Moving to the Cloud: Creating your first account with your cPanel VPS

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Terry Myers

Creating your first account is one of the final steps you need to take before your website will be live on the cloud. Thankfully, it's also one of the easier tasks involved. We'll go through the steps of creating an account in both cPanel/WHM.

First login to WHM (Web Host Manager), which is the administrative interface for the cPanel control panel. To do so, you just need to go http://ipaddress.com:2086, where you'll be prompted for the root password. Once you login to WHM, go to the "Create a New Account" section.

The first steps to create your account are to enter your domain, and preferred login information.

If you have pre-defined packages, which set your resource specifications, you can set them in the next step.

If you have installed the RVSkin set, you can select from a list of RVSkins for your control panel theme. If you haven't purchased the RVSkin set, x3 is a default cPanel which still has the full functionality.

In the final section, if you're running an offsite mail server, this is the section you'll set it in using the remote mail exchanger option. If the VPS itself is hosting the mail server (and most will be), then you'll just use the local mail exchanger option.

At this point, you'll want to double check all the options to make sure that everything is correct. If it is, hit that "Create Account" button and watch WHM do it's thing. Once it has completed, you'll see the following confirmation page (and no, I do not use 123$$$terry as my password).

Don't worry ISP Manager users - you're up next week!

Meet the Grizzly bear, Nick Nelson!

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Terry Myers

Nick Nelson, the Managing Director at VPS.NET, sat down with Terry Myers today to go through a little intense interviewing. What we got out him was rather shocking!

Lets get started: what kind of bear is best? Keep in mind I said bear, not beer!
The grizzly bear ... and the question should be beer!

Wrong! Black bear beats all. How'd you get started at VPS.NET?
I was working with the UK2Group in other areas, mostly business development.

Since we know web hosts rarely sleep, what is the longest you've stayed up straight?
I don't think it's anything too impressive... maybe 24 hours? I like to take little power naps.

Psh! And to think that you call yourself a web host!
I KNOW! BTW, ever heard of The Gas Light Anthem?

Hey! I ask the questions here. But no, I have not. How's the traditional day go? Start with Twitter or the forum first?
The traditional day ... wake up at 5AM, check email first. Then I get ready to head to the boat around 7:30-8AM. I like to check Twitter and the forum while on the boat. I'll then finish the walk to the office, typically stopping for tea and breakfast with Ditlev at Spianata. I think they know us there.

What the heck is Spianata?
www.spianata.com. Just a place we stop by in the morning.

You've recently made the move to London ... apparently you already have a favorite breakfast spot ... how's the rest of the relocation going?
It's going great. The summers could be a little nicer ... but London is nice - and great for traveling. And I of course, already have my favorite happy hour spots as well.

Besides London, how many other places have you lived and how does London rank?
Where else have I lived ... wow ... let's see. Houston, West Texas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Atlanta, Southern Georgia ... Los Angeles ranks lowest of those ... London ... it's just slightly below Texas and Chicago ... though the Chicago Winters are as bad as the London Summers ... miserable.

Almost done... favorite TV show?
Two and a half men.

The advantage to knowing you for 8 years is I knew that answer and prepared for it. Do you view yourself as Charlie, Alan or even Jake? Admittedly I do see a little of Berta in you.
I'm pretty sure I have most of the charismatics of Charlie ... don't think we need to go into to many more details there.

I didn't know you were much of a musician.
The musical talent is where I'm lacking! Although we'll be sure to hit up the Karaoke bars while you're in Texas for HostingCon ... where I'll be interviewing you!

What kind of cool stuff are you cooking up for the VPS.NET clients?
Cool stuff we have cooked up for VPS.NET ... wow, let's see..man, of few secrets..so Windows, Failover DNS, Load Balancing in all clouds, a new design and UI (designed by a very highly regarded designer who many of you will know..but we can't let that secret out yet). Fully redundant SANs...And a lot happening in the service area too, which we can't quite let out of the bag yet. But let's just say..we'll be looking back in September ... and thinking, wow, what a Summer

Boo to you and your secrets! And that concludes the interrogation process. You're free to leave. If you'd like to leave any closing statements, please do so at this time.
Ah ... I was expecting something much more Juicy. We gotta work on these interrogations. I think that's it - we should do some fun video stuff at hostingcon though

I try to maintain some sense of professionalism. And if I step into your truck and see video cameras (Editors note: Terry is riding with Nick from Houston, Texas to Austin, Texas for HostingCon) I'm going to run... fast.

The Friday 6/18/2010 End of the Week Round Up!

