VDS with licensed Windows Server for 100 rubles: myth or reality?

Low-cost VPS is most commonly understood as a virtual machine running on GNU / Linux. Today we will check whether there is life on Mars Windows: the budget proposals of domestic and foreign providers are on the testing list.







Virtual servers on a commercial Windows operating system are usually more expensive than Linux machines because of the need for licensing fees and slightly higher computer processing power requirements. For projects with a small load, we needed a cheap Windows solution: developers often have to create an infrastructure for testing applications, and it’s rather expensive to take powerful virtual or dedicated servers for these purposes. On average, VPS in the minimum configuration costs about 500 rubles a month and above, but we found options on the market for less than 200 rubles. It is difficult to expect performance miracles from such cheap servers, but it was interesting to test their capabilities. As it turned out, it’s not so easy to find candidates for testing.

Search for options

At first glance, ultra-budget virtual servers with Windows are quite enough, but it’s worthwhile to get to practical attempts to order them, as soon as difficulties arise. We looked at almost two dozen proposals and were able to select only 5 of them: the rest turned out to be not so budgetary. The most common option is when the provider claims compatibility with Windows, but does not include the cost of renting a license for the OS in its tariff plans and simply installs the trial version on the server. It’s good if this fact is noted on the site, often hosters do not focus on it. Licenses are offered either to buy on your own or to rent at a rather impressive price - from a few hundred to a couple thousand rubles a month. A typical dialog with hoster support looks something like this:







A similar approach is understandable, but the need to independently acquire a license and activate trial Windows Server deprives the idea of ​​any sense. The price of renting software that exceeds the price of VPS itself does not look attractive either, especially since in the 21st century we are used to getting a ready-made server with a legal copy of the operating system right after a couple of clicks in your account and without expensive additional services. As a result, almost all the hosters were dropped, and companies with honest ultra-budget VPS on Windows took part in the “race”: Zomro, Ultravds, Bigd.host, Ruvds and Inoventica services. Among them are both domestic and foreign with Russian-speaking technical support. This limitation seems quite natural to us: if support on the Russian client is not important, he has many options, including industry giants.

Configurations and prices

For testing, we took the most inexpensive VPS options for Windows from several providers and tried to compare their configurations taking into account the price. It is worth noting that uniprocessor virtual machines with not the most top-end CPUs, 1 GB or 512 MB of RAM and a hard disk (HDD / SSD) of 10, 20 or 30 GB fell into the category of ultra-budget ones. The monthly payment also includes preinstalled Windows Server, usually versions 2003, 2008 or 2012 - this is probably due to system requirements and Microsoft licensing policy. However, some hosters offer older systems.



The leader was immediately identified at the prices: Ultravds offers the cheapest VPS for Windows. With a monthly payment, it will cost the user 120 rubles with VAT, and for payments immediately for a year - 1152 rubles (96 rubles per month). It’s cheaper only for nothing, but the hoster does not allocate too much memory - only 512 MB, and the guest machine will be running Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server Core 2019. The last option is most interesting: for symbolic money, it allows you to get a virtual server with the latest version OS, albeit without a graphical environment - below we will consider it in more detail. No less interesting were the offers of Ruvds and Inoventica services: although they are about three times more expensive, you can get a virtual machine with the latest version of Windows Server.

First impression

There were no special problems with ordering virtual servers on the sites of providers - all of them are made quite conveniently and ergonomically. For authorization, Zomro needs to enter captcha from Google, it infuriates a little. In addition, Zomro does not have technical support by phone (it is provided only through the ticket system in 24 * 7 mode). I would also like to note the very simple and intuitive personal account at Ultravds, the beautiful modern interface with animation at Bigd.host (it’s very convenient to use it on a mobile device) and the ability to configure Ruvds external to the client VDS firewall. In addition, each provider has its own sets of additional services (backup, storage, DDoS protection, etc.) that we did not particularly understand. On the whole, the impression is positive: earlier we worked only with industry giants, who have more services, but their management system is much more complicated.

Tests

It does not make sense to carry out expensive load testing due to a sufficiently large number of participants and rather weak configurations. It is best to limit yourself to popular synthetic tests and a superficial test of network capabilities - for a rough comparison of VPS, this is enough.

Interface Responsiveness

From virtual machines in a minimal configuration, it is difficult to wait for instant download of programs and quick response of the graphical interface. However, for a server, responsiveness of the interface is far from the most important parameter, and if you take into account the low cost of services, you will have to put up with delays. They are especially noticeable on configurations with 512 MB of RAM. It also turned out that taking a version of an operating system older than Windows Server 2012 on single-processor machines with a gigabyte of RAM does not make sense: it will work very slowly and sadly, but this is our subjective opinion.



