Cloud Servers
Regions, Availability and the Reserve Queue
KapsuleHost Servers run in six regions across Europe, the United States and Singapore, and which of them you can choose depends on the processor family you pick.
Region choice is mostly about latency: the closer your server is to your visitors, the faster your site feels to them before you have optimised a single line of code. Availability is the second half of the story, because capacity in a given region is finite and one family in particular sells out regularly. This article covers both, and explains the reserve queue that turns "out of stock" into "we will build it for you the moment it frees up".
The Six Regions
| Group | Locations |
|---|---|
| Europe | Falkenstein (Germany), Nuremberg (Germany), Helsinki (Finland) |
| United States | Ashburn (Virginia), Hillsboro (Oregon) |
| Asia Pacific | Singapore |
When you order, KPanel pre-selects a sensible region based on where you are, and you can change it. If your audience is mostly in New Zealand or Australia, Singapore is the closest of the six. For a European or United Kingdom audience, pick a European location. For North America, Ashburn covers the east coast and Hillsboro the west.
Latency is decided by physical distance, not by where your business is registered. A New Zealand company selling to customers in Germany should put the server in Europe, not in Singapore.
Which Family Runs Where
Not every processor family is offered in every region. This is the single most common reason a region you want is not on the list.
| Family | Europe | United States | Singapore |
|---|---|---|---|
| ARM (Photon, Quark, Lepton, Muon) | Yes | No | No |
| Standard x86 (Meteor, Comet, Atlas, Apollo, Vega, Pulsar) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Dedicated vCPU (Quasar, Orion, Nebula, Nova, Sirius, Andromeda) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Dedicated vCPU is the only family available in all six regions. If you need a server in the United States, that is your family. Choosing Between ARM, Standard and Dedicated vCPU Servers compares them on everything else.
Your region is fixed for the life of the server. Resizing moves you between tiers but never between regions, because moving a running server's disk between data centres is a migration, not a resize. To change region, order a new server in the region you want and move your data across.
Live Availability at the Point of Order
Capacity is checked live, at the moment you look, not from a static list.
- On the order form, each tier carries a stock indicator, and the region picker shows only the regions that can build that tier right now.
- On the compute plans page you see the same thing as a badge on each tier: In stock, Reserve, Limited stock, or Out of stock.
- On the resize screen, availability is re-checked for the specific tier and region you select.
Standard x86 and Dedicated vCPU tiers are provisioned immediately when they show as in stock. If the tier you picked has no capacity anywhere, KPanel says so rather than letting you order something it cannot build, and where a slightly larger tier is available it offers you that instead, at that tier's own price.
The Reserve Queue
ARM is the best value on the ladder, which makes it popular, and its capacity refills from cancellations rather than from new hardware arriving on a schedule. It sells out. Instead of failing your order, we hold it.
Here is exactly what happens:
- You reserve. If the ARM tier you want has no capacity in your region, the order or resize screen offers Reserve instead of the usual button, and you get a reservation reference.
- Nothing is charged. A reservation is free. No payment is taken and no subscription starts while you wait.
- We provision automatically. As soon as capacity frees up in your region, we build the server for you. There is nothing for you to watch or click.
- Billing starts when the server is live. Your first payment is taken only once the server is actually provisioned and running, and your billing date is set from that day.
- Cancel any time, for nothing. Change your mind while waiting and you pay nothing, because nothing was ever charged.
ARM stock is genuinely unpredictable. Some reservations are filled quickly. At busy times the wait can run to several weeks, because capacity only returns when other customers release it. If you have a deadline, do not put an ARM reservation on the critical path.
A reservation has a lifetime. If capacity does not appear before it expires, the reservation ends and you are told, having paid nothing. You can reserve again.
The reserve queue also covers the GPU tier that is currently supply-constrained. See GPU and AI Compute Servers.
If You Need a Server Right Now
When ARM is queued and you cannot wait:
- Choose a Standard x86 tier in Europe or Singapore. Same regions plus Singapore, immediate provisioning, the broadest software compatibility.
- Choose a Dedicated vCPU tier in any of the six regions. More expensive, but guaranteed cores and the widest region choice.
Either way you can start on what is available today. You cannot resize across families later, so pick the family you want to stay in, but you can move up and down within it freely.
Troubleshooting
The region I want is greyed out. Either the family you selected is not offered there, or that region has no capacity for that specific tier right now. Check the family table above first.
"That region has no capacity right now." Live capacity moved between the page loading and your click. Pick another region, or reserve.
"{tier} is unavailable in all regions right now." No region can build that tier. Choose a different tier, or reserve if the reserve option is offered.
My reservation has not been filled. That means capacity has not returned in your region yet. There is nothing you can do to speed it up, and you are not being charged in the meantime. If you would rather not wait, cancel it and order an available tier.
I want to move an existing server to another region. That is a migration, not a resize. Order a new server in the target region, copy your data across, then move DNS and delete the old one. Our team can help you plan it: email support@kapsulehost.com.
If you are not sure which region suits your audience, ask Kora inside KPanel or reply to any Kapsule email, and our New Zealand team will help you choose.