I currently own a reasonably sized VPS paying around 40/$80 a month for it. I am extremely happy with the service but I have recently move from freelance to being hired by a company.
I wish to scale down my costs so looking at other options.
I hear a lot (mostly good) of things about MT and was wondering what peoples experiences are - particular with ease of use, support and uptime.
I would also like to know about how the normal shared hosting option works for people hosting some clients website and email. I currently have around 10 clients hosting with me and 100 emails. Is it easy for clients to use and i assume pop and imap are supported.
I currently run my VPS on cpanel. would it be easy to transfer everything or is it very much of a manual job?
I manage and develop an e-commerce site which the original designer had put on Media Temple. Their grid service and general marketing looks and sounds superb. This is no doubt why a lot of people go with them.
For months now they have been giving my client problems. People in certain places can't access the site because MT are always up to tricks moving the servers around. On top of that their MySQL performance has latency issues which makes most pages load slowly. I decided to move the site to Knownhost(vps) who seem to offer good service at a reasonable price. Before I could even begin to transfer the emails to the new server I get reports that the site has been down for over 24 hours. The site is still down after a whole day. This means my client can't sell their stuff and I can't transfer to the new host either.
I called MT and they offered free hosting for a year. I don't think it's worth it. The uptime and service and performance I've seen has been no better than $5/month shared hosting. For a site like this I don't think it's worth risking uptime (and therefore sales) on a company that can't get their act together. I've never had downtime from any other host before, let alone multiple times like MT.
I'm putting this out there just to warn any people who may be thinking of going to Media Temple.
I would be interested to know others experiences with Media Temple.
We purchased a EV Certificate: [url]and have tried to install it on Media Temple.
However there are 4 parts to it and can not work out how to get it to work, we tried their user panel and still tells us key is invalid. Tried the Media Temple helpdesk and they have no idea either.
They really have an ideal plan for me with their grid service. But I wanted any recent customer views on them, before I make my mind up about going with them for hosting.
Also if you don't think Media Temple is good can you provide someone who is?
I have been reading this forum all night now. And I'm just clueless still as to who would be good enough to go with. I don't want to make a wrong decision. I would prefer something with 10Gb or over not fussed on the cpanel or bandwidth as long as they have good support and are efficient. Also my budget is around the $20-$25 bracket.
I am currently hosting with Media Temple, but I completely hate plesk, and want cPanel on the server. I have even considered going to Mosso, but too expensive for what I need.
Here is my question, I have a (dv) server with MT, and am wondering, can I put cPanel on there instead of Plesk. I tried to search their knowledge base with no luck. I am currently on hold waiting for tech support, but I still have about 17 minutes so I figured I may get a quicker response here.
I have been hosting with (mt) Media Temple for six months now and would like to provide my independent review of their service.
My Background/Potential BiasesSix years hosting experience with other various companies Ten years working in the computer industry Former employee of the world's sixth-largest hosting company, The Planet (source: Netcraft) hackmysql.com, of which a few people have heard Therefore, I have been on both sides of hosting, as an engineer and a customer. My review is written as a customer, but I have certain sympathies for the engineers at Media Temple.
Services I use at Media Temple(gs) Grid-Service (the basic package) MySQL GridContainer LITE
Review Overall, I am very pleased with the service at Media Temple. From reading other threads here on WHT, I know that (mt) had a rough start with their Grid-Service. These problems, however, were before my time with (mt).
One Major Problem Since I began hosting with them, I have had only one major problem, which I helped caused. In October there were "storage issues", which is the nice way of saying, "the hard drive ran out of free space." The partition where my home directory resides had about 2G of free space before I began working with some 2G log files. Thus I helped create those storage issues.
I don't know (mt)'s storage policy and practices, but I suspect that they were not expecting those free 2G to disappear so suddenly. Therefore, I take a little of the fault, because my sudden burst of disk usage did cause problems for everyone else on that partition.
Otherwise, my six months with Media Temple have been without problem. Since I have a technical background, I am not inclined to create support tickets often, but I have created three.