Against the general background, the option with the Windows Server Core 2019 from Ultravds stands out favorably (primarily at a price). The absence of a full-fledged graphical desktop significantly reduces the requirements for computing resources: access to the server is possible via RDP or through WinRM, and the command line mode allows you to perform any necessary actions, including launching programs with a graphical interface. Not all admins are accustomed to working with the console, but this is a good compromise: the customer will not have to use an outdated version of the OS on a weak hardware, thus solving software compatibility issues.







The desktop looks ascetic, but you can finish it up a bit by installing the Server Core App Compatibility Feature on Demand (FOD) component. It’s better not to do this, because you will immediately lose a fair amount of RAM in addition to the system already used - about 200 MB of the available 512. After that, it will be possible to run on the server only some lightweight programs, but it does not need to be turned into a full-fledged desktop: after all, the Windows Server Core configuration is designed for remote administration through the Admin Center and it is worthwhile to disable RDP access to the working machine.



It’s better to do it differently: use the keyboard shortcut “CTRL + SHIFT + ESC” to call the Task Manager and run Powershell from it (the installation kit also includes the good old cmd, but it has fewer options). Then, using a pair of commands, a common network resource is created, where the necessary distributions are uploaded:

New-Item -Path 'C:\ShareFiles\' -ItemType Directory New-SmbShare -Path 'C:\ShareFiles\' -FullAccess Administrator -Name ShareFiles
      
      

        
        
        
      

    
        
        
        
      
      

        
        
        
      

    
     

When installing and starting server software, sometimes difficulties associated with a truncated configuration of the operating system arise. As a rule, they are surmountable and, perhaps, this is the only option when Windows Server 2019 behaves well in a virtual machine with 512 MB of RAM.

Synthetic test GeekBench 4

Today it is one of the best utilities for checking the computing capabilities of computers running Windows. In total, she conducts more than two dozen tests, divided into four categories: Cryptography, Integer, Floating Point and Memory. The program uses various compression algorithms, checks the work with JPEG and SQLite, as well as HTML parsing. The other day, the fifth version of GeekBench became available, but many did not like the serious change in the algorithms in it, so we decided to use the proven four. Although GeekBench can be called the most comprehensive synthetic test for Microsoft operating systems, it does not affect the disk subsystem - it had to be checked separately. For clarity, all results are summarized in a general diagram.







Windows Server 2012R2 was installed on all machines (except for Ultravds UltraLite - there is Windows Server Core 2019 with the Server Core App Compatibility Feature on Demand component), and the results were close to expected and correspond to the configurations declared by the providers. Of course, a synthetic test is not an indicator. Under the real workload, the server can behave completely differently, besides, a lot depends on the workload of the physical host on which the client guest system will be. Here it is worth looking at the values ​​of Base Frequency and Maximum Frequency that Geekbench gives out:



On a physical computer, the first parameter should be less than the second, while on a virtual computer it is often the opposite. This is probably due to quotas for computing resources.

CrystalDiskMark 6

This synthetic test is used to evaluate the performance of the disk subsystem. The CrystalDiskMark 6 utility performs sequential and random write / read operations with queue depths of 1, 8, and 32. We also reduced the test results to a diagram that shows some performance scatter. In low-cost configurations, most providers use magnetic hard drives (HDDs). Zomro has a solid-state drive (SSD) in the Micro tariff plan, but according to the test results, it does not work faster than modern HDDs.







* MB / s = 1,000,000 bytes / s [SATA / 600 = 600,000,000 bytes / s]

* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes

Speedtest by Ookla

To assess the network capabilities of VPS, take another popular benchmark. The results of his work are summarized in a table.

Summary and Conclusions

If you try to create a rating based on our tests, then the best results were shown by VPS providers Bigd.host, Ruvds and Inoventica services. With good computing capabilities, they use fairly fast HDDs. The price is significantly higher than the stated in the heading 100 rubles, while Inoventica services added to it the cost of a one-time service for ordering a car, there is no discount when paying for the year, but the tariffing is hourly. Ultravds offers the most inexpensive of the tested VDS: with Windows Server Core 2019 and an UltraLite tariff for 120 (96 if paid per year) rubles - this provider is the only one who managed to get closer to the announced threshold. Zomro was in last place: VDS at the Micro tariff cost us $ 203.95 at the bank rate, but on tests showed rather mediocre results. As a result, the standings are as follows:



There is life in the ultra-budget segment: such a machine should be used if the costs of a more productive solution are impractical. It can be a test server without serious workloads, a small ftp or web server, a file archive or even an application server - there are a lot of application scenarios. We chose UltraLite with Windows Server Core 2019 for 120 rubles per month from Ultravds. In terms of capabilities, it is slightly inferior to more powerful VPS with 1 GB of RAM, but it costs about three times cheaper. Such a server copes with our tasks if you do not turn it into a desktop, so the low price has become a determining factor.