Experiences W/ Highly Available VPS By Thomas Krenn
May 18, 2007
We're currently looking into migrating a two-server HA setup to something VPS-based, mainly because we'd like to leave the HA stuff (data replication to hot-standby server, fail-over) to the hoster.
We hope to find somebody that hosts VPSs on a cluster of machines, replicates the VPS filesystems to a hot-standby node and, in case of cluster node failure, simply reboots the VPSs that the failed cluster node took with it on the hot-standby node. To us from inside the VPS this would then simply look like a single highly available server. No more database replication, etc.
The only company that offers this seems to be thomas-krenn.com. If I understand them correctly, they build two-server Linux clusters, run Virtuozzo on both servers and replicate the filesystem of the VPSs by means of DRBD from the active cluster node to the hot-standby node. In case of failure of the active node the VPSs are booted on the hot-standby node. So, I should be up and running again in a matter of minutes, probably after a filesystem check.
This sounds pretty intriguing to me and I wonder whether this is as good as it sounds. Does anybody have any experience with thomas-krenn.com and their clustered VPS offering?
Do you know of anybody else that offers something like this? Sounds like a logical next step in VPS hosting to me, so there should be other people with the same idea.
I guess that the grid/utility computing people out there do something similar.
However, most reviews of these companies that I've read were pretty devastating.
While there's no problem in our server sometimes loading increases extremely ( over 100 ) While my checkings i stopped the apachi and check the logs , i've seen the lines above
Quote:
[Sun Jan 28 14:26:33 2007] [error] [client 88.243.102.59] File does not exist: /home/xxxx/public_html/404.shtml [Sun Jan 28 14:27:12 2007] [error] [client 88.226.41.159] File does not exist: /home/xxxxxx/public_html/Themes/colatesi_v3/images/exp.gif [Sun Jan 28 14:27:12 2007] [error] [client 88.226.41.159] File does not exist: /home/xxxxxx/public_html/404.shtml
[Sun Jan 28 14:34:21 2007] [error] child process 20292 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL [Sun Jan 28 14:34:21 2007] [error] child process 20105 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL [Sun Jan 28 14:34:21 2007] [error] child process 20287 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL [Sun Jan 28 14:34:21 2007] [error] child process 19964 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL [Sun Jan 28 14:34:21 2007] [error] child process 20298 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL [Sun Jan 28 14:34:21 2007] [error] child process 20106 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL [Sun Jan 28 14:34:21 2007] [error] child process 20278 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL [Sun Jan 28 14:34:21 2007] [error] child process 20279 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL [Sun Jan 28 14:34:21 2007] [error] child process 20299 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL [Sun Jan 28 14:34:21 2007] [error] child process 20281 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL [Sun Jan 28 14:34:21 2007] [error] child process 20110 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL [Sun Jan 28 14:34:21 2007] [error] child process 20111 still did not exit, sending a SIGKILL
[Sun Jan 28 14:34:22 2007] [error] could not make child process 19022 exit, attempting to continue anyway [Sun Jan 28 14:34:22 2007] [error] could not make child process 19077 exit, attempting to continue anyway [Sun Jan 28 14:34:22 2007] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
what to look out for in the log files, but a couple of things jumped out at me over the weekend:
I had 5 of these, I followed the link (I suppose is the referrer) but it takes you to a polish-hosted russian webpage that tries to infect your browser. So DONT VISIT THE WEBSITE unless you're virus checker is fully up to date!
Code: shop.######.com: [15/Dec/2007:02:52:43 +0000] 87.118.120.23 - - "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 21466 [url] (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; Win64; AMD64)" As this is only a GET, I'm not sure what the purpose of this really was.
Also I seem to be getting loads of these recently:
Code: shop.######.com: [17/Dec/2007:08:21:41 +0000] 82.19.60.98 - - "GET /_vti_bin/index.php?main_page=page_not_found HTTP/1.1" 301 5 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; InfoPath.1)" Which I read is an automated hacker-bot checking for an unpatched MS server.
So my question is this;
What's the most effective thing we (as webmasters/hosts) can do to combat and report this sort of thing so we fight back against what's likely to be related to organised crime?
