I have been running my sites on dedicated servers from The Planet for 4 years now. I go through about 500,000 page views per day with a fairly intensive web app (1000+ queries/s). Mosso keeps coming up and it is really interesting me. The promised peace of mind would be a relief and I often have trouble with site lag during peak times even with fairly high end servers. I am wondering if Mosso could work for me or if it is just too good to be true.
View 13 RepliesAre they good? They seems to be backed by Rackspace, which is a plus.
Are they a decent provider to deliver 100% uptime? (scheduled downtimes aren't a problem)
I know 100% uptime isn't really realistic, but AFAIK, Rackspace has been delivering 100% uptime for ~2 years? And Mosso has a large cluster, so I don't think downtime can be that often...
As far as the control panel being so easy, managing clients, billing, registering/transfering domain names. Is there anything comparable?
Im wondering if the $100 per month is worth it?
Does anyone have this weird problem?? For php applications, they're not so much of an issue. But recently I started to put up .NET applications and there it started so many problems.
The first and most annoying is the caching problem. Whenever i uploaded an aspx file with some change, it takes ages to show up. I have to wait like many many hours to finally see the new version.
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.
I'm moving away from Mosso after their service is kinda shaky and expensive. For now, my websites don't need scalability.
I looked at WiredTree but they seem to have problems (as posted here) but they do seem like the best of the bunch.
What I'm looking for is managed VPS with spam protection, great uptime, and fully managed (updating software, helping out with DNS changes, etc.)
Would you buy from a Mosso reseller and how much would you pay?
Would you buy a plan from a Mosso (mosso.com) reseller? If so, how much would you pay?
I’ve gone through a few monster threads about these hosts but for people like me who really like to research projects before making an investment in time/money this site is perfect! Most of the articles about these two hosts and their “grid cluster” type services are a bit outdated and so I thought a new thread was in order to give updated feedback and experiences of these platforms.
The deal is I'm based in SE Asia now, and I have clients mainly in BKK & Singapore.
There are lots of fly by night hosts and resold resellers of reseller hosting providers so there's no real consensus, from what I can gather, as to which would be the best most viable option if your anything bigger than a SOHO. Ok, well that could probably be said of the US market as well since these things tend to fluctuate and a great host one month is being shat on the next but there is no market domination in Asia everything's scattered.
In terms of uptime promises I've seen 98%, 99%, 100% and even the infamous 200% or your 4.95 back guarantees, you get my drift, but probably THE hottest names on the market right now if you're a designer or blogger based on my month of research in October-November of 2007 are:
MediaTemple . com
&
Mosso . com
For reference I'm a web developer so most these offers are designer centric (hosting multiple sites, separate reseller panels, gobs of space, oodles of bandwidth, and ability to handle major spikes in traffic.) Mediatemple even has some spiffy iPhone integration into their CP so you can sched ur chron jobs while getting ur drink on at the local starbucks in ur best apple fanboi attire if one so desires...
At the moment (MT) logos are propagating throughout the blog-o-sphere at an astronomical rate. Almost every trendy designer or blog has either been on, is currently on, or knows someone sister’s uncle’s cousin on Media Temple. I half suspect there are people affixing the (MT) logo just to get in on the cool factor while enjoying the 200% uptime guarantee from 4.95 hosts. But all that aside their offerings are quite impressive for the Grid Server and Dedicated Virtual.
The GridServer concept sounds amazing, exactly what I needed a service to handle the massive influx of visitors my ego imagines I get all the time from DIGG (aka the digg effect) and the ability to host multiple domains with enough space/bandwidth at a reasonable price. So I read the reviews, yes there were growing pains from 2006, a few more in 2007 but people were generally saying things improved as well they should.
So I gave it a shot! I decided to test their GS service out using my resource intensive JOOMLA (mySQL/PHP) a luck-foad of extensions and modules installed to drive up my sql queries, and a server side image processing suite that dynamically scales images for slideshows on demand (slideshowpro). With a 30 day money back guarantee it was worth a test why not.
Now to be fair, I'm in BKK (Thailand) atm so perhaps my results would be different but on the GS running my CMS and image resizing progs (also sql driven) holy crap pictures were taking minutes to resize and send... MINUTES! It was as though every pixel was being pulled from one part of the grid, processed at another, sql query goes to the sql side of the grid and if you jumped twice and pat yourself on the head twice while bouncing a quarter off your foot without letting it drop maybe a picture would come through.