Support Tickets The first was for a mail/DNS issue. Before an (mt) Grid-Service (gs) server will handle mail for a domain, the server must see that the domain's MX record resolves to itself. This is a sensible precaution. Problem for me was: the server hosting my domains was lagging behind every other server in DNS resolution. (mt)'s primary DNS servers were correct, as were all other outside DNS servers, but my particular (gs) server was not resolving properly and therefore would not enable mail for one of my domains. The response I received to my inquiry about this "problem" was a stock response that said, basically, "Wait; DNS takes time." Of course I already knew this but I was hoping that the tech would maybe refresh the DNS daemon on my (gs) server to move the DNS propagation process along more quickly.
Second support ticket was due to the store issues mentioned previously. Their response was quick and apologetic, even though I helped to create the very problem I was inquiring about.
Third ticket was a request for a Perl module. The ticket was escalated to a higher level of support which installed the module. Engineers are cautious about doing things that effect the entire server. Even though a Perl module is very small and harmless, I'm glad that this request was done quickly and without question.
Shell I am a heavy shell and vi user. I won't host at a place that doesn't have excellent shell access. Media Temple's shell access is excellent and has no silly restrictions. Certain commands are blocked for the security/privacy of others (or perhaps due to how they implement their grid), but I have not yet encountered a problem with the shell.
Most importantly, I demand super-low latency because even a little latency creates a terrible lag when typing quickly in a shell. Although my (gs) server is somewhere in California and I live in Europe, I very rarely experience any lag due to latency, and that's pretty impressive for a transatlantic, 7,000+ mile link.
My (gs) server runs Debian so the shell is nothing crazy and (mt) has not made any modifications to it that I can see. Therefore, the shell feels proper and like "home".
Control Panel/"AccountCenter" Media Temple has developed its own web control panel, called the AccountCenter, for (gs) accounts. (The dedicated-virtual service uses Plesk.) Overall, it's a good control panel, easy to use and understand, with a simple layout. It should be noted that I'm not the kind of person who does everything through the control panel. Regardless, I have never had a functional problem with it--that means it has always done what I expected it to, without weird or unexpected results.
It lacks only one feature as far as my needs are concerned: domain aliases. How to add domain aliases through the AccountCenter confused me a little. If I have domain.com and I want all traffic at foo.com to transparently access domain.com then accomplishing that in the AccountCenter is less than intuitive in my opinion. When I had this problem, I discovered that I had to create both as two separate domains, then remove the foo.com directory and create a symbolic link from foo.com -> domain.com. I could have left the foo.com directory and then added some HTTP redirects or mod rewrites, but the symbolic link is much more elegant. They do have an article in the knowledge base about how to do this, but for people who manage their account entirely through the control panel and FTP, it's not pleasant to SSH, vi .htaccess, rm -rf, and ln -s, etc.
A further criticism about the AccountCenter is that it seems to run slowly from time to time. Even when the shell is quick (therefore, I know it's not a matter of transatlantic lag), the AccountCenter responds and moves slowly. Perhaps my little laptop is too slow to quickly render the pretty, graphical, dynamic windows and such. This is a superficial problem though because it doesn't affect the service of websites or database or anything else.
MySQL As hackmysql.com suggests, MySQL and database connectivity is very important to me. I am skeptical of shared MySQL servers because of the "bad neighbor effect." This, however, is what (mt) intended its MySQL GridContainer service to overcome.
Secondly, I am skeptical of remote MySQL servers in massively shared hosting environments. Yes, it is good to have the database servers separate from the web servers, but in massively shared hosting environments there is a risk of web server to database server lag due to the internal network being saturated with other traffic (web, mail, ftp, streaming audio/video, ddos attacks, etc.). A few milliseconds of network lag means a few milliseconds longer that the query appears to take.
Therefore, I was skeptical of (mt)'s MySQL GridContainer at first for these two reasons (bad neighbor and network lag), but I have been pleasantly surprised by its performance. I don't know how they have built their grid, but my MySQL server performs as if it were local, and I have never experienced the bad neighbor effect. Perhaps I got lucky and I'm on a MySQL server with few other users, or perhaps their MySQL GridContainer really is doing its job well and keeping my database activity isolated from everyone else. I'm not really interested in the implementation, just the result, and the result has been excellent for the last six months.
