I signed up for SoftLayer again finally today. But my luck with them doesn't seem good.
I opted for Washington since it seemed a good contrasting location to the servers in texas.
I'm trying to rsync-over about 700GB of data from 2 servers located in Houston TX, ThePlanet.
My SoftLayer server has a 100mbps port, same with the source servers.
It's been at least 6-7 hours since I started the rsync commands. But since then it has only transferred a measly 35GB. Perhaps I'm not doing the maths so great here, but isn't this quite a poor transfer rate?
I wondered if any of you have a server at Washington SL, and had any similar problems with transfer speed in general. Should I have gone for Seattle instead?
Any suggestions / positive experiences? The 1st preference would be Maryland side (all way up to Frederick) but the whole area is definitely of interest.
1-2 1U boxes or maybe a 4U with initially minimal bandwith reqs and high regard to cost effectiveness
We have a special application need colo space in the Washington DC area, it need 1/4 rack space, it has limited bandwidth requirements (1Mb), 5A power, 3 static IPs.
Could every please name the collocation providers in Washington DC and Maryland area who are cost effective? I travel and do business in that area and we are looking into putting a part of facility in that location for redundancy. Any website link information or names in that area would be great. Cost effectiveness is a big factor as well.
which company in terms of reliability, support, and mostly network (as I see it, SL and FDC have similar networks) is the best? Price isn't a real issue here .
My clients in LA - those on AT&T and Time Warner in paticular - are having bad download speeds from my server with Softlayer. Anyone else having similar trouble? Clients who normally get 500-700kb/s down are getting < 50 kb/s down, even early in the morning when the total traffic on my 100mbps port is under 1.5mbps.
Basically, east coast is fine, and anyone with a T1 in LA is fine as well - it's just DSL and Cable modems in LA that are screwed up. In fact, one of our are clients is using Apple Remote Desktop to connect to a remote client with a T1; it's faster to through Time Warner, then VPN to Verizon, and then connect Softlayer and back again than to go directly from Time Warner to Softlayer, which is really weird.
I was thinking of buying a new server from SoftLayer When this company called WebNX.com happened to catch my attention.
I did a search of WHT but could not find much about WebNX. I also went to their site (but not much info is published there like SLAs, support fee etc etc...
However, the custom quite they sent me sounds quite reasonable compared to softlayer.
Anyone who can share experience of hosting with webnx? or has more info webnx.com and can share their views will be nice.
For those who are still under the softlayer hacker abuse please note you will need to re-load your server. We got hit a 2nd time after thinking everything was clean. Anyhow, for those who got hit again, my team and another from WHT - forgot who made the original clean.php script...
anyhow, here is a tool to clean all the data for all of your users:Copy fixit.pl and clean4.php to a directory. IE: /home/yourusername
Change username "changeme" in fixit.pl to the username where clean4.php is located execute fixit.pl: IE: perl fixit.pl. If you want to test this on one user uncomment the die statement. When you are ready to do the entire server comment the die statement.
We have being Softlayer for few month now since around 09/04/2008.
We got the server at first for high bandwith client until he could get is server upgrade completed as he colo's is server elsewhere need a temp solution we no longer host is site but still kept server for other clients after all SL did for us we would never think of leaving.
We deployed site and then we ran into problems server seemed become unresponsive after a few hours.
We explained this to SL and did chasis swap and got us back online but problem remained and did not charge for os reload or chasis and even upgrade connection to make sure we not bottlenecks stoping from serving content.
After they started looking apache and using information for original server config had at other datacenter and found solutions that solved issues.
Billing dept and support dept as being of great assistance when needed them.
Overall we very pleased with SL and would not look elsewhere for quality provider and pricing for what we are getting is very reasonable.
I thinking to buy new servers and now I checking offers on softlayer and dedicatedNow and look like prices on softlayer are higher and also dedicatedNow offer is for managed servers...
In this moment I have few servers with softlayer and all working fine but price...I don`t know nothing about DedicatedNow...what you think SL vs DN?
As those who read my previous thread (or helped me on it -- thank you!) know, I've been looking at upgrading to a new server at the Planet. I've been very happy with the service at the Planet. I ended up with a quote on a Xeon 3040/2 GB of RAM/2x 250 GB hard disks/RHEL 5/10 usable IPs/cPanel+Fantastico and the Planet's standard "built in support" monitoring, escalation procedure, automated OS updates, etc. for $174/month and no setup.