That was pretty disconcerting considering the company that develops my slideshow software is... HOSTED ON (MT), but he's on the (DV) servers I do believe.
Responsiveness of the site was horrendous, and maybe if I was running a very lean mean blog only CMS this would be ok but I have calendaring, site wide translation into 14 languages, Dynamic image processing, Forums, HD videos, my porn collection, and a host of other things my clients don't know about...
Anyway, I'm still testing MediaTemple out and have for the time being bit the bullet and decided to upgrade to the DV line of servers which I've heard good things about for $50/mo that also has a 30 day money backer. Online research shows people who've been having issues with the GS seem to find happiness on the DV servers. I'm still transitioning my databases to this platform but it must be the transpacific journey because it's still seemingly slow! Faster than GS but still 2-4x slower than my bargain basement (Singapore based) shared hosting test servers in every way.
The problem is people who are currently on DV are saying it's not digg-proof, whereas the GS tends to be more so if you can live with the performance although I've been hearing some evidence to the contrary as of late. With regard to the DV solution buckling here's one example of a very popular blogger/designer who was making the jump:
"I’m looking for a better hosting company to host my sites. Do you have any good ones to recommend? This site and Best Web Gallery are hosting at Media Temple, 512mb dedicated-virtual server. Lately, my sites have been down almost every day. I’m getting very frustrated with Media Temple and I want to move out. I’m tired of restarting my server (VPS) everyday.
Their tech supports told me that my WordPress sites use too much SQL and CPU resources and I should upgrade to higher hosting plan. But I already upgraded three times since hosting with them: from SS (shared hosting) to GS (Grid-Service), then GS to 256mb DV, and now 512mb DV plan. My site has proved that they can’t handle the Digg Effect.
Recently I got dugg twice and my site was down immediately as soon it made popular to Digg front page. So, I don’t think upgrading will make any difference. I think it is time to move and find a better host."
via ndesign-studio . com
Well that just won't do, clients of my caliber like asiandogwhistles . com are constantly under bombardment from sites like Digg and Fark. So to hear this from a 3rd generation (MT)er doesn't look good and I'm over in Asia so add another 150 ping on a good day but if a whale farts near the optical cable in the pacific it can spike to +250 ping. My whale ping theory is currently being circulated in various academic circles if you must know…
That brings us to now, and right now we are trying to figure out how viable Mosso's solution could be but most of the posts here are from last year. I have written this essay in hopes of being able to get UP-TO-DATE reviews of the Mosso system from users who have spent some time on it. If you are in my boat, your situation will be similar to this:
1. looking to step up from Shared Hosting
2. looking for reliability to handle digg/fark/slashdot
3. looking for a service that just works with little management
4. Ability to add multiple sites with custom user panels
5. Ability to focus on more web development and less on server management
So while I know I'm merely postponing the inevitable move to dedicated right now I'd like to just do what it is I do best, writing long articles... but after that is web development.
I've heard great things about rackspace of course, and while Mosso is using their systems to a degree they have a fully customized their "hosting system" similar to (MT)'s grid concept so it’s not exactly Rackspace.
The question is where do they stand now? Is anyone running production sites on there?
Or better yet is there anyone outside of the US running their sites on there or is that just not a viable option anymore? I’ve done enough searching to understand Mosso’s clustered solution is supposedly better than (MT)’s but is it production stable at this point?
I don't mind giving up ping and throughput slightly if the reliability and service is higher so let's hear it!
I have been running my sites on dedicated servers from The Planet for 4 years now. I go through about 500,000 page views per day with a fairly intensive web app (1000+ queries/s). Mosso keeps coming up and it is really interesting me. The promised peace of mind would be a relief and I often have trouble with site lag during peak times even with fairly high end servers. I am wondering if Mosso could work for me or if it is just too good to be true.
I searched the forums, but most of what I found was from 2006 when it first came out, wondering if I can get any info from people who have had experience or heard things more recently. I am really interested about loading times. I read from a lot of people that they experienced slow load times for pages (again these posts were at least a year old), but I viewed some sites hosted on Mosso and they seemed quite fast to me.
Has anyone used or is anyone using Mosso as their hosting solution?
View 0 Replies View RelatedThe title basically says/asks it all. I believe Mosso initially had no Rackspace affiliation other than using Rackspace's services, and then subsequently became a subsidiary of Rackspace. Now, over the past few days, Mosso has become The Rackspace Cloud.
