Bare metal with Latitude.sh in 2024

As we bid farewell to a prolific 2024, it is fair to look back at the last 12 months and remember what Latitude.sh has achieved in its best year so far. And if you're reading this, you are probably a part of that story.

So let's go over how it all started:

Kicking off the year with the Latitude.sh CLI

February saw the debut of lsh, the Latitude.sh command-line interface, marking a major milestone in making infrastructure management faster and more intuitive. With lsh, Latitude.sh entered your terminal, bringing unparalleled convenience for auditing and provisioning.

This powerful tool transforms how you interact with your infrastructure, offering the ability to explore available plans, monitor server details, assign servers to virtual networks, and even scale projects up or down—all with just a few simple commands.

Whether you're adding new servers, managing SSH keys, or configuring VLANs, the CLI simplifies the process so you can focus on what truly matters.

Getting started is a breeze: install the CLI, add your API token, and you're ready to go. For power users and beginners alike, lsh is designed to put the full capabilities of Latitude.sh right at your fingertips.

Serverless is on

February also brought Serverless, our container-based GPU compute option originally designed for AI model fine-tuning and inference.

Serverless aims to take the heavy lifting out of deploying AI models, giving developers the tools they need to build on and serve open-source AI with ease.

Containers are provisioned directly on bare metal, ensuring fully dedicated resources for every workload.

Given that Serverless was built to simplify development while delivering unmatched performance, it evolved to a broader range of compute options going beyond hardware with GPUs and is now available as another compute option for multiples types of workloads.

Organizing Infrastructure with Resource Tagging

April brought a game-changing feature to Latitude.sh: Resource Tagging. This new addition lets you categorize and manage your servers and VLANs with custom tags tailored to your workflow.

Whether you're grouping resources by purpose, environment, or another unique criterion, tagging streamlines organization and boosts efficiency. With just a glance, you can filter, search, and group resources in ways that make sense for your specific needs.

Best of all, Resource Tagging is versatile—you can create, edit, and delete tags directly from the Latitude.sh dashboard, API, or CLI. It’s a simple yet effective way to keep your infrastructure organized and manageable as your projects scale.

A Fresh Look for Latitude.sh Documentation

May marked the unveiling of our redesigned documentation, crafted to deliver a smoother and more intuitive experience. With a cleaner structure and improved navigation, finding the help you need has never been faster.

The new layout is packed with enhancements, including a streamlined structure for quick access to key resources and a brand-new Guides section.

These tutorials cater to all skill levels, providing step-by-step instructions to help you deploy and manage your infrastructure with ease, getting the most out of open-source solutions to improve your overall bare metal experience.

Whether you're troubleshooting or exploring new features, the redesigned Docs ensure the answers are always at your fingertips.

Ensuring Availability with Capacity Reservations

June brought the launch of Capacity Reservations, a feature designed to give you peace of mind when planning your infrastructure. With this tool, securing the servers you need became easier and more predictable than ever.

Capacity Reservations lets you view and reserve servers even before they’re available, ensuring you’re always ahead of the curve. You can also track upcoming additions to our fleet and monitor their delivery status right from your project’s page.

This feature empowers you to plan with confidence, knowing your infrastructure needs will be met exactly when you need them.

Simplifying Workflows with Server Transfers

August brought a highly requested feature: the ability to move servers between projects without disrupting their current configuration.

This enhancement allows you to effortlessly reorganize your infrastructure to fit your evolving workflow—whether transitioning from development to production or simply improving project management.

Reassigning a server is as easy as navigating to its detail page in the dashboard and selecting “Switch Project” from the “Actions” menu.

This update came alongside a host of smaller user-suggested fixes, reinforcing our commitment to continuously improving your experience.

Cloud Gateway

September marked the debut of Cloud Gateway, a highly anticipated feature that simplifies connecting your Latitude.sh servers to major cloud providers.

This new on-ramp solution empowers you to lower compute and bandwidth expenses while taking complete control of your infrastructure.

With best-in-class networking powered by Megaport’s global infrastructure, Cloud Gateway ensures fast, reliable connectivity and seamless cloud integration.

