[vps247]

I'm just going to give you the statistical grief I've been going through. I'll also point out the good. (Actually, I'll do that first.)

- Free HostBill license. Great deal, however you "HAVE" to pay after 1 year is up. This is confirmed.
- Free Blesta License. Really good software.
- Amazing help, when it's available. (No, not the support techs in Ukraine, I'm talking the real VPS.net admins)
- Free ISPManager Licenses, an excellent incentive. HostBill even has a module for it.
- Awesome DNS Management. Same nameservers, no matter how many VPS systems you launch.
- Lots more, but I didn't really get into it.

Now the bad. Let's be fair, I was on Atlanta E. Who the hell knows how good the services on the other clouds were. Experiences will vary from cloud to cloud, or so I've been told. (Just look at London C... I've been lucky)

- 19 times my server was down in the 9 months I was with them.
- Each time it was down equated to about 4-6 hours downtime. This is average, once it's been down for 2 days.
- Lost $16,498.44 in profits from customers that left. (This is how much I would have made if they all stayed.)
- Lost a total of 39 clients. Left with 3 die hard customers who were willing to stick with me when I moved. (Yeah, I moved.)
- Spent a total of $1,132.83 on VPS.net services.
- Spent a total of $2,328.94 on marketing, promotion and other advertising.
- Net profits are ... (abysmal, that's it...)
- Disk performace has been poor 20% of the time, horrific 15% of the time. About half the time, it was okay. Perhaps 10-15% of the time, it was superior.

How are these numbers related? It's the fear factor of VPS.net services.

The Verdict
- VPS.net is "NOT" for enterprises.
- VPS.net is "NOT" suitable for businesses that require decent availability.
- VPS.net should be considered a "Toy" service for developers to test their projects. That's it.

Why did I stay with VPS.net?
- Because they kept promising me it would get better.
- Because they kept promising me that these issues won't happen again.
- I'm an idiot and should have learned my lesson in March when these issues started.

Is this an honest review? Yes. Will VPS.net get better? I can't say that. Can VPS.net win my loyalty in the future? Absolutely, but only when I see 10 new threads a day of how great VPS.net is on the forums, or on other web hosting forums. We'll see.

Oh and you'll be pleased to know I did get an account credit. They were good on that part, however I no longer have a VPS here, so I'll save that account credit to "Sample" their servers in the future. Good luck VPS.net.

I'll still be visiting these forums from time to time, so feel free to respond. I'd actually like to see some more reviews.

This post has been edited by vps247: 09 December 2011 - 05:38 AM

[ukrhosting]

I used VPS.net servers for 1+ year for shared hosting. Did not have big any problems at all. As far as i realize there a few problematic clouds that constantly have problems, best solution if you often have read only errors recreate vps on another cloud. But even if i have problem with VPS down I just delete it and recreate system from backups on another location it much better that keep it down for days and lose customers.

[vps247]

ukrhosting, on 30 September 2011 - 10:04 AM, said:

I used VPS.net servers for 1+ year for shared hosting. Did not have big any problems at all. As far as i realize there a few problematic clouds that constantly have problems, best solution if you often have read only errors recreate vps on another cloud. But even if i have problem with VPS down I just delete it and recreate system from backups on another location it much better that keep it down for days and lose customers.

Why would I wanna constantly re-create a VPS? That's too much work if you have several VPSes on the same cloud. It's not economical or logical.

All I know is based on the status page, it's a nightmare to host with VPS.net. I'm on pure metal now and couldn't be happier, haven't had a single issue. Same exact environment, except it's not "Cloud." All the issues VPS.net said that were my fault, well, they were either lying or just too lazy to admit it was their own fault. I haven't had a single issue on my new provider.

When VPS.net has a happy user base, I'll consider them again. Until then though, I'll just watch. Happy to read up on other users' feedback and comments, I want to see very happy customers, those that swear by VPS.net.