Given Rackspace's reputation, I have to believe this is good news, but I figured I'd toss it out there for the pros to discuss.
I've thought about taking the plunge to Mosso/Rackspace Cloud but haven't pulled the trigger yet. I wouldn't use anywhere close to the full $100 package at the start but I'd probably grow into it within 6-12 months, as my sites get back online and grow. Thus, I'm kind of facing the old chicken-and-egg conundrum: I don't want to pay $100 for $10 worth of usage, but at the same time, moving sites -- and especially IMAP email accounts -- is such a pain in the rear end, I don't want to keep moving every time my sites/traffic grows.
I wish these guys had a $25 or $50 starter plan from which users could upgrade. I'd be all over that. (I know about their lower-cost Cloud Server packages (or whatever it's called), but I'm not tech-savvy enough for unsupported hosting.)
Given the novelty, the backing of a primary hosting player, etc., I had expected more info on Mosso than I'm seeing. One advantage I bring is I'm not a developer or operate a hosting company, just an entrepreneur who deals with his own servers. Here goes -
I don't think Mosso is ready for prime time. The marketing on their site is beautiful. When a friend recommended it (an entrepreneur like me), coupled with all the promises on their marketing pages, plus the pricing, I thought moving my service to Mosso was a no-brainer.
First of all, kudos to them for having a user forum. I firmly believe this is the right way to go. Unfortunately it also confirmed my experience was not unique. On the day I signed up, the control panel was not responsive. It took a long time and several attempts to load. The user forum also points to almost daily downtime, though granted for only a few minutes in most cases (via the pingdom links provided).
The forums are currently password protected, but a Mosso employee said this is accessible via a demo account. I suggest you review the forums before signing up with Mosso, it would have saved me time and effort.
In short -
1. The service doesn't provide the uptime suggested by their marketing pages.
2. Initial review suggests the software needs security updates. I emailed them my findings, hopefully it helps them. No response after 2 days. I'm keeping this vague intentionally.
3. The cancellation of an account was a mini-AOL-like experience. You can't cancel via the admin console. Turns out you cancel via email. What kills me most about this is the lack of understanding of security. They want me to email them my account's username and password. Since I'm human, I only have 2-3 passwords for all my accounts (banking, registar, etc.). And for me to email them my password is not appropriate at best. I had to use the "forget password" function to create a new one so I could email it to them.
4. I really think they over promise on their marketing. I think they should label it as a "beta" product to better reflect its status. The parent company has a great reputation, and I've used them in the past, hopefully they'll better protect their reputation by more openly reflecting Mosso's status. How can they have an enterprise level system with almost daily downtime?
5. My bad, but I didn't realize until after signing up that they offer no SLA uptime, just a partial refund when it goes down.
I really like the concept, and except for the fact I felt deceived, I would happily go back to Mosso because it provides what I'm looking for, once the marketing matches the delivery.
im a webdesigner, so most of my time as to be for designing and not to manage hosting settings.
So from my experience hosting companies like (mt) mediatemple (20 dollars/moth) or mosso (100 dollars/moth) are indicated to webdesigner´s that whant to host some low/medium resources websites to their clients.
So any suggestion on other companies similar adequate for webdesigners? I dont mind paying for premium service
Must have/be:
Customized control panel (like mosso or mediatemple)
@Mail (or other beautiful email client)
Quality Support/Uptime
Created more than 4 years
Location: UK / Europe Datacenter
I have been very interested in Mosso for quite some time, though Cloud Sites didn't seem quite right for what I needed with the compute cycles they had. However, their fairly new Cloud Sites looks very interesting, and their sales people at least will have me believe load balancing with several server instances will be superior to my current dedicated server.
Right now I have a server with Liquid Web that costs me $424/mo and 4x Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz with 4GB of RAM. The average load on the server is anywhere from 30% at low times to 70-80% at peak times and memory usage is usually 20-50%. On average there are about 1000 mysql queries per second as the site is very ajax-intensive (hence Cloud Sites being way too expensive).
I don't really know the difference and technical side of all of this, I just program and do the business side of things, but I really like what Mosso has and am wondering if I would get a performance boost going with their Cloud Servers (Going with something like 8 server instances at 512mb RAM each @ only around $200/mo including bandwidth). Also, would I want to load balance all 8, or do something like 4 running the mysql and the other 4 serving the actual site?