What Is It?
IONOS Private Cloud is a fully managed VMware-powered infrastructure service that runs on dedicated hardware in IONOS datacenters. It provides the complete VMware software-defined datacenter (SDDC) stack (vSphere 8.0, vSAN, NSX-T) with pay-as-you-go billing and no upfront licensing costs. You get enterprise-grade virtualization with full administrative access through both the IONOS Cloud Panel and native VMware interfaces, while IONOS manages the underlying hardware, VMware stack updates, and 24/7 support.
Quick Facts
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Type | VMware-based private cloud on dedicated hardware |
| Core Components | vSphere Enterprise Plus 8.0, vSAN Enterprise, NSX-T Standard, vCenter Server 8.0 |
| Minimum Cluster Size | 3 hosts (for HA and vSAN functionality) |
| VM Capacity | Up to 256 vCPUs, 6 TB RAM, 256 virtual disks per VM (each up to 62 TB) |
| Cluster Scale | 3 to 24 hosts per cluster, up to 8 PB raw capacity, up to 8,000 VMs per cluster |
| Availability | 99.95% contractual availability SLA (per billing month) |
| VMware Licensing | Included in service pricing (per-host basis) |
Hardware Bundle Options
Each SKU defines a fixed per-host bundle. A cluster is a minimum of three identical hosts (the basic bundle) and scales one host at a time up to 24 hosts. Prices are monthly in EUR and include the VMware licenses.
| SKU | 3-Host Bundle (EUR/mo) | Additional Host (EUR/mo) |
|---|---|---|
| Silver-48 | 3,900 | 850 |
| Silver-96 | 5,280 | 1,050 |
| Gold-192 v2 | 6,180 | 1,550 |
| Gold-512 | 8,480 | 2,550 |
| M-512 | 6,300 | 1,600 |
| L-768 | 9,300 | 2,600 |
| XL-1024 | 12,700 | 3,700 |
Choose Silver bundles for entry-level deployments and development environments. Choose Gold/M/L/XL bundles for production workloads requiring higher performance and capacity. M-512, L-768, and XL-1024 are the current actively-sold SKUs; Silver-48, Silver-96, Gold-192 v2, and Gold-512 remain available as legacy in-stock options.
Additional Hosts: 850-3,700 EUR/month per host depending on the SKU (see table).
What You Can Do
Full VMware Virtualization Stack
Run complete VMware environments with all Enterprise Plus features. Create and manage VMs using DRS for automatic load balancing, vSphere HA for automatic restart on host failure, and vMotion/Storage vMotion for live migration with zero downtime. Deploy Fault Tolerance for continuous availability of critical workloads.
Software-Defined Storage with vSAN
Provision policy-based storage with RAID 1/5/6 configurations and erasure coding. Enable inline deduplication and compression for 2:1 to 7:1 space savings with minimal performance impact on all-flash clusters. vSAN offers optional data-at-rest encryption using AES-256, enabled per cluster in the Cloud Panel vSAN configuration; it is not applied automatically by default. Create native snapshots and space-efficient clones directly from vSAN.
Note: Encryption adds 5-10% performance overhead. Deduplication and compression are supported only on all-flash disk groups; they cannot be enabled on hybrid disk groups.
Advanced Networking with NSX-T
Deploy distributed virtual networks with VXLAN overlays for isolated tenant networks. Implement micro-segmentation using the Distributed Firewall (up to 100,000 rules per deployment). Configure Gateway Firewalls for north-south traffic, load balancing, NAT, and VPN. Group workloads with NSX-T security groups to apply micro-segmentation policy at scale (up to 10,000 security groups per deployment).
Multi-Availability Zone Resilience
In supported data centers (currently Berlin), you can place VMs across multiple availability zones (minimum two, optional third for additional redundancy), and vSAN mirrors data across zones. If a host or zone fails, DRS migrates VMs to healthy hosts with only seconds of pause, and storage remains accessible through the surviving zone copy.
Backup and Disaster Recovery
Integrate Acronis Cyber Protect, which auto-deploys a backup agent VM, for full-VM backups with file-level restore. Deploy VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) or VMware Cloud Director Availability (VCDA) for asynchronous host-based replication. Configure backup targets to IONOS Cloud Object Storage in different regions for immutable, off-site protection. Support for third-party backup solutions such as Veeam, which can back up volumes and store the resulting data on IONOS Object Storage.
