WaveCom Completes a Major Cloud Platform Upgrade

WaveCom has completed an extensive cloud platform upgrade covering compute capacity, networking, storage, security, and disaster recovery environments. This is one of the largest development projects in the company’s cloud services history, aimed at increasing performance, reliability, and readiness for future workloads.

As a result of the upgrade, virtual machine performance improved significantly, latency was reduced, and the overall stability of the cloud service increased even under heavy and sustained workloads.

Clear Impact on Everyday Use

In practical terms, this means faster applications, better responsiveness, and greater capacity for customers on the same infrastructure. Databases, I/O-intensive systems, and environments with high volumes of inter-VM communication (east-west traffic) benefit the most.

The upgrades also create a stronger foundation for modern workloads such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data processing, where compute power, memory bandwidth, and low latency play a critical role.

The cloud platform’s compute layer was migrated to next-generation HPE DL360 Gen12 servers using Intel® Xeon® 6 series processors (Xeon 6527P, 3.0–4.2 GHz).

This represents a server platform that is three generations newer and a CPU architecture that is four generations newer than the previous one, delivering significantly improved compute performance, I/O capabilities, and memory bandwidth.

The platform supports DDR5-6400 memory and PCIe Gen5, which are critical for modern and I/O-intensive workloads.

Performance You Can Measure

The impact of the upgrade is not theoretical. WaveCom conducted real-world load testing across compute, network, and storage layers using scenarios close to production conditions.

The test results showed:

• on average, approximately a threefold performance increase for virtual machines running on the new server platforms,
• up to a tenfold performance improvement in certain workloads that use modern CPU instruction sets (e.g. vector and AI operations),
• significantly lower latency and more stable behaviour under sustained load.

Networking and Storage Without Bottlenecks

The cloud platform’s networking and storage solutions were also significantly upgraded. Each host server is connected with 4 × 100 Gb network interfaces (previously 4 × 20 Gb), reducing bottlenecks and substantially improving both inter-VM and outbound traffic.

In theory, this allows a virtual machine to achieve up to 200 Gbit/s of network throughput, including internet traffic, with the appropriate configuration. In WaveCom’s internal tests, a real throughput of 86 Gbit/s was achieved between two virtual machines, an exceptional result at the VM level and a major advantage for network-intensive workloads.

The storage layer is based on a dual-fabric Fibre Channel SAN network upgraded from 32 Gbit/s to 64 Gbit/s. Cloud storage systems are equipped with next-generation NVMe media and enhanced with 64 Gbit/s I/O modules.

The active/active redundant storage controllers are now connected via two parallel 64G FC links using the FC-NVMe protocol, enabling up to 256 Gbit/s of aggregate throughput at the storage system level.

As a result of the storage infrastructure upgrade, both random and sequential I/O performance improved, and average response times were significantly reduced. This is directly reflected in the performance of databases, file systems, and business-critical applications.

Measurable Storage Results

Tests of the upgraded storage systems (without cache effects) showed:

• up to ~60% better write performance (random write 4K: 120.3k IOPS),
• ~18% better read performance (random read 4K: 185.9k IOPS),
• sequential write throughput of 6.10 GiB/s and read throughput of 9.63 GiB/s,
• a reduction in average latency of ~35–40%, to approximately 0.44 ms.

GPU Capabilities for Modern Workloads

The platform now includes NVIDIA L4 GPU resources, which can be used either in full or as fractional resources. This enables cloud-based AI inference, machine learning workloads, video transcoding, and applications requiring specific graphics acceleration without investing in dedicated hardware.

Security and Micro-Segmentation

On the security side, VMware vDefend Distributed Firewall has been deployed. It operates in a distributed manner at the host level and enables protection against both inbound external traffic and inter-VM communication within the same segment (micro-segmentation).

This approach significantly reduces the risk of lateral movement in attack scenarios and enhances the overall security posture of the cloud environment.

Resilience and Availability

WaveCom has also upgraded its disaster recovery environments (DRaaS). Former cloud host servers are now used at recovery sites, meaning that even environments operating during crisis situations are based on a significantly more powerful platform.

All customers have virtual machine replication to a second data centre included in the service price. The upgraded compute and storage platform improves recovery speed, reduces latency, and increases the overall reliability of the disaster recovery environment.

European Regulations and a Sovereign Cloud

In addition to technical upgrades, WaveCom actively invests in compliance and sustainability. The company implements the ISO/IEC 22301 business continuity management standard and is a member of the European cloud services association CISPE.

WaveCom CTO Kristian Liivak participates in the CISPE committee responsible for developing European Union sovereign cloud requirements and is preparing WaveCom for independent certification in the near future. This provides customers with confidence that the service complies with EU data protection, legal, and data sovereignty requirements.

A Cost-Effective Alternative to VMware Cloud

As part of its strategy, WaveCom is also launching a significantly more affordable alternative to VMware Cloud, based on the virtualization platform of the European company Vates (Xen-based technology).

The platform can be managed via the WaveCom self-service portal or CloudStack, and its usage logic is comparable to VMware Cloud Director. This is a mature and widely used technology that enables solutions at a fraction of the cost while maintaining high reliability, functionality, and compliance with European regulations.

Next Steps

WaveCom will soon expand the locations of its cloud services both abroad and at the Estonian GDC data centre. This creates the foundation for active/active services and additional DRaaS locations.

WaveCom will soon share a more detailed overview of developments from the past year and present the next steps in the evolution of its cloud services.