Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Suggestions For Managed VPS Host

I'm currently with Media Temple's (dv) Managed VPS products, but I am finding some things annoying: - Poor so called 24/7 support, slow response times and phone support merely take a message and respond back via email. Can take 1-2 days sometimes to respond. Also 50% of the time, the answer is pretty rubbish and they end up fixing nothing. - Scope of support is constantly invoked to get out of fixing things, even on unmodified standard software. I was having a plesk issue, and they referred me to plesk even though that was within the scope of support. - Managed Plesk, OS and LAMP (linux, apache, mysql, php) updates, however, they are quite behind the 8 ball, they are running PHP 5.2.5 with no APC or caching, they really should be on 5.3.* or at least 5.2.13, same with apache, mysql etc, they are not very good at keeping up to date. - No backup options, they charge extra for backup which is not even automated!

I would go self-managed since I have a basic knowledge of managing a linux machine, but like the comfort of knowing there are better smarter people for help. Also, I really don't want to spend time constantly keeping up to date with updates, security patches etc etc etc.

So I'm looking for a managed VPS host which: - Have proper 24/7 phone and email technical support who don't take forever to respond and have clever people on the other side who can actually fix things. - Manage the OS and LAMP stack, updates and security. And like Media Temple's claim, the updates are tested before being applied to servers for production use. But unlike Media Temple, are not 3-4 years behind on versioning. - Have a scope of support to manage the LAMP stack, but don't cut off support just because you've done some modifications or installed some extra software, things like APC or other packages. Media Temple is really annoying on this because they have limited standard packages (which is fair enough, since no one wants a fat server), but why do they need to cut off all support because you've added extra packages such as PHP APC or mod the PHP, MySQL settings? I.e. they stop support if you've made a PHP.ini change. - Included backup options which is bloody automated! - US based

Not worried about price, since i'm willing to pay for good service. I am paying $150 USD per month with Media Temple and essentially, its self-managed consider they do rubbish all. Maybe a VPS update every year or two. Blah!

  • I'd like to recommend my own hosting service, DrakNet (http://www.drak.net/servers.html). Fair warning - they are a hosting reseller (from LiquidWeb), so they don't actually own the machines.

    I don't have any explicit experience with their VPS plans, so I can't give a personal recommendation there. However, I can tell you that the owner of Drak has actually pulled her clients from the hosting center and migrated them to another provider more than once because said provider decided to play fast and loose with the terms of the contract (failing to back up client data, not installing hardware/software updates, etc.). Most of their clients actually stayed with them through multiple site relocations, and they bent over backwards to ensure that it was as painless as possible.

    I'm going to make an educated guess and assume that my shared hosting package is on the same kind of VPS that Drak resells. If that's the case, they run a pretty stable shop. Here's the software information: - Kernel: 2.6.9-55.0.9.ELsmp - PHP: 5.2.13 - httpd: 2.2.15 - MySQL: 5.0.90

    They are very up-front about what they can and cannot do, so they should be able to let you know if they can meet your requirements.

    There are also a slew of additional recommendations in other threads (http://serverfault.com/questions/101341/cheap-vps-hosting) here on ServerFault.

    Hope this helps!

    cappuccino : Yep I saw those postings, everyone is after 'cheap'... i'm after 'good'.
    cappuccino : I guess a second question would be, should one really just give up on the idea of managed hosting all together? Is it really just a gimmick?
    cappuccino : ahh, i couldn't be bothered anymore, looks like there is no better than media temple... i'll just stick with their vps product since its got plesk and must turn off management so that i can have full control...
  • I'm using Slicehost for a personal VPS. I switched to them after multiple disk failures @ another VPS I was hosting at. I'm on their $38/mo plan, and they haven't crashed or had to restart their node yet. I'm not doing anything intensive there, so I haven't had to push my node hard, but I have no complaints yet (after about 8-10 months)

    For my day job, we also use ServerSurgeon as a backup on-call monitoring. They also offer server management, which includes hardening + update management. It looks like they charge $80/mo per server. We're relying on them for monitoring in case I'm sleeping or not available, but the additional services they offer seem to fit what you're after. They seem very knowledgeable, and worked with us for custom monitoring of our setup.

    From Jason
  • I would like to recommend you to try also eApps Hosting. You can check the Supported Repository to see more about what applications are supported or go on chat online, if you have further questions. For what concernes the technical support this is 24/7 on phone, chat or email

    From Camy
  • My company does managed hosting for a VPS from £112/month where we actually monitor your site 24/7, respond to alarms and bring it back up, prompt you when we want to suggest upgrades, and log onto your server once a month and try to catch bad developer habits before they risk your uptime. We own our own network and kit, and run an office staffed by Linux geeks. Not an unbiased recommendation, but I don't pretend it is either :-) http://www.bytemark.co.uk/managed_hosting/

    Andrew Williams : +1 for Bytemark, Matthew and his provide a amazing service.
  • We have used HostMySite before, now called Hosting.com. They have very flexible managed VPS hosting options for Windows and Linux.

    From Greg Bray
  • check out linode.com

    From morliss

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