My only criticism in this respect is: why is only MySQL 4.1 available (and PostgreSQL)? That version is no longer developed and 5.0 is a well established GA release. There is a knowledge base article that says they are planning to offer other versions of MySQL but there is no planned date for this "feature." My suggestion: make it a priority. Unless there is a very deep technical obstacle, there is no excuse to not be offering 5.0.
Two Random Criticisms Webmail: I wish they offered more choices. I like SquirrelMail, but if I had an easier, better choice, I'd use it. They do offer a nice, advanced knowledge base article on redirecting webmail to a 3rd part app. I could do this but, I'm lazy , I just want to click a button inside the AccountCenter to choose a diffrent webmail app. Furthermore, like the AccountCenter, SquirrelMail runs slowly from time to time. I would really like this to be improved. Perhaps SquirrelMail is just a slow app; again, I don't care about implementation, I just want a faster, nicer webmail.
Raw Apache/httpd logs: Every host handles these differently. Since I don't like any of the normal webstat programs (including Urchin which comes free with (gs) accounts), I wrote and use my own, therefore, I need access to the httpd logs. Problem with (mt) in this respect: all domains are in one log. My understanding is that this is due to some technical limitation. It's not a huge problem, because I can parse and separate each of my domain's traffic myself, but it would be nice if (mt) would do this already for me.
Conclusion Despite the "grid chaos" in the past, I think Media Temple today is a solid, reliable solution. I waited half a year to write this review because I wanted to acquire a good average of experience. As the review has shown, the average of my experience with Media Temple is overwhelmingly positive.
In six months, the only one major problem I've had was partly caused by myself. Although I have criticized certain parts of the service, like running MySQL 4.1 and slow SquirrelMail, these criticisms are mostly superficial. What matters most is that my service with Media Temple--my websites, databases, and shell access--has been rapid and reliable.
Although I can easily migrate the databases and website data, I am not certain what I should do with emails, as I have four clients whom all use emails.
I host about 30 sites for clients who don't want to manage their own hosting. All of the sites are low-traffic. Almost all use FrogCMS or Wordpress /w minify and cacheing options. All of my clients use Google Apps for email.
I guess I'm looking for a reasonable host (nothing unlimited) more storage than ASO would be nice - I'm looking from something from $10-20 monthly and I can purchase for a year at a time.
Sharkspace, downtown host and host gator seem a little "dreamhost-like"... but have good reviews.
Also, I'm in Montreal so a datacenter on the east-coast would be nice
i am hosting 3 sites on my shared hosting plan at startlogic. I need to upgrade but i have a small budget. Gridservice is cheaper and it does not require as much server work. I don't really know anything about server work if that makes a difference.
Which option should i go for and what are the pros/cons of each.
I am a PHP/MySQL web developer and I want to take on the challenge of administering my own server.
I have Plesk installed on the server, and I imagine I will have command line access to the dedicated server.
What unknown challenges lie ahead for me? What are things to monitor to keep the site running efficiently? What should I be using to connect to the server? What tools are available to help me be more efficient?
I'm attracted to the luster and flexibility of the grid server world and have spent time with on the phone with ENKIconsulting.net (great people) and Mediatemple (salesy people).
ENKIconsulting.net is out of my price range to start and I have been hearing less than nice things about Mediatemple.
---Situation---
I am launching a site running wordpress blog, php bullentin board, customer service support suite, and amember membership script.
My goal is to have room to grow (very quickly) but start off small/cheap with no/minimal downtime or switching costs involved in migration to a dedicated.
My actual "hard numbers" are unknown... visitors, bandwidth, and page KB size, but what is known is that the marketing behind the launch could draw 1000 visitors to the within a day and up to 10,000 and want to be ready.
My budget is pretty small, and need to stay under 100 a month (during the alpha and beta of the site) but once live money will be much less of an issue.
I'm not a webmaster or server admin, and need excellent customer service from the hosting company (telephone and email) and I'm comfortable to used the fun and easy GUI of cpanel to run the show.
---With the above said---
(1) Is there a grid solution out there that is recommended?
(2) If not, what specifications CPU/RAM/HDD fit my needs
(3) Dedicated? Semi-Dedicated?