I posted a review about Tailor Made Servers (TMS) back in December of 2008 however it was wiped out during the infamous "WHT Incident" but I see that it has returned, although in a very incomplete state. Here is a repost of the original review along with a few minor changes to celebrate our 2 year anniversary! (Changes made to original review will have a red font color.)
Technical Support [10/10]:
First things first, TMS are an un-managed provider so don't expect any hand holding if you run into some obscure software or operating system problems. That's not to say TMS wouldn't help you, I'm sure they would to some extent, but it should never be expected from an un-managed provider.
We have a total of 74 tickets recorded with TMS since April of 2007. Twelve of those tickets were high priority requests to either manually reboot a server or check the console. Three of those high priority tickets were false alarms, but the other seven tickets were all answered within a few minutes at the very most.
When I say the tickets were answered, I don't mean a canned reply of "We're looking into it!" then an hour later someone decides to start working on it and then another hour later it's finally resolved. If you submit a high priority ticket, it's given immediate attention and resolved as fast as humanly possible.
Manual reboots take on average 10 minutes, some have been performed in a couple of minutes while the longest we ever had to wait was about 15 minutes which is what they advertise. There have only been a couple of hardware issues, a failing NIC was recently replaced in under 15 minutes, a server died last month and a chassis swap was done in under 3 hours. Hard to find any faults here - the technical support & response times are very reassuring and above average when compared to a lot of other un-managed providers.
Network & Uptime [10/10]:
TMS are located in the prestigious Colo4Dallas facility and using an impressive blend of InterNAP, Level3, Time Warner and XO Communications for bandwidth providers. There are also InterNAP FCP devices in use to attempt to provide the most efficient routing possible and also work around any problems thanks to its intelligent routing capabilities. This differs from BGP in the sense that BGP will always provide the shortest path possible - not necessarily the best path.
The latency and throughput are what you would expect from a reasonably multi-homed provider in Texas. Typical response times to my location in Ontario, Canada are about 60ms while response times to the United Kingdom are around 110ms. Average response times to other parts of the US are nothing short of impressive, 25ms to Chicago, 35ms to Los Angeles, 20ms to Atlanta and 50ms to Seattle.
There was a network blip on March 31, 2009 that caused some instability due to an apparent network upgrade that went wrong. These things do happen, however I feel that communication could have been a bit better in terms of notifying clients in advance. Outside of that one issue the last significant outage was in May of 2007 when a faulty router module had to be replaced and the downtime was a little under 1 hour. TMS clearly has a solid network and should satisfy everyone from web hosting providers looking for maximum uptime to die hard gamers looking for the lowest latency possible.
Hardware Quality & Deployment [10/10]:
All of the newer servers are Dell so you know you're getting quality hardware. The hard drives are a mix of new and old, but they all work perfectly fine with no S.M.A.R.T errors detected using multiple short & long tests. Some people would prefer to always have brand new hard drives, but that's not very economical for a lot of providers and I'm totally OK with that.
Servers are deployed extremely fast during business hours. In most cases if you order a server in the morning, it'll be setup later that afternoon. I've never had to wait more than 6 hours for a server, but I tend to order in the morning so I can't comment on how fast deployments are later in the day or on weekends.
The best deals for TMS are listed under the Dedicated Hosting Offers forum and not on their website, so be sure to check them out. Ordering a server from TMS is completely hassle free and straight forward. You pick the server configuration, pay via PayPal or Credit Card and wait for deployment. There's no faxing or scanning of documents and what not for verification of orders - but I'm sure JoseQ does his own fraud screening.
Overall [9/10]
I can't say enough good things about Tailor Made Servers! The staff is very knowledgeable and genuinely shows that they care, the response times are nothing short of incredible and I can honestly say I sleep better at night knowing our servers are in good hands if something goes wrong.
It truly is a great feeling not always having to worry about network problems, or how long it's going to take to get a manual reboot done, or replace failing hardware if need be. TMS are on top of their game, definitely one of the most underrated and under mentioned providers on WHT!