[anthonysomerset]

Lawrence, on 01 October 2011 - 12:13 PM, said:

Why would I wanna constantly re-create a VPS? That's too much work if you have several VPSes on the same cloud. It's not economical or logical.

All I know is based on the status page, it's a nightmare to host with VPS.net. I'm on pure metal now and couldn't be happier, haven't had a single issue. Same exact environment, except it's not "Cloud." All the issues VPS.net said that were my fault, well, they were either lying or just too lazy to admit it was their own fault. I haven't had a single issue on my new provider.

When VPS.net has a happy user base, I'll consider them again. Until then though, I'll just watch. Happy to read up on other users' feedback and comments, I want to see very happy customers, those that swear by VPS.net.

this has been exactly my experiance via at least 4 clients i manage that were previously hosted here, only 2 clients remaining and one is due to move away in the next week or 2 and the last is considering there options given the risk to there business

[ukrhosting]

Lawrence, on 01 October 2011 - 12:13 PM, said:

Why would I wanna constantly re-create a VPS? That's too much work if you have several VPSes on the same cloud. It's not economical or logical.

Lost $16,498.44 is logical - spent extra $1,132.83 to save $16,498.44 is not economical ? All you need to move stable clod but if stability is vital for you should have follower vps to fast or even automatic switch. Just my point of view.

But in general i do not understand why VPS.NET keep run unstable SANs.

[vps247]

I think I'm through with VPS.net. It's official. I'm just gonna spend my account credit and get outta here. You guys aren't even trying anymore. I make a perfect offer for VPS.net and can pound out 20-50 nodes a week easily, and they're not interested. How bizarre is that? Your loss VPS.net.

Why am I leaving? Who cares. We all have our own reasons.

[cris]

Name 1 cloud w/o problems.

Today 3:45am GMT 02.11.2011, source http://status.vps.net/ (no delay, no email, nothing)
"Dear Customers
We’re beginning maintenance on Lon-b cloud at 5am GMT, duration of this maintenance around 2~3h."
10:10 GMT, server still offline, clients hammering me, all projects on hold.

Wonder who is on Lon B, why is so silent .... hello, anybody still using vps.net Lon B ??

(10:12 GMT, server online; unlike vps.net, i'll contact my clients to keep them up to date)

[cris]

Check out http://status.vps.net/, maybe you'll have 45 min to tell your clients to reschedule whatever they doing. Sorry guys on SLC-B cloud, seems it's your term!

[Terry Myers]

Lawrence, on 02 November 2011 - 08:58 AM, said:

I think I'm through with VPS.net. It's official. I'm just gonna spend my account credit and get outta here. You guys aren't even trying anymore. I make a perfect offer for VPS.net and can pound out 20-50 nodes a week easily, and they're not interested. How bizarre is that? Your loss VPS.net.

Why am I leaving? Who cares. We all have our own reasons.

You wanted a deal that wasn't profitable for us. We have margins to maintain. We're willing to work with you in a reseller relationship, but if you want a quality hosting arrangement, we need to be able to invest in our infrastructure.

[vps247]

Terry Myers, on 02 November 2011 - 08:36 PM, said:

You wanted a deal that wasn't profitable for us. We have margins to maintain. We're willing to work with you in a reseller relationship, but if you want a quality hosting arrangement, we need to be able to invest in our infrastructure.

This is the kind of answer I was hoping for in my ticket Terry, an explanation. Unfortunately all I got was "We're not interested". I'm really happy with the other guys, and to respect VPS.net's brand, I won't mention who, but my rates are $4.88 per 376MBs of ram. (That's what the math turns up anyway) And they're dedicated. Cloud servers would run roughly $2 more per 376MBs of ram.

I could have explained how you would be profitable, but you really didn't give me the chance. Also, I'm sure you get pretty good rates at your server provider.