(4) Are their hosting companies that allow some degree of scale (RAM/CPU/HDD)within a shared semi dedicated environment?
(5) If not and my resource need jump, how difficult is it to provision and migrate an the entire site to a dedicated box?
Basically I am looking for a strong recommendation for hosting that has a platform that allows quick and easy scalability, excellent customer service, reasonable prices (not cheapest), and a friendly web-admin backoffice.
I use Virtuozzo with layeredtech, and since I'm on the move anyway, thought I'd like to try out some different Virtualization products before the migration.
Allot of these products like bare-metal installs though... which is why I'm particularly looking for "virtual media" on the KVM.
I was looking at Godaddy's grid servers and it says you can have unlimited concurrent connections:
[url]
With dedicated servers if you wanted to have 2 million concurrent users you would need hundreds of dedicated servers in a cluster, but Godaddy grid hosting can do this for $4.99/month:
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Of course currently give users unlimited compute cycles so if they start charging it could increase the price but godaddy don't charge for ram. Of course if you needed more bandwidth you can buy more.
Sure, Godaddy grid hosting doesn't allow videos on your server(embed's allowed) but you wanted to have a website that was at the top of digg and worldwide media outlets reported it, Godady grid hosting would be great for this.
So i guess if i had to choose between a dedicated server and godaddy grid hosting for a forum, i would choose grid hosting because i can have unlimited users online at the same time and not have to worry about cpu load.
I'm planning on launching a php-based web application within a month or two and am weighing different hosting options. I was almost certain with my plan to use two dedicated servers (one for web, one for db) but I can't help reading about all of these new grid/cloud/utility hosting solutions that promise instant scalability and deployment - which sounds like a blessing. I know there is a lot of garbage and marketing hype so I felt I should ask what the real deal is. Are these services reliable, worth using, really that easy to use, powerful, etc? I was looking at gogrid's demo videos and to instantly launch a few web servers, a db server, load balancer, etc, in 15 minutes for 30% of the cost - I can't ignore it.
My server is a Windows 2003 Enterprise and it doesn't have Windows Media Service. I can find a place to download it either, the Microsoft site only has one for Windows Server 2008 :/.
I would like to understand what is the difference between VPS and a VDS. I understand they sound the same, however from a cost stand point VPS is way cheaper than VDS, and I am not very sure of the reason.
What is the difference between virtual dedicated server and a dedicated server?
I know that a dedicated server means you have the physical computer as your server whileas virtual dedicated server means that they separate the physical computer into various parts and you have control over one of those separated parts.
But my question is mainly on the functionality of a virtual dedicated server and a dedicated server.
What can you do on a dedicated server that you can't do on a virtual dedicated server?
I am going to be buying a dedicated server from kimsufi Most likely the 2XL Package.
My streamers will be using my server aswell, On weekends we will be running 3-4 streams at a time, weekdays 1-2 at a time.
Spreading all the streams out, at anyone time we will have 300 viewers.
I need to know your advice on this before i go spending money.
How do i convert my dedi into a flash media server, i need red5 or something, thats all i know so far. My streamers wil be streaming to server with FME, And i also want it coded so that my streams can only be embedded on my site.
Basically i dont have a clue where to start, how long would it take me to set up etc....
In addition, what kind of server do i need, windows / linux / traffic / burstable / standard etc..
At the moment I run a small membership site. The site mainly consists of creating, downloading a lot of files using fwrite (Based on what the user enters).
Last months stats were just under 30GB of data transferred.
I'm currently with HostGator Business Plan ($12.99/month).
I run a LOT of database connections per minute. I am looking to increase the size of my membership site at which point it will be likely that I am running at least 1 DB connection per second.
Can anyone recommend me a decent priced VPS/Dedicated server for my needs?
The usage will probably be around 50GB/month.
HostGator have shutdown my site a couple times last month due to excessive number of running processes (Limited to 25) so I have decided to leave them.
I am still in the process of narrowing down and picking a VPS provider for a couple of my higher traffic/resource sites.
As hard as I search, I can't seem to find an honest (aka non-sponsored, non-affiliate) review of MediaTemple's offering. They call it DV instead of VPS, my guess is just to be different.