That sounds decent enough, but I keep reading this forum and seeing good things about SoftLayer over and above the Planet. Should I consider moving? Anyone care to say what is better about SoftLayer? Anyone know of any cons to moving? I was inclined not to really shop around since the Planet has been good, but I don't want to be foolish and I by the sounds of some of those reviewing them, it sounds like SoftLayer's support is worth switching for.
Did some quick research and it seems as though MidPhase and SIngleHop share office space, and the MidPhase network is what SIngleHop appears to run on.
Am I wrong on either of these? Because SingleHop's network, at least from here, is quite fast. My question is whether MidPhase.com stuff gets hosted in SingleHop's DC or is it in SoftLayer's DCs? Both are great, but SL isn't in Chicago...and SIngleHop is.
If MidPhase shared/dedi/PS isn't in SingleHop's DC, what's a good host for shared/VPS that is? Yes, SoftLayer is awesome, especially with ~25 ms pings from here bd. 35 to SingleHop...but just researching here...
I have been with SoftLayer a month now, and this is my review of their company. I will start with my pre-sales experience, going into hardware, their network, server, portal, accounting/sales, and support .
[[[[[[[ PRE SALES ]]]]]]]
I started out looking for a new server by looking at some good dedicated hosts. I saw SoftLayer offered the new Nehalem series, so I went for it. Their sales team is excellent beyond all reasons -- the staff are personal and do NOT try to take your money; instead, they find the best-fit solution for you and work with you by calling you, showing you their specials, and talking to managers.
[[[[[[ HARDWARE ]]]]]]]
The Hardware at SL is top-notch. There's no problem with it, it's clearly stated in the portal what type of motherboard, HDs, RAM, etc are in the server and it's top-notch Supermicro hardware. I've never seen a problem with it, and I have seen the certificate of passing benchmarks as that is done on all SL servers by default.
Their provisioning system is excellent, I got my server in 2-3 hours at MAX. WOW! It is all inside the portal too; you can view the status (PE_BOOT, OS_RELOAD); it's clearly there and excellent. We finally got VIRTUOZZO (thanks natecarlson ) working with it too.
[[[[ SERVER ]]]]]
What can I say? This is the new Nehalem series. I think the deal I got was quite good, I brought several SL servers before I switched to this one, and it did take a while to get it down to this price (especially for SL quality, damn!) :
-Intel Dual Quad Core (2x) X5570 Nehalem 2.93GHZ w/ HT -12 x 300GB SAS 15K Seagate Cheetah HD's in RAID 10 -12GB DDR3 RAM (to start) -4000GB Monthly Bandwith -1GigE Port Speed -64 IP Addresses -Monitoring & Automated Reboot $1,100 a month -- which I think is good for this type of server.
It's blazing fast and 0 problems.
[[[[ NETWORK ]]]]
I started in their Dallas, TX datacenter with a Dual 5450, but decided to get a 2U server with SAS HD's. Sadly, they said they were out of stock in Dallas. They said they can get me an EXTRA DISCOUNT if I went to Washington DC. I live an hour or two from DC, so it was good for me. I debated, and talked to them, they said it was a great place and I went with their Washington D.C datacenter .
It's fast. Blazing fast. They have like 100GBPS connectivity -- with many backbone providers. I've never seen so many . I'm liking the nework speeds and it really is nice.
[[[[ PORTAL ]]]]
The best part. They have their 'manage.softlayer.com' and their mobile 'manage.softlayer.mobi' portals. They are excellent. I don't even need support, and when I do, it's there. I mean, I'm STILL exploring their portal system. It has so much stuff; "Instant cPanel Licenseing, Instant Firewall, Upgrades, IP's, OS reloads, Installs, Backups" -- I love it. It makes my life a lot easier and quiker. I've had a server with ThePlanet, HiVelocity, and more and SL portal blows them all away
[[[ SUPPORT ]]]
The support is great. In the times I need it, it's there. Within 15 minutes I get a response and usually in under an hour, a resolution. It's excellent in what they provide at an unmanaged rate, and the $3 tickets are great in my opinion for those quick issues that you just can't figure out. They even helped me with a bit of PHP help!
[[[ ACCOUNTING AND SALES ]]]
It's there any time I needed it. I got servers upgraded, downgraded, reclaimed, removed, created, OS reloaded, invoices adjusted, and it's there. They respond within 1 hour usually and it's great for a sales team. Personally it's awesome how they have excellent teams for support and sales! The reps are VERY nice and friendly too, and they offer some nice discounts .
