How snapshots, backups and extra storage work

ImpulseVPS gives customers three ways to protect or add data: snapshots, automatic backups and storage volumes. Snapshots are a client tool with a per-server limit. Backups and additional storage are billed to your provider account, so they're sold as paid choices on the order form, and ImpulseVPS never switches them on by itself. You set up all three on the server plan under Addons → ImpulseVPS → Plans & Products → Server Plans.

What each provider supports

• Snapshots: Vultr, Hetzner Cloud, DigitalOcean and Linode. On Linode, snapshots need automatic backups, and each server keeps one at a time.
• Automatic backups: all four providers.
• Additional storage: Vultr only in this version.

Snapshots

Snapshots is ticked under Client tools on a new server plan (untick it to hide the tab) and isn't a priced choice. The Snapshot limit under Limits (default 3) sets how many a customer can keep per server. At the limit, they must delete one before creating another. Restoring a snapshot overwrites the disk, and the customer types the server's hostname to confirm.

On Linode, the Snapshots tab offers no Create snapshot button until automatic backups are on. It points the customer to the Backups option instead; ImpulseVPS never turns Backups on to unlock snapshots. A new Linode snapshot replaces the existing one, which can't be deleted on its own.

Automatic backups

To sell backups:

1. Tick Backups (paid option) under Client tools and Backups under Published customer choices.
2. Click Publish choices on each connected product. Its option group gains a Backups dropdown: None or Automatic provider backups.
3. Price Automatic provider backups in WHMCS. Publishing adds it at zero, so until you do, customers get backups free while your provider bills you.

The WHMCS option decides whether backups run:

• At activation, backups are switched on if the order chose them and off if it didn't. Switching them off matters on Linode, where the Backup Auto Enrollment account setting enrolls every new server in paid Backups.
• Adding or removing the option under Upgrade/Downgrade Options switches backups on or off at the provider. When they're switched off, the provider may delete backups already taken.
• In the Backups tab, a customer whose plan includes backups can turn them off and on again without changing their bill. A customer without the option sees how to add it, and can't turn backups on from the tab.

If a switch fails, or the option changes while the server is suspended, the Dashboard raises an alert. Turn backups on or off at the provider, or run the Change Package module command again once the service is active.

Additional storage

Additional storage lets customers create block-storage volumes and attach them to their server. It isn't extra root disk, and nothing is attached when the server is created. To sell it:

1. Tick Additional Storage (paid option) under Client tools and Additional storage under Published customer choices.
2. Set Maximum additional storage (GB) under Limits to a multiple of 10. 0 turns the option off.
3. Click Publish choices, then price the Additional Storage (GB) quantity option per 10 GB block. Customers buy blocks up to the plan's maximum.

The Storage tab appears once the customer has bought storage. Customers create volumes in the server's own location, up to what they bought, then attach, detach and delete them. Deleting needs a detached volume and the hostname typed in.

Vultr's volume minimums

Where a location offers Vultr's NVMe storage tier, the smallest volume is 10 GB. Locations that offer only the standard tier (Dallas, Miami and San Jose among them) create volumes of 40 GB or more. A customer there with less than 40 GB can't add a volume, and the Storage tab asks them to choose 40 GB or more. The order form doesn't check this, so on server plans that sell those locations, set the maximum to at least 40 GB and state the minimum in the product description.

Lowering storage

Lowering the option never deletes a volume. If a service then holds more than it pays for, the Dashboard raises an alert naming the volumes, because the provider keeps billing you. The alert closes once the customer deletes enough from the Storage tab.

Suspension and termination

Suspend and Terminate power the server off and start a grace period: 7 days for a termination, and 7 days by default for a suspension (Settings → Advanced). The customer gets the Server Deletion Warning email 2 days before the end. During the grace period the client area shows the service's status instead of its tabs, so customers can't take snapshots or detach volumes. Unsuspending, or Restore from grace, brings back the same server with its snapshots and volumes.

When the grace period ends, or when you use Force purge, the purge:

1. Destroys the server. If the provider returns an error, the purge waits and deletes nothing.
2. Deletes the server's one-time credentials.
3. Deletes the snapshots and volumes the customer created, so they don't keep billing at the provider.

A snapshot or volume that won't delete is retried every hour. After a day, an alert names it; delete it in the provider account. The purge only touches what ImpulseVPS recorded for that service, so on Vultr, Hetzner Cloud and DigitalOcean a snapshot you take yourself in the provider account, for example as abuse evidence, is not deleted by it. On Linode a server's snapshot is kept with the server and goes when the purge destroys it, so don't rely on one there.

Related

• Server plans: how they tie to WHMCS products
• How to change a customer's server size
• Fix: a provider rejects an action or reports it busy