Hybrid Cloud Integration
Connect seamlessly with IONOS Public Cloud services, Object Storage, and Direct Connect. A single-device OpenVPN connection to the vSphere management network is included by default; use the IPSec VPN add-on (50 EUR/month) when more than one end-device connection is needed. Leverage Cross Connect for dedicated private connectivity between Private Cloud and other IONOS services.
Automation and Infrastructure as Code
Access full VMware APIs (REST, SOAP vSphere Web Services). Automate operations using PowerCLI, pyvmomi (Python SDK), or native vSphere APIs. Manage infrastructure through the IONOS Cloud Panel API. Deploy and manage resources using standard infrastructure-as-code tools.
Best For
| Scenario | Why It Fits |
|---|---|
| VMware Migration | Move existing VMware workloads to IONOS without re-architecting; identical tooling and APIs |
| Mission-Critical Applications | Enterprise HA features (vSphere HA, Fault Tolerance, multi-AZ storage) backed by a 99.95% availability SLA |
| Compliance Workloads | Dedicated hardware with micro-segmentation, encryption at rest, and audit logging meets regulatory requirements |
| Disaster Recovery Sites | Implement pilot-light, warm-standby, or hot-standby DR patterns with substantial cost savings vs traditional datacenters; documented RPO approx 24 h, RTO approx 4 h |
| Development and Testing | Full-featured VMware environments for testing before production deployment; pay-as-you-go avoids CAPEX |
| Large-Scale Virtualization | Support up to 8,000 VMs per cluster with centralized management through vCenter |
Consider Alternatives If
| If You Need... | Consider | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Public cloud flexibility without VMware | Compute Engine (vCPU servers) | Lower cost, elastic scaling, no minimum cluster size |
| Managed container orchestration | Managed Kubernetes | Native cloud-native architecture, automatic updates, integrated with IONOS services |
| Database-only workloads | Database as a Service (PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MongoDB) | Fully managed, automated backups, no infrastructure management |
| Simple object storage | IONOS Cloud Object Storage | S3-compatible, no VM overhead, consumption-based pricing |
Key Considerations
Billing & Costs
- Main billing: Monthly fee for hardware bundles (includes 3-host cluster, VMware licenses, base capacity), billed per-minute with a 30-day payment term; the billing period is anchored to the provisioning day
- Scaling: Additional hosts are billed per host per month at the SKU rate (see table)
- Network traffic: Inbound, outbound, and national traffic are free of charge
- Additional costs: Extra hosts (850-3,700 EUR/month), backup storage (0.07 EUR/GB/month), NFS datastores (72 EUR/TB/month), VCDA protection (50 EUR/VM/month), additional IP addresses (5 EUR each; /28 subnet 24 EUR, /27 subnet 32 EUR per month), IPSec VPN add-on (50 EUR/month), one-time hardware model change (300 EUR)
- Startup program: Private Cloud is excluded from the IONOS startup-program credit
Limitations
- Minimum 3 hosts required per cluster for vSAN and HA functionality; maximum 24 hosts per cluster
- Monthly bundle pricing means you pay for reserved capacity regardless of utilization
- Hardware configurations are fixed per SKU (cannot customize individual components)
- vSAN deduplication savings vary by workload type (2:1 to 7:1 typical range)
- Encryption overhead adds 5-10% performance impact
- The customer must maintain at least 30% vSAN slack space; if free space falls to or below 25% the environment may become non-functional
- Regional availability depends on IONOS datacenter locations (Berlin, Logrono, Niederlauterbach, Worcester; Karlsruhe is legacy, no new provisioning)
- DR solutions (SRM, VCDA) require separate licensing and configuration
Management Options
- IONOS Cloud Panel: Provision clusters, add hosts, view health and capacity dashboards, configure billing and add-ons, access vSphere Client and NSX-T Manager URLs
- vSphere Client (HTML5): Full administrative access to vCenter (DRS rules, HA settings, vSAN policies, template management, performance analysis)
- NSX-T Manager: Configure distributed firewall, gateway firewall, load balancing, VPN, network segments
- REST/SOAP APIs: vSphere Web Services API, NSX-T Policy API, IONOS Cloud API
- PowerCLI and SDKs: PowerCLI (PowerShell), pyvmomi (Python)
- Infrastructure as Code: Terraform, Ansible, and other standard automation tools