Posted on June 18, 2010 by Terry Myers

I wish we could be sitting on the beach, sipping Pina Collates, talking about how awesome Windows is on VPS.NET. Unfortunately the launch didn't happen - not yet at least. I can't even tell you how close Windows is to being ready. Even as a Mac user, I'm ridiculously giddy with excitement thinking of the Windows launch. For those of you who like an ETA, I'm told that Windows WILL be ready to go next week. Again, we're just waiting on hardware.

In other news, we released ClearOS as an OS template choice for users. Clear OS is an operating system that can handle multiple storage solutions, from just the basic storage option all the way up to cloud storage solutions. This means we now have 9 different operating system options with ClearOS, CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, Elastix, Gentoo, FreeBSD, Slackware, and Turnkey Linux, giving you an extreme ability to setup your own multi-tiered, diverse-location, VPS cluster.

I hate to use this line, but it's true - after MUCH demand we have added the ability to pay yearly through our deposit system. All you need to do is deposit cash into VPS.NET, and we'll credit your account. If you deposit more than $250 at one time, we'll give you an additional 5%, If you don't have $250 laying around, you can deposit less than that; we'll take all the way down to $1, if necessary.

A little bit of a big announcement - we've launched 2 new Salt Lake City zones in an entirely new a datacenter. If you wish to be migrated over to the new zones, there is a tool inside the VPS.NET control panel that will do it automatically for you. More info. on that can be found inside the forum post. These clouds feature completely new hardware, and an improved SAN setup. The new clouds aren't running OnApp 2.0 yet, but that is coming very soon! As a note, the old SLC clouds will be decommissioned June 30th, so it's time to act quick and migrate your VPS.

The final announcement this week is an improved DNS system, which features the ability to set SOA/NS servers, which allows you to completely white label VPS.NET name servers. As well, the new DNS system features real time changes, speeding up propagation and other DNS related issues. The new DNS system should be in place later today, and based off what I've seen, you're probably going to like it... a lot!

We're just hours away from it being the weekend now. This entire summer so far has gone by entirely too fast for me; supposedly as you get older this happens, but I'm having a hard time dealing with it!

Moving to the Cloud: Setting up your first Cloud VPS.

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Terry Myers

Today lets handle the task of setting up our first Cloud VPS. First it's necessary we login to the VPS.NET control panel. Admittedly, the first couple of days I had to ask Nick where the login box was. I'll help everyone out by including a screen shot.

Once we're logged in, we'll see the home page for the VPS.NET control panel.

From here, we'll need to go to the Create New VPS Link. In step 1 of the create new VPS link, we need to decide how many nodes we're going to assign to the VPS. In my account, I have 4 nodes available; I'm going to assign all of them to this VPS.

In Step 2 and 3 we need to decide on a name and label for a web server. It's probably the most difficult decision you'll have to make, but don't stress it; the importance of this is minimal, and really only necessary for organizational purposes. Additionally, we need to decide what kind of backups should be made. I'm going to choose both Snapshot and Rsync, as it provides me with redundant backups with the Rsync backups being hosted offsite.

Once we reach Step 4, we simply need to decide on any licenses you want. If you choose CPanel the options for Softaculous, RVSkin and Litespeed Webserver are made available.

Step 5 is the fun and easy part. You get to decide where you want your cloud VPS to be hosted, and then what operating system you want. You have 4 choices: 1.) UK - London, England, 2.) US Central - Chicago, Illinois, .3) US East - Atlanta, Georgia, 4.) US West - Salt Lake City, Utah. If the location has multiple zones (essentially multiple clouds) you can choose which one you want to use. This allows you to spread your VPS's out, or if you want them all together, then you can do that as well. I'm going to be choosing Atlanta, with the Cloud Optimized Debian Linux Operating System.

Once we click submit, we'll be taken to the details page for the VPS, which will show the root password and IP Address of the server. The server status will show it as running a task while the VPS is created. This typically only takes 2- 3 minutes. After your VPS is all setup, you'll see a page that looks like this.

Meet the Staff: Say hello to Kody!

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Terry Myers

It took a bit to get ahold of Kody, but I finally did. I couldn't have asked for anymore out of the first interview, though I think Kody was a little shy at first, but thanks to some helpful Twitterers we got him to open up.

How long have you been working at UK2Group?
Been working at UK2 since September of 2009.

How did you end up finding your job at UK2, and what was the first job they had you doing?
I sent my resume in to Ditlev (Bredahl) and he ended up contacting me. Originally I was working in Sales & Billing at VPS.NET.

Odd question, but do you suffer from the VPS.NET "Curse?" Nick and I, since starting at VPS.NET, are lucky to sleep in past 7. How about you?
Unfortunately not, especially since I've been working at fellow UK2Group brand, 100TB, doing technical support and being Tom's personal assistant. I haven't been able to do much with VPS.NET lately; maybe I've been lucky.