Why did I rate TMS 9 out of 10 after this glowing review? Well, there's always room for improvement and I don't think it's realistic to rate any provider a 10 out of 10. So what can be improved? When I first posted this review last year, I mentioned that KVM access would be nice and I believe they have since been added - perhaps JoseQ can clarify on that. You know, I honestly can't think of anything major I would like to see improved at this point.
That's pretty much it; if you're looking for an unrivaled dedicated server provider definitely take a look at Tailor Made Servers! Their best deals are always under the Dedicated Hosting Offers forum so be sure to check that out or send TMS - JoseQ a message to see what they can do for you. You have my word, you will not be disappointed and the only regret you'll ever have with TMS is not signing up earlier.
Tailor Made Servers - TMS - 1 Year and 8 Month Review - Highly Recommended!
Here's my long overdue review for Tailor Made Servers [url] and I'd like to urge everyone looking for a high quality unmanaged provider to take a few minutes to read this. I'm terrible at writing long posts, so I apologize if this review is a bit all over the place - it's just so hard to contain my excitement!
Technical Support [10/10]: First things first, TMS are an unmanaged provider so don't expect any hand holding if you run into some obscure software or operating system problems. That's not to say TMS wouldn't help you, I'm sure they would to some extent, but it should never be expected from an unmanaged provider.
We have a total of 57 tickets recorded with TMS since April of 2007. Ten of those tickets were high priority requests to either manually reboot a server or check the console. Three of those high priority tickets were false alarms, but the other seven tickets were all answered within a few minutes at the very most.
When I say the tickets were answered, I don't mean a canned reply of "We're looking into it!" then an hour later someone decides to start working on it and then another hour later it's finally resolved. If you submit a high priority ticket, it's given immediate attention and resolved as fast as humanly possible.
Manual reboots take on average 10 minutes, some have been performed in a couple of minutes while the longest we ever had to wait was about 15 minutes which is what they advertise. There have only been a couple of hardware issues, a failing NIC was recently replaced in under 15 minutes, a server died last month and a chassis swap was done in under 3 hours. Hard to find any faults here - the technical support
I wanted to share a little about my experience with VistaPages Web Hosting. I have a wonderful experience with them as a client, I started a new website last year and searched for a server host for the site and I came accross VistaPages and I am so happy I did. Their service is by far the best I have experienced so far, they really care about their customers, very professional. I ran into a little problem with the script I purchased from another Company for the website, they wanted to charge me again for a reinstall and I didn't really want to do that, so I contacted VistaPages about the problem I had with the website's script and told them that they wanted to charge me again, to my surprise VistaPages went out of their way and reinstalled the script for me at no cost, I couldn't believe they would do that for me but they did, they really care about their customers. The support staff always respond quickly and take care of any problems that arise. They are very courteous, professional, and most importantly very caring to your needs and concerns. One of the most important features of a web hosting company is their knowledge, VistaPages is the best that is out there, they really know all the aspects that is required of a web hosting company. I just started another website and I contacted them immediately to host the new site, with VistaPages hosting your websites you can;t help but have success! I would highly recommend them as a web hosting company for your websites.
experience with connexions4london as an IP transit provider. We are looking for dual 100Mbit (commit) connectivity in Telehouse East and their pricing and response time on the quote was very good.
Any feedback on their tech support and network will be greatly appreciated. Any other options (good network/price)
They are sure running some great specials right now but sometimes things aren't as good as they seem. Any experiences from people especially on their management services & such from users who have had them (or used to have them) for some period of time (not brand new or short-time users--- unless the short time was due to very bad experiences from the start).
And please-no "secret reps" telling me how great you are, would like some actual user experiences. Have been very happy with the same provider for over 6 years but their pricing is not reflecting the current trends in server technology & I'm growing tired of "negotiating" (old tech at new tech prices) so I've been looking for some options for the first time in years.
High-end users preferred (quads-dual quads etc.) but mainly want to know if they live up to their management & security promises (response times SLA, tech knowledge, etc. for "fully managed".
I would be interested in hearing thoughts on your experiences with Installatron. Is the availability of this something that you put a lot of value in when choosing a hosting provider?