[[[ OVERALL ]]]
I give SoftLayer a 10/10+. They are everything I expect from a provider (heck, they are better than most managed providers I've been with) and more. I urge you to try them out, they will try to fit your budget as good as you can do it.
I'd first like to follow up with my end at GNAX. I ended up going down to them on the 31st to pick up my colo server and get my refund. All went generally well, except for the "I'll be back in 5 mins" that took more than 30 mins for some sales/billing guy to get me my stuff. Signed some papers, and my money was refunded in full. In the end, a happy ending with GNAX.
Now, while all that was ongoing, I moved over to a dedicated server at Softlayer quick as I could because I knew with 100% certainty that Jeff would have my service terminated when I posted the chat log of him threatening me - a controversial decision I still stand by for what it's worth.
First, lets talk about sales with Softlayer. My God - I have never seen anything like this. With GNAX, sales would consist of me sending a ticket and waiting days, or it getting closed randomly, then having to wait more and more. A 48-hour max setup time with GNAX ended up being 5+ days and still no setup. Softlayer. I was doing Live Chat with an agent who was extremely helpful. Too move the process along quicker, I asked if I could call and speak with him, and sure enough, he game me a toll free number and I spoke with him through the entire ordering process. Not only was he extremely knowlegeable and helpful, but he also pointed me to a special I was unaware of where I got double the RAM and a second hard drive for free. I ended up ordering a dual core Xeon setup, but I actually got setup with a quad Core Xeon X3220. No mistake they said, they were just out of what I ordered so they gave me a quad core for the price of a dual core. And all of this happened in less than 4 hours. Yep, that's right. I went from on the phone with sales to having my brand new quad core for the price of a dual core with twice the RAM and HDD for free in under four hours. I was actually shocked. After being with GNAX so long, I had no idea that anything even under a 24 hour wait was possible (which it wasn't with GNAX btw), and they didn't hold my order because of being short on inventory like GNAX did - they just gave me a free upgrade with no delay!
With GNAX, I have never been able to be in such control of my server as I am now with Softlayer. With GNAX, lets say, I wanted to change or add reverse DNS for an IP, I would have to send a ticket and wait hours and hours and hours for them to do it. With Softlayer, I login to the portal, and click click type, click and it's done and live. All by myself! Their portal is the most powerful thing I have ever seen and it allows me to do and see everything.
Their support, I'm convinced, is second to none. I once had three days of downtime with GNAX because of a hardware problem (their hardware) they just couldn't fix. The motherboard has gone bad and I had to wait three days for them to find another identical motherboard to replace mine with. Apparently, they don't like to keep hardware on hand in case of emergency. In the mean time, I was faced with a lot of pissed off people who couldn't access the server for three days while all GNAX did was "we're looking, we're trying". Three days downtime is unacceptable, GNAX's support is just horrible. Phone support is essentially non-existent. When, on occasion, people pick up the phone, I'm simply told to submit a ticket and they'll get to it - when it's convenient for them. Support with Softlayer is drastically different, I can call support and pick their brains on technical problems for as long as I need. Recently, something went wrong when I was moving IP addresses around with my servers, and I was able to submit a ticket, call them, and they resolved it while on the phone with me. Some other small issues cropped up, and I replied to the ticket as it was non-urgent, and they had it fixed it about 20 mins. THAT people, is how support. Again, after being with GNAX for so long and having to wait hours, and sometimes days for support, having things fixed on the phone with me or via ticket in under 15 mins really caught me off guard.
Sales - part two.
Incredibly impressed with the sales and support I have seen so far, I recently ordered a second server. Again, I did this over the phone and was given an amazing deal - one not even on their site! In the end, it'll save me about $60/month on my second server. Pretty decent I say.
Other stuff.
They have a forum! That's not what's cool in itself, but it's cool that its integrated into my portal account. Now, GNAX has a forum too, but you first have to email GNAX and ask for their blessing to sign up there.
Another nifty thing about Softlayer is their developer API. Their API enables tons of cool things, like I can see my uptime and bandwidth usage from within WHMCS. With GNAX, I would have to go find which one of my logins for their seemingly hundreds of disintegrated services. Having everything being in one place and under one login with Softlayer.
Basically, if you need a dedicated server provider, choose Softlayer. Leaving GNAX (well, being forced out) and moving to Softlayer is the best thing that has ever happened to me an my company.
