Microsoft and the second-largest cloud platform. Azure will make much more sense if your application stack is around Microsoft technologies.

You can get Windows running on Azure from as low as $15 per month. And not just the server, but you also have an option to host the desktop version.

One of the significant advantages in the region. The Azure data center is everywhere, so this gives you the flexibility to host your application near to the users or third-party services. With the help of a pricing calculator, you can estimate the total cost.

UpCloud

UpCloud is a European cloud service provider that provides on an hourly billed infrastructure-as-a-service. You can choose to host your Windows VM in their following 10 datacenters.

• Amsterdam
• Chicago
• Frankfurt
• Helsinki
• London
• San Jose
• Singapore
• Poland
• New York
• Madrid

Throughout the entire infrastructure, it uses the N+1 philosophy. This proves beneficial in setting the 100% uptime record because it eliminates single points of failure. The following are some of its features.

• Great performance at a very low price.
• Easy to integrate any app with UpCloud’s infrastructure. So, one can put more focus on coding and not on infrastructure management issues.
• Offers numerous open-source API clients.
• No extra struggle of licensing would be there while migrating the existing work to UpCloud, because it uses the current on-premise Windows server license.
• Quick and reliable backup service is available via scheduled snapshots. So, backups can be taken and restored within no time!

Conclusion

I hope the above helps you to choose the Windows hosting provider based on your needs. Most of them offer no-contract or money-back, so give it a try to see what works best for you.

Alternatively, if you require to host ASP.NET applications and the budget is tight, check out these Windows hosting providers.

Need more than Windows?

Check out these cloud hosting platform which offers comprehensive products.

Windows on Cloud

Is it possible to install Windows with my own license?

Yes, but it must be done manually. For this, the CD/DVD images can be used.

What versions are available?

• Windows Server 2019 (DE/EN)
• Windows Server 2016 (DE/EN/RU/Language Pack)
• Windows Server 2012 R2 (DE/EN/RU/Language Pack)

Other versions can also be provided. Please send a support request if this is desired.

Why is the time on my server not correct?

All CX virtual server hosts use UTC as the system time, which is why Windows often has a problem with the system time within the vServers.

To fix this problem permanently, it is necessary to create an entry in the Windows registry, which tells Windows that the hardware clock (RTC — emulated by the host system) is not the local time zone, but UTC.

The following command must be entered in the command prompt (cmd.exe):

It is then necessary to restart Windows.

After the restart the following command can be used to check if the setting was successfully applied:

If the changes were successfully applied, a line with the wording RealTimeIsUniversal and the value 0x1 should be shown.

By default, Windows uses temporary addresses for IPv6 connections. This can prevent you that you can use your /64 network. To be able to use the IPv6 network, you should disable the use of temporary addresses by default.

Windows Server 2012, 2012R2, 2016

Run the following commands in a powershell with administration rights:

Run the following commands in a cmd.exe with administration rights:

What should be kept in mind during a manual installation?

To install Windows, it is necessary that the VirtIO drivers are installed. The driver can, for example, be mounted and installed via an ISO image (virtio-win-latest[…].iso).

The folders of the necessary drivers are named as follows:

Each of them will usually have a folder with the architecture (amd64). This must be selected to install the drivers.

To get to the selection of the available CD/DVD images, you must select your server in the Cloud Console and switch to the «ISO IMAGES» tab. You must then select the ISO and mount it with a click on „MOUNT“

Now you can start your server and perform the installation normally up to the point where the installation asks for the installation type. Please select the custom installation and continue with the installation. If you get a blue screen, please switch your server off and on with the ON/OFF switch.

Now proceed up to the point where the installation searches for the drive. At this point, you have to switch the image to the latest available VirtIO driver CD.

Subsequently, the below mentioned drivers need to be installed.

Each of the folders will usually have a subfolder with the architecture (amd64). This must be selected to install the drivers.

After installing the driver you need to switch back to the previously used Windows Image.

Now, you have to delete and format the drives. Finally, you can resume the installation as normal.