A few month ago I needed some Windows VPS server and checked out WHT.
Apparently some folks recommended VPSLand and I thought it would be a good choice. Well after a few weeks with them I decided to move to another firm, because their Support is worse then I have ever seen with any hosting company.
It takes days to get an answer and in one occasion i even had to cancel the server since they couldn't get it to work again
Then yesterday one server went offline and after waiting a half day on support I received an email telling me that the server was online since months.
Then the hit today was that they just shut down one of the server cause he would use to much CPU
The thing which puzzles me is that they shut it down without notice and have me, the client, figuring out why i can't login
Long story short. I will move all my server to another company and can only recommend you to stay away from those guys.
I'm a longtime lurker and finally decided to register today. This place has been great for hosting info., etc.
I've been piggybacking on a friend's Mosso hosting account for about six months. That is, I pay a % of the $100 full-account price, as I haven't needed the full allotment of space, bandwidth, etc.
While I like Mosso and especially the simple control panel, etc., it seems like they've had a tough run of stability problems lately. Other than a couple instances of my site taking a few seconds to load, I haven't been impacted myself (that I can tell).
HOWEVER, I've noticed Mosso very recently has changed the format of their Status blog by eliminating the archives and only showing the latest post or two. This tells me Mosso is concerned with the number and length of outages they've had lately, as it's no longer possible to review recent downtime issues as it was for most of the past few years. (I was watching Mosso long before switching to their hosting.)
Further, maybe I'm just paranoid, and it seems like others would be complaining if it's true, but lately I've suspected some email is going AWOL. There have been several instances lately when I've checked my email after a day or two and noticed 10- and 12-hour gaps with no emails (not even spam). I've also had weird stretches where I've sent emails to a dozen people but only received replies from half of them. (These are friends and business associates; people from whom I'd expect a 95% reply rate.)
After a lot of comments, and especially complaints, on this board over the past couple years, it seems like Mosso rarely comes up here anymore, which seems like it should be a good thing. I'm curious if others here have had recent experience with Mosso and, if so, if they've had any problems.
This thread is mostly for me to keep track of how things go with this host and hopefully to benefit any others that might be thinking of hosting with them in the future.
I'm going to try and keep my interactions with this host updated here over time.
04/22/08
Posted a pre-sales question in their forum, answer received 58 minutes later. (Good sign, but presales/sales generally have fast response times)
3:30pm
Decided to give them a shot, ordered the following package (some upgrades from the default package).
Hosted Domains: Unlimited $0.00 Disk Space (Upgradable): 3,000 MB $0.00 Bandwidth (Upgradable): 30,000 MB $0.00 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Databases (Upgradable): 3 Databases $1.75 MySQL 5 Databases (Upgradable): 5 Databases $2.00 ASP.NET: ASP.NET v1.1, v2.0, v3.0, v3.5 + ASP.NET AJAX $0.00 ASP Classic: ASP Classic Version 3.0 $0.00 PHP: PHP Version 5.2.X $0.00 Sub-Domains (Upgradable): 10 Sub Domains $0.90 Domain Aliases / Pointers (Upgradable): 1 Domain Alias $0.00 E-mail Inboxes/Addresses with POP3 + IMAP4 Support (Upgradable): 5 E-mail Addresses + 5 Free E-mail Aliases $0.00 Mailing Lists (Upgradable): 1 Mailing List $0.00 Mailing List Size (Upgradable): 10 Contacts $0.00 FTP Accounts : Unlimited FTP Accounts $0.00 Statistics: Unlimited Domains Site Statistics using SmarterStats $0.00 Virtual/Application Directories: Unlimited Virtual Directories $0.00 Secure/Password Protected Folders: Unlimited Secure Folders $0.00 Dedicated Application Pool/Process: Yes, For Each Hosted Domain $0.00 Web Data Manager for MS SQL Server 2005: Yes, Includes Backup and Restore Tools $0.00 Remote Connections Enabled for SQL Server: Yes, Using SQL Server Management Studio 2005 $0.00 PhpMyAdmin for MySQL 5: Yes, Includes Backup and Restore Tools $0.00 Additional Components: ASPUpload, ASPJPEG, and ASPE-mail $0.00 Webmail System: Latest Version of SmarterMail $0.00 Automatic Customer Billing: Yes, With Multiple Payment Gateways $0.00
Confirmation page says my site will be setup within 24 hours. Not promising as far as auto provisioning goes.