The flexibility doesn’t stop there—Cloud Gateway lets you customize performance by adjusting port speeds to match your bandwidth needs. Whether you’re scaling up for increased traffic or optimizing costs, this on-ramp feature makes managing your hybrid infrastructure easier than ever.

Storage on Bare Metal

Introduced in September and generally available by November, our platform now supports mounting a filesystem on your bare metal servers for persistent storage.

This enhancement ensures your data remains intact across reboots and reinstalls, offering flexibility and reliability for your infrastructure.

With this capability, you can expand small instances by adding high-performance storage instead of upgrading to larger servers, optimizing costs without compromising performance.

Additionally, as your data grows, you can scale your storage seamlessly while maintaining the speed and efficiency your workloads demand.

Databases

Earlier this quarter we launched the closed-beta of Databases, our high-performance PostgreSQL database service optimized for bare metal. Designed for production environments, it offers real-time capabilities and a robust backend that ensures reliability and scalability.

Early adopters gained exclusive access to premium hardware configurations, including 1 CPU, 2 GB RAM, and 50 GB of storage, at a special introductory rate of $19/month for the first 12 months.

Databases also comes equipped with enterprise-grade features like high availability, built-in disaster recovery, and early access to new functionalities.

Upcoming enhancements include backup support to S3-compatible object storage, read replicas with automatic failover, and integration with Supabase with built-in authentication and real-time subscriptions.

Firewall

In December, we introduced Latitude.sh Firewall, a feature designed to simplify the management of inbound and outbound traffic rules across multiple servers.

With minimal setup, you can centrally control your network’s security, ensuring consistent and reliable protection for your infrastructure.

Setting up a firewall is straightforward: log in to your dashboard, navigate to the Firewall section, and create a new firewall with your desired rules.

By default, all unspecified traffic is blocked, allowing you to fine-tune permissions for the required ports.

Once configured, you can easily assign the firewall to one or more servers in your project, streamlining traffic management and enhancing security. This update empowers you to maintain a secure, efficient network environment while reducing the complexity of managing individual server rules. And as we wrap up the year, let’s take a moment to highlight what some of our customers have had to say about working with Latitude.sh in 2024.

How Latitude.sh helped companies in 2024

As we reflect on 2024, we’re proud to have played a key role in helping companies like eOracle and Zyte streamline their operations and achieve their goals with Latitude.sh's solutions. For eOracle, our ability to adapt to their unique requirements stood out. Egor Prytkov, their TechOps lead, explained how their setup wasn’t a default configuration, requiring a high level of customization on both the security and networking fronts. "You're responsible, and we can have customizations with you on the security and networking levels. Our current setup is not the default one. We require a lot of customizations, and you did it,” he shared. Egor also emphasized how our features go beyond what competitors offer, mentioning tools like rescue mode with Terminal and Serial Console through SSH. "There's always a trade-off between price and features, but from my personal experience and considering our current setup, you are the best fit for us," he said. These capabilities, combined with strong support, have helped eOracle reduce their compute costs by an impressive threefold. In Egor’s words: “Good performance with an affordable price” and “great support with a huge amount of features.” For Zyte, reliability and ease of use were game-changers. Before finding Latitude.sh, Zyte struggled to manage infrastructure across a geographically diverse network while keeping costs and downtime in check. Martin Hartmann, their head of product operations, highlighted how working with us brought much-needed simplicity to their operations. "You know what, things with you guys just work. Having even the simple things like your web portal working properly creates certain confidence that you guys know what you are doing,” he noted, adding that the setup phase was smooth and collaborative. He also praised the responsiveness of our support team and the reliability of our tools: "Support questions that we had usually get attended properly and quickly. And I'm really happy with your portal. I mean one would say nowadays it shouldn't be so difficult to have a website that works properly, but most providers are not able to offer that." These stories from eOracle and Zyte reflect how Latitude.sh is more than just a provider—it’s a trusted partner, delivering innovative and dependable solutions to meet the evolving needs of businesses. Even better things are in store for us in the upcoming year. So join Latitude.sh today to start leveraging all the advantages that Bare Metal has to offer.