[cris]

We could talk for days about price vs resources, as this largely depends on virtualization used. VPS is supposed to use XEN, which should give you what you've paid for (no overselling), should be more secure and more stable. But vps.net is disappointing me as they fail in what i ask for 1 yr: stability. Until now there were some tech problems, but on 2.11.2011 they decided to start a software maintenance without at least 24h warning. This show they just don't care about our business here, end of story. And the luck of user intervention here on forum tells even more, as no real business could just overlook a 5 h of downtime.

[Terry Myers]

Lawrence, on 04 November 2011 - 07:00 AM, said:

This is the kind of answer I was hoping for in my ticket Terry, an explanation. Unfortunately all I got was "We're not interested". I'm really happy with the other guys, and to respect VPS.net's brand, I won't mention who, but my rates are $4.88 per 376MBs of ram. (That's what the math turns up anyway) And they're dedicated. Cloud servers would run roughly $2 more per 376MBs of ram.

I could have explained how you would be profitable, but you really didn't give me the chance. Also, I'm sure you get pretty good rates at your server provider.

Lawrence,

We have a few business analysts on our team. Their entire job is to do computational analysis for the UK2Group to investigate our costs. As a result, we get a monthly analysis of what is called a "cost per unit." On the most basic level, the unit is a node, the most frequent service sold at VPS.NET. Unfortunately the price you wanted is not profitable under any circumstance -- never was, and never will be. In fact, even if I were to fire the entire team at VPS.NET and solely went off of just infrastructure expenses (hardware/bandwidth/power/cooling) it's still not even profitable.

There are very real costs involved with cloud hosting. Comparing it to a simple dedicated server isn't taking into consideration the benefits the cloud offers, and the cost involved to bring you those benefits.

[vps247]

Terry Myers, on 04 November 2011 - 01:08 PM, said:

Lawrence,

We have a few business analysts on our team. Their entire job is to do computational analysis for the UK2Group to investigate our costs. As a result, we get a monthly analysis of what is called a "cost per unit." On the most basic level, the unit is a node, the most frequent service sold at VPS.NET. Unfortunately the price you wanted is not profitable under any circumstance -- never was, and never will be. In fact, even if I were to fire the entire team at VPS.NET and solely went off of just infrastructure expenses (hardware/bandwidth/power/cooling) it's still not even profitable.

There are very real costs involved with cloud hosting. Comparing it to a simple dedicated server isn't taking into consideration the benefits the cloud offers, and the cost involved to bring you those benefits.

Terry,

If it's not profitable then why is VPS.net doing $8 / node? Isn't that suicide? Aren't you profiting even the slightest? (Well you returned it back to the normal rates, so doesn't matter anymore)

The point is the service I wanted to launch doesn't require the best reliability. In fact, it only required 95% uptime, right up VPS.net's alley. A dream for VPS.net perhaps because all customer complaints would be null. Let's put it this way, no longer will you have to do a lot of what you're currently doing.

And Terry, as for your statement regarding the "Costs of Cloud Hosting" I said it's about $2 more per $376MB ram for the same exact service, but more reliable. Comes to about $6.50 per $376MBs ram.

[anthonysomerset]

Lawrence, on 05 November 2011 - 12:51 AM, said:

Terry,

If it's not profitable then why is VPS.net doing $8 / node? Isn't that suicide? Aren't you profiting even the slightest? (Well you returned it back to the normal rates, so doesn't matter anymore)

The point is the service I wanted to launch doesn't require the best reliability. In fact, it only required 95% uptime, right up VPS.net's alley. A dream for VPS.net perhaps because all customer complaints would be null. Let's put it this way, no longer will you have to do a lot of what you're currently doing.

And Terry, as for your statement regarding the "Costs of Cloud Hosting" I said it's about $2 more per $376MB ram for the same exact service, but more reliable. Comes to about $6.50 per $376MBs ram.

dude, your making yourself look more like an idiot with each post here...

to me this looks like a business discussion that really shouldnt be taking place on a public forum... VPS.net explained they couldn't make any profit at all from your deal, even if they fired all staff, you should approach a company that may be more able to meet your needs on that level, but then again phrases including peanuts and monkeys comes to mind. its worth considering that vps.net host in several DC's globally, some DC's are cheaper to host in, and some are more expensive to host in... thankfully they keep the pricing simple across the board (unlike other providers like amazon) i would not be surprised to see if vps.net's margins are much lower in Japan compared to there facility in SLC or Chicago.