What was the most fun/challenging part of your job at VPS.NET?
The most challenging part was training other staff to do VPS.NET billing. The most fun part was talking with all of the clients, and having a chance to help each one of them.

How many pringles you can fit in your mouth at one go?
lol? I can't say I like pringles, so there's no definite answer.

What kind of animal would you describe yourself as? Cheetah maybe?
hmm maybe more of a lion, leader of the pack ... Or so I try to.

Any other good stuff to know about you? Hobbies, sports you play in HS?
I like to travel a lot, and I really like driving/road trips. I played soccer in HS.

Watching the world cup then? Any favorite player or team you're cheering for?
Yup. I've just always had a passion for soccer. I'm rooting for the US of course.

Alright... think I've spent enough time talking... any final thoughts?
Nope, just time to finish laying out before I work at 4.

I hear you on that. I've relocated my office to being outside. I hear you on that ... as a fellow Ohioan I think we can agree that it's been a pretty remarkable summer so far.

A few of our favorite post cards

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Terry Myers

It’s Birthday Week at VPS.NET

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Terry Myers

Inside every older person is a younger person - wondering what the hell happened.
- Cora Harvey Armstrong

funny pictures birthday cat can count Its Birthday Week at VPS.NET

There are certain days bartenders look forward to. New Years Eve probably tops the list, followed closely by the Friday after Thanksgiving (At least in the USA) but there's one day that you may not know about. June 3rd; The day of my (Terry!) birthday and the Eve of Nick's birthday. What typically starts out as a fun get away from the office, always turns into an expensive mess. While I at least get to enjoy the benefit of a lower insurance bill thanks to turning 25, Nick doesn't have it so good. He just got older. Granted, he's only 364 days older than me, he's still older and that much slower than me on the basketball court. Both of us however have survived, and thrived, and I'm pretty certain thanks to some enhanced creativity levels, come up with new ideas for VPS.NET! How many of these ideas we actually remember and then decide to be a good idea can certainly be questioned.

Recognize this little guy? We've ordered (I believe) 5,000 of the VPS.NET mascot stress balls. If you want one, the most fun way would be to meet up with us at HostingCon. For those of you who unfortunately won't be able to attend, we're cooking up a way to win one. Probably will involve some sort of fun contest, but it's totally worth it right?

An update on the "Meet the Staff" blog post: we're still looking for some more votes. So far Kody is winning. Based off what I know about Kody, it'd definitely be a fun and interesting interview, but lets see if we can get a few more votes. Give him a little competition!

We've released a new Cloud Linux template, with the release of 5.5 x64. All the versions you're used to (Basic, Apache only, MySQL only, LAMP, LAMP w/ cPanel & ISP Manager) are all there. Go check it out; a lot of users are making the migration from CentOS to Cloud Linux, so it's definitely become a fan favorite here at VPS.NET.

That's all I have for you this week. Definitely keep in touch with us through the VPS.NET Twitter. We enjoy hearing from you, so don't be shy!

Moving to the Cloud: Part 1 – How many nodes do I need?

Posted on June 2, 2010 by Terry Myers

One of the most commonly asked questions we receive prior to the client signing up, is "How many nodes will my site require?" Unfortunately we don't have a 3 step mathematical equation to figure out exactly what you need, but using your traffic figures, your current hosting arrangement and expected growth we can pretty easily figure that out.

Most sites coming from a shared server really only need a couple of nodes. Something to keep in mind with a shared server is your site is sharing resources with every other site on the server, so while 600 MHZ may not seem like a lot, it may in fact be significantly more than your site is currently using. If your site is only hosting images, HTML pages, and some downloads, typically 1 node is all you need. The static files (thankfully) don't use a whole lot of processing power, requiring the web server to only send out the data.

However, if your site using dynamic content containing programming languages like CGI, PHP, Ruby, with some sort of database backend, then we typically recommend the client go with at least 2 nodes. The processing of the files, while also requiring data from a database just requires a little bit more power... and we enjoying delivering it.

If your site is coming from another VPS provider or from a Dedicated Server, one of the first recommendations we make is to match up the CPU & RAM levels. So if you currently have a server with a 2.4 GHZ Processor and a 1 GB of Ram, you'd likely want to go with 4 nodes, which would actually give you 500 MBs of additional RAM for growth.

Are there any sites you can't handle? Certainly a site like CNN.Com would be difficult, but through the power of our cloud VPS servers, and CDN hosting, it'll be quite difficult to give us something we can't handle. We enjoy the challenge of handling the growing the site, so if you have a site that needs a host, get in touch. More than likely we have what you need.