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I run SSD Nodes, Inc. (http://www.ssdnodes.com http://www.ssdnodes.com) and we have various business clients using our services for their peak offloading while

by XERQ 15y ago

I run SSD Nodes, Inc. (http://www.ssdnodes.com http://www.ssdnodes.com) and we have various business clients using our services for their peak offloading while maintaining their in-house infrastructure (I can't be more specific than that because of our privacy policies). I would recommend doing both, mainly because scaling is super easy.

getsat 15y ago
Holy crap, you guys support FreeBSD, too. I've been looking for a good alternative to Linode for a while. Do you guys have automatic provisioning/pro-rated billing? Do you do any shady stuff like requiring cancellations two months in advance?
- XERQ 15y ago
  We're using XenServer, so auto-provisioning is still on our plate since we have to build all of that in-house (solutions like SolusVM don't work with our unique infrastructure). For the most part getting a new account up and running takes 15-30 minutes, and you can request an OS reload at any time through a support ticket. We're very upfront with our cancellation policies, which is 24 hours from when your bill is due (I can't imagine companies requiring a month or two in advance, that's absurd). Our reasoning is that if the service is easy and painless to cancel, people will be more than willing to order again.
  - getsat 15y ago
    Cool, thanks for the info. I will be checking you guys out. Tilaa.nl is one company does the shady two month cancellation stuff. They suck. It seems non-Linode VPS providers either have shady cancellation/retention policies OR lack auto-provisioning/pro-rated billing.
    - XERQ 15y ago
      Sorry I overlooked that last bit, we do offer pro-rated billing. The way it works is when a new client orders, that becomes their monthly billing date. Any upgrades are pro-rated with the remaining days in the billing cycle. If you order another package as an existing client on a different date than your monthly billing date, open a ticket with the billing department and we'll pro-rate it with the remaining days in the cycle. Some clients like having different billing dates for their services, others prefer them all to be on the same day each month. We're flexible and will accommodate to your preferences.
      - getsat 15y ago
        Cool, thanks for the replies.
moe 15y ago
Not to rain on your parade, but where's the advantage over getting a regular dedicated box? Your billing is monthly and your pricing doesn't look exactly competitive...
- XERQ 15y ago
  Dedicated boxes with enterprise sandy bridge processors (Intel E3-1270s), enterprise SLC SATA III SSDs, segregated gigabit public (12 network providers, 8x Tier 1) and private networks (with dedicated SSL/PPTP VPN), costs considerably more than $8.99 per month :) Our pricing model based around scaling horizontally, rather than vertically. There are always different requirements for every project, and that's why I'll never say that our solution will fit everyone's needs.
  - moe 15y ago
    Well, since this is a thread about amazon clouding their prices, I'll call you out on that. It makes little sense to compare your $8.99 package to anything, but you surely know that. What is the use-case for a box with 128MB RAM in 2012? Even the cheapest VPS providers (ThrustVPS et al) start at 512MB for $5.95... Since your packages are sliced so small, a meaningful comparison seems to start only at your "high-end" (graviton). For $180 USD you offer 3GB Ram, 6 cores on a shared box, 8GB SSD + 400GB S-ATA disk. I'm sorry, but for the same amount leaseweb, hetzner, OVH will happily rent me a full, unshared E5540 (passmark 9600 instead of your ~3500), 16+ GB RAM and SSD.
    - XERQ 15y ago
      I don't mind constructive feedback, it helps us improve our services. I think we're both comparing two different things here. I mentioned in the previous post that our pricing model is scaling horizontally, rather than vertically. I've seen many different uses for the 128MB node, either as backup servers, DNS servers, small web servers (nginx works amazingly well), private BSD development boxes, small-scale proxy servers, personal VPN servers, etc. I've also seen the 1GB of SSD storage used as cache for ZFS, which results in extremely low latency reads and writes. The 128MB node was initially offered because of demand and is actually one of our higher selling services. Unfortunately, comparing the numbers from two different company offerings doesn't give the full picture on what either of them offer. There's a lot more that's included in our pricing, and you end up paying a bit more for new, under-utilized physical servers where you can actually use all of the resources provided with great disk I/O. There are a lot of providers out there who try to cram as many people as possible on a single box, and we're simply not one of them. I appreciate you taking the time to write out your thoughts. If you have any more concerns feel free to put them here and I will try to address them the best I can. If you would prefer to discuss them in private, email me matt[at]ssdnodes.com

by XERQ 15y ago

getsat 15y ago

Holy crap, you guys support FreeBSD, too. I've been looking for a good alternative to Linode for a while. Do you guys have automatic provisioning/pro-rated billing? Do you do any shady stuff like requiring cancellations two months in advance?