[Terry Myers]

anthonysomerset, on 07 November 2011 - 10:21 AM, said:

dude, your making yourself look more like an idiot with each post here...

to me this looks like a business discussion that really shouldnt be taking place on a public forum... VPS.net explained they couldn't make any profit at all from your deal, even if they fired all staff, you should approach a company that may be more able to meet your needs on that level, but then again phrases including peanuts and monkeys comes to mind. its worth considering that vps.net host in several DC's globally, some DC's are cheaper to host in, and some are more expensive to host in... thankfully they keep the pricing simple across the board (unlike other providers like amazon) i would not be surprised to see if vps.net's margins are much lower in Japan compared to there facility in SLC or Chicago.

Significantly less in Japan than other locations. When taking into account specials, we also need to consider future growth plans and projected margins in each cloud. We're planning on having 15 locations by the end of 2012 and some are going to have margins similar to Japan.

[vps247]

anthonysomerset, on 07 November 2011 - 10:21 AM, said:

dude, your making yourself look more like an idiot with each post here...

to me this looks like a business discussion that really shouldnt be taking place on a public forum... VPS.net explained they couldn't make any profit at all from your deal, even if they fired all staff, you should approach a company that may be more able to meet your needs on that level, but then again phrases including peanuts and monkeys comes to mind. its worth considering that vps.net host in several DC's globally, some DC's are cheaper to host in, and some are more expensive to host in... thankfully they keep the pricing simple across the board (unlike other providers like amazon) i would not be surprised to see if vps.net's margins are much lower in Japan compared to there facility in SLC or Chicago.

I'm aware of all information you've given me, however if VPS.net were smart, they'd have different pricing for each DC based on costs. This is my opinion, and my opinion probably differs than everyone else's. As you said, they're keeping it simple, and convenient as it may be, it's rather unfair that one individual can be hosted in a top-tier datacenter with the greatest uptime, while someone in an Atlanta E cloud zone loses almost all customers, even though both subscribers paid the same rates. I don't need your opinion either, I'm not here to flame users. I'm simply a very frustrated VPS.net customer. I'm sure you can at least relate to that.

Terry Myers, on 07 November 2011 - 02:06 PM, said:

Significantly less in Japan than other locations. When taking into account specials, we also need to consider future growth plans and projected margins in each cloud. We're planning on having 15 locations by the end of 2012 and some are going to have margins similar to Japan.

And if Japan were $1 more per node and more reliable than let's say Atlanta, Chicago and Salt Lake City, I'd have probably used those servers. If your services are more reliable than other providers, that's what really matters. People can't tolerate 12-24 hours downtime.

And @ Anthony, I have a very good idea of what VPS.net pays for their servers. Maybe not their outsourced support team (From Ukraine), but you have to understand that they have team members that work in several departments (companies like westhost and 100TBs, etc,.). Believe me, they are profitable. Even at the rates I've offered them, whether they admit it or not.

[Edit]

I'll be honest, I haven't looked into Japan's rates before posting this, and VPS.net is very competitive in that area, so you have that going. Kudos. I still have a very good understanding of the costs to run a server in the United States though.

This post has been edited by Lawrence: 08 November 2011 - 10:25 AM

[Terry Myers]

Lawrence, on 08 November 2011 - 09:06 AM, said:

I'm aware of all information you've given me, however if VPS.net were smart, they'd have different pricing for each DC based on costs. This is my opinion, and my opinion probably differs than everyone else's. As you said, they're keeping it simple, and convenient as it may be, it's rather unfair that one individual can be hosted in a top-tier datacenter with the greatest uptime, while someone in an Atlanta E cloud zone loses almost all customers, even though both subscribers paid the same rates. I don't need your opinion either, I'm not here to flame users. I'm simply a very frustrated VPS.net customer. I'm sure you can at least relate to that.

