Softlayer is the product of multiple provider rollups and it shows. Some of their techs are solid, but others not so much. Their processes can be pretty whacked

Softlayer is the product of multiple provider rollups and it shows. Some of their techs are solid, but others not so much. Their processes can be pretty whacked too. One rollup just prior to Softlayer was ThePlanet and their efforts to onramp us from their vanilla dedicated to their new managed service several years ago was a complete debacle. And our environment was super simple--only 5 boxes on a rack and a couple network devices. But, the guy who was "leading" the effort was completely inexperienced. When we finally announced that we'd had enough, they brought in more management and senior tech guys to advise and save the deal (they were angling for an investment so wanted to book more customers before quarter's end; thus our little business mattered). They talked us into staying and one of our conditions was that they replace the "lead". Oddly, they asked if they could leave him in place because he was "a young guy, just getting started, and the blow would set him back". Of course, I felt for the guy, but that struck me as a horrible thing to ask of a customer. Didn't want to hurt him but had to insist nonetheless. In any case, we stayed with them for some time at close to legacy prices on fairly dated metal, primarily because we didn't have time to switch. Over that time, services became decidedly "less managed", especially after the rollup to Softlayer. Of course, by then they were also pushing their cloud. When we finally found time to switch, we moved to AWS and never looked back (except in relief). We cut our costs by two-thirds. Better, it struck me that AWS's automated processes are an order of magnitude better than the "managed" services we were by then receiving from Softlayer.