XERQ 15y ago
We're using XenServer, so auto-provisioning is still on our plate since we have to build all of that in-house (solutions like SolusVM don't work with our unique infrastructure). For the most part getting a new account up and running takes 15-30 minutes, and you can request an OS reload at any time through a support ticket. We're very upfront with our cancellation policies, which is 24 hours from when your bill is due (I can't imagine companies requiring a month or two in advance, that's absurd). Our reasoning is that if the service is easy and painless to cancel, people will be more than willing to order again.
- getsat 15y ago
  Cool, thanks for the info. I will be checking you guys out. Tilaa.nl is one company does the shady two month cancellation stuff. They suck. It seems non-Linode VPS providers either have shady cancellation/retention policies OR lack auto-provisioning/pro-rated billing.
  - XERQ 15y ago
    Sorry I overlooked that last bit, we do offer pro-rated billing. The way it works is when a new client orders, that becomes their monthly billing date. Any upgrades are pro-rated with the remaining days in the billing cycle. If you order another package as an existing client on a different date than your monthly billing date, open a ticket with the billing department and we'll pro-rate it with the remaining days in the cycle. Some clients like having different billing dates for their services, others prefer them all to be on the same day each month. We're flexible and will accommodate to your preferences.
    - getsat 15y ago
      Cool, thanks for the replies.

moe 15y ago

Not to rain on your parade, but where's the advantage over getting a regular dedicated box? Your billing is monthly and your pricing doesn't look exactly competitive...

XERQ 15y ago
Dedicated boxes with enterprise sandy bridge processors (Intel E3-1270s), enterprise SLC SATA III SSDs, segregated gigabit public (12 network providers, 8x Tier 1) and private networks (with dedicated SSL/PPTP VPN), costs considerably more than $8.99 per month :) Our pricing model based around scaling horizontally, rather than vertically. There are always different requirements for every project, and that's why I'll never say that our solution will fit everyone's needs.
- moe 15y ago
  Well, since this is a thread about amazon clouding their prices, I'll call you out on that. It makes little sense to compare your $8.99 package to anything, but you surely know that. What is the use-case for a box with 128MB RAM in 2012? Even the cheapest VPS providers (ThrustVPS et al) start at 512MB for $5.95... Since your packages are sliced so small, a meaningful comparison seems to start only at your "high-end" (graviton). For $180 USD you offer 3GB Ram, 6 cores on a shared box, 8GB SSD + 400GB S-ATA disk. I'm sorry, but for the same amount leaseweb, hetzner, OVH will happily rent me a full, unshared E5540 (passmark 9600 instead of your ~3500), 16+ GB RAM and SSD.
  - XERQ 15y ago
    I don't mind constructive feedback, it helps us improve our services. I think we're both comparing two different things here. I mentioned in the previous post that our pricing model is scaling horizontally, rather than vertically. I've seen many different uses for the 128MB node, either as backup servers, DNS servers, small web servers (nginx works amazingly well), private BSD development boxes, small-scale proxy servers, personal VPN servers, etc. I've also seen the 1GB of SSD storage used as cache for ZFS, which results in extremely low latency reads and writes. The 128MB node was initially offered because of demand and is actually one of our higher selling services. Unfortunately, comparing the numbers from two different company offerings doesn't give the full picture on what either of them offer. There's a lot more that's included in our pricing, and you end up paying a bit more for new, under-utilized physical servers where you can actually use all of the resources provided with great disk I/O. There are a lot of providers out there who try to cram as many people as possible on a single box, and we're simply not one of them. I appreciate you taking the time to write out your thoughts. If you have any more concerns feel free to put them here and I will try to address them the best I can. If you would prefer to discuss them in private, email me matt[at]ssdnodes.com