And if Japan were $1 more per node and more reliable than let's say Atlanta, Chicago and Salt Lake City, I'd have probably used those servers. If your services are more reliable than other providers, that's what really matters. People can't tolerate 12-24 hours downtime.

And @ Anthony, I have a very good idea of what VPS.net pays for their servers. Maybe not their outsourced support team (From Ukraine), but you have to understand that they have team members that work in several departments (companies like westhost and 100TBs, etc,.). Believe me, they are profitable. Even at the rates I've offered them, whether they admit it or not.

[Edit]

I'll be honest, I haven't looked into Japan's rates before posting this, and VPS.net is very competitive in that area, so you have that going. Kudos. I still have a very good understanding of the costs to run a server in the United States though.

All of the datacenters we use have to pass an extremely thorough check. We do these checks not only initially prior to using them, but also repeatedly throughout a single year. We have a visit scheduled with our Atlanta datacenter later this month. It's not that the datacenters in the USA are lesser quality, it's that power, space and bandwidth are significantly more expensive in certain parts of the world, due to a number of factors. There are a lot of things not factored into our costs - for example, every cloud requires a 30k switch, that allows for the necessary performance between the HVs and the SAN units. Additionally, there's DDOS protection hardware in place, SPAM prevention hardware that keeps our IPs clean, multiple A/B power drops to every server ... etc.

There are many more expenses that go into it than you're factoring into it. Believe me, if I could do $8 a node and in turn you'd give me 20-50 customers a week, I'd do it. But I'd be losing quite a bit. A lot actually. It would, without a doubt, put us out of business in a short period of time.

For the record, no one outside VPS.NET knows the exact hardware we run. We do that for a few reasons. Not to lack transparency, hide our costs or anything like that, but for the simple matter that the cloud hosting market is one of the fastest growing IT infrastructure markets. We will of course help out a competitor. In fact we do all the time, as it's the best move to grow the entire cloud market, but we're not a charity.

All VPS.NET team members are dedicated solely to VPS.NET. No one team member has responsibility across multiple brands. In billing and abuse, there are some "core" members that will assist VPS.NET if necessary, but no VPS.NET team member works for another brand. Make sense?

[vps247]

Thanks for the explanation Terry. I keep on saying VPS.net is a great brand. The main reason this whole thing started is stability. I tried to find other ways to work with VPS.net, saw your promotion, figured at those rates you'd be profitable, and wanted to go further. My biggest question is why are you doing $8/node right now if it's not profitable? No company would take actions that aren't profitable in my honest, and humble opinion.

- What if a company with millions of dollars bought thousands of nodes at your promotional rate? (Unlikely, but still.)
- Why are you denying it's unprofitable and still doing it anyway? Do you have a lot of unused space or are you guys just trying to get the word out?

So the end result, as you said Terry, you would be driven out of business if you sold nodes at $8/node, yet you're doing it anyway. This is where my confusion lies.

[rossdev]

Lawrence, on 09 November 2011 - 06:52 AM, said:

So the end result, as you said Terry, you would be driven out of business if you sold nodes at $8/node, yet you're doing it anyway. This is where my confusion lies.

It's only a promotion to keep the existing customers happy while they figure out all the SAN issues.
Heck for $8 a node I'm more then happy to deal with the "growing pains".

[Steve H.]

Wow talk about some in-depth materials.
Can't really blame you. I have had to move from more than one provider due to uptime issues.
Uptime and availability are #1.
Reading posts like this freak me out as it does not sound like the rantings of a person with unusual expectations.

I fully understand what Terry is saying to. Customers just don't get it when they see how much you charge. They don't get
the money that has to be spent to deliver the services you sell.
Hardware, software, and personnel are all a premium price in anything to do with computers and quickly drive the price up on any project.

I was curious if the OP figure for loss was per month or per year.