3:35pm
Checked my email for order confirmation. I'm happy to see my site has already been provisioned! The email states that it might take longer (up to the previously mentioned 24 hours) for some of the upgraded items to take affect, I'm ok with this.
The email also contains all of the information I need to get things going, IPs, URLs, etc.
Does anyone have any experience with them? I am deciding whether or not I am going to get hosting from them. If anyone can recommend anything else I only need these. About 1GB of space and maybe 10-20gb of bandwidth. It will mostly be for photography but later on in the year I will have to host some songs and approx 50 people will be downloading 10 songs each.
Can anyone let me know their opinions on Voxel/Voxrox?
I am specifically interested in hearing from people who have direct experience with them, not just "I've heard they're really good". Have you experienced many outages and how is support for you?
Please also mention whether you have used / are using their managed or unmanaged option.
I have used the search but it's rarely clear whether people are using the managed or unmanaged service when they give their opinions.
I'm interested in knowing what anyone's experience with databasebydesignllc.com has been like. Reliability, stability, download speeds, etc. Positive or negative, if you can provide some info,
Is anyone using Makosolutions ? If anyone has experience with them please share. I already ordered a server 2 days ago and waiting for it to be online. I hope it is not a one man show. I will keep posted as there are updates.
I am currently in the process of looking for a VPS or Dedicated Server provider in Canada. I realize that the cost of doing this will be more than having one in the US but I am willing to pay the extra price.
I first started looking at Rackforce and they seemed reasonable but after reading a few things I found iWeb8.com and for about $7CAD more I could get a dedicated server with them rather than a VPS with Rackforce.
Is anyone here currently (or recently was) a customer with either of these companies and can provide some insight into how their service rates? I've read all the posts I could find reviewing them but most of the ones I found were at least a year old. (Although I may have missed some sections somewhere)
Found their name while Google'ing for a budget Xen VPS.
It's been told at their website that they are part of GrokThis.net. As far as I understand, they are not using Dual Core Dell PowerEdge servers (1,2) and they haven't got fancy features like "upload and use your own image" (3) as GrokThis.net. But they are offering really cost effective 64-bit Xen VPS hosting plans (4).
Does anybody have good or bad experiences with this company?How are their network?
Any performance issues? Has anybody done any benchmarks on their VPSs?
How good (or bad) are their support?
Are they offering console login?
Do they have a SLA? 1
HTML Code: wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/VirtualPrivateServerProviders 2
HTML Code: webhostingtalk.com/showpost.php?p=4431206&postcount=5 3
HTML Code: grokthis.net/Hosting/vps/custom_distro.html 4
I've seen all the reviews on AIT and their services, but not much feedback on their actual network performance. I'm sure there will be some blasting on this one...
Has anyone had any colo experience with AIT? I am local to them and just took a complete tour of the facilities, datacenter, etc. It looks like a lot of changes are going on, datacenters are getting expanded and upgraded. They even have added a retail area in their facility where you can buy racks, etc.
I know there have been real bad reviews on their customer service with their actual services, but again I am interested in experience with their actual network as a colo customer. The datacenter certainly looked up to par, but their network may be a different story.
I would be very interested in hearing from any current or maybe even past colo customers with them.
I'm considering OLM.net and their dedicated server packages. Does anyone have any recent experiences with them and their performance, support, uptime, etc.? The only reviews I seen in here are a few years old.
Hope this is the right place for this question. I'm interested in hosting with 1and1.co.uk as they are good value and allow multiple domains to be hosted (incidentally, will nosy people be able to figure that the different domains are hosted on the same package?).
Just wanted to hear your thoughts and experiences? It seems cheaper to host on their American site compared to the British site. Am I allowed to do that?
