After doing a ton of research and reading WHT we decided to get a "Total Control" managed server from The Planet to migrate one of our existing dedicated servers to. The features, functions and price look great. I should point out we are learning The Planet's processes and switching control panels (going from Ensim to WHM/CPanel), so we have 2 learning curves involved.

The sales process - great - they were helpful and did a nice job of answering questions

The ordering process - simple and straight forward

The Server "build"/provisioning process - Got to give them a "C-" here. The process took less than 24 hours and they did try and keep the new client informed. On the negative side, we asked three questions/requests on the order form under "Special Requests or Comments:". These were never addressed or answered. Also, their customer support ticket system (Orbit) sent out updates to tickets that did not appear to provide any additional information causing confusion as to why they were sent. For instance, 5 tickets were opened for the new server:
- Billing ticket for server credit card purchase
- Server Install: Web Signup
- Managed Services Setup
- FloodGuard Setup
- Backup Setup
The billing ticket went through 5 updates before being closed, however each new update said the same as the last. The same with the Server Install ticket. A nit, but it did confuse a new customer why new versions of the ticket were being sent out.

Initial access to the server. Oh boy, it feels like Christmas and your Birthday all rolled into one....

First - tried to set up the DNS/Bind and WHM keep picking an IP address for the name servers that was not in the list of my reserved IP addresses. The IP address is 10.128.31.15. Tired to delete it, couldn't. Went to The Planet Tutorials on Orbit (very nice, but VERY, VERY shallow in terms of content). Looked in the WHM documentation and FAQ but no luck if this is a special IP and how it should be used in the DNS set up. Decided to open a support ticket through Orbit to ask. Found out the support ticket system could not prioritize a request, escalate a request, close a ticket or reopen a ticket. The score on this issue is:
1 ticket open 21 hours, I requested it be closed as it was consolidated into another ticket.
1 ticket 10 hours to respond and partially fixed, part was fixed correctly, part was fixed incorrectly
1 ticket opened to fix incorrect part above, responded to within 2 hours said it was fixed, but nothing was changed, same issues still exists. Have not heard back for 32 hours, ticket is still open. Sent a note to the sales person who has offered to check into it.

Next - tried to access the Total Control Panel/Portal (one of their slick managed service tools to give CPU and environment information, plus perform server reboots) - Got the URL and the welcome email said to find the ID and password in Orbit. Signed into Orbit got the root passwords and tried to access Total Control Panel. No go, kept getting "invalid password". Went through every combination I could think of, but no luck, so I decided to open a support ticket (feel pretty dumb having to ask "how do I get in" type questions). It took 25 hours to receive the answer, the password was left off the Orbit information screens and was added (Total Control Panel has it's own id and password).

Next - could not FTP into the server, incorrect password. Opened a ticket and got a response 2 hours later indicating that this was by design for security reasons, indicated I could use SFTP or SCP. I responded back that I thought I should be able to WSFTP using SSL. Did not hear a response back for 6 hours so got and installed SFTP, which does work and I requested the ticket be closed.

I am still really pumped about The Planet and their Total Control server offerings. The only issue from making this a stellar initial review is the responsiveness/quality of support. I have (maybe incorrectly) assumed a higher level of support from the Planet and the Total Control managed servers. I hope this is just their growing pains and they are able to improve this, if so, I think they would be the best in the business. If not, I am afraid people may think they are called The Planet because support response times are measured in how many times The Planet rotates before an answer/resolution is received.

Don

Originally posted by FreedomNet
After doing a ton of research and reading WHT we decided to get a "Total Control" managed server from The Planet to migrate one of our existing dedicated servers to. The features, functions and price look great.

<<snip>>

Don

Great review... thanks for all of the detail.

Sirius

Ticket response times are somtimes very slow.

Although I have experienced replies in less than 5 minutes, I usually wait two hours.

My last request took two days. :) The answer was about three lines but got the problem fixed as concisely as possible.

There are 2 sides in their system. You'll get a notice or see a change whenever either side is updated. 1 side is the public one (ie you and their responces to you) the other is the tech-only side.

We learned about that when we asked what was taking our OS reload so long, and were informed it was done several days prior...just not noted where we could see it.


My short review on ThePlanet

2/24/04 - ordered TC2800 server with security hardening.
2/25/04 - got server access
2/26/04 - hardening completed
3/12/04 - server compromised
3/13/04 - veritas backups installed
3/15/04 - ordered OS reload due to Cpanel compromise on 3/12/04. Also ordered was reapplication of security hardening, backup services and managment
3/16/04 - OS reload completed, but mis-noted.
3/23/04 - managed services reinstalled.
3/24/04 - canceled server due to not receiving what we ordered in a timely manner. Backups not running as of 3/24/04.

We're currently waiting on a responce to the cancelation request as well as a full refund.

The pluses to ThePlanet:
- Excellent Phone Support
- Great network
- Solid Hardware.
- Staff was very helpful, walking me through many steps.
- Added Fantastico and extra ram to bring server up to current specs for only the ram install fee.

The Minuses:
- Ticket system has incredibly slow responce times. 12-36+ hours.
- Server monitoring seems to be passive. (Apache's been reporting down for 8 days plus on that box.)
- Server was never fully setup before it was compromised 17 days after going live.
- Some security concerns steming from the server compromise.

I'm not happy with this turn of events as we spent over 6 months researching them here and elsewhere and were very impressed initially by their reputation, the network (my admin was v.unhappy when I told him we were canceling it), and the hardware. I wish things had turned out differently. I'm calling on Monday to find out what the status of our refund is, barring a reply to the ticket.

Decent company...but some hiccups force us to change gears for now. Depending on how things work out, we'd like to keep them in mind for the future once they get over this speedbump.

:)

Very frustrating experience. :-(

"The billing ticket went through 5 updates before being closed, however each new update said the same as the last. The same with the Server Install ticket. A nit, but it did confuse a new customer why new versions of the ticket were being sent out."

I was wondering also why such things happen. My hypothesis is that they want us reminded that we have done something wrong by opening that particular ticket giving us thus the opporunity to cancel it.

"Waiting for refund."

Your refund will be deduced from the next month payment.

Just a quick update on the support I have been getting at The Planet:

While the response times are still too long in my opinion (can be 24 hours) the quality of the support with The Planet has been excellent. They have really provided some nice responses, even going to the extreme to write a couple of scripts to fix HWM/CPanel problems for me. I'll take quality over quantity any time and I am glad at this point I made the move.

Don

Thanks for those reviews FreedomNet and Kaith. I can't believe how long some of those responses took. I always figured ThePlanet's response time was much quicker than ServerMatrix, but I see that even ThePlanet's ticket response isn't that great. Thanks again for all the info.

I´m client form the planet for over an Year.

I was very happy until I ordered the Total Control.

The server goes offline almost everyday.

It has a lot of packet loss when is online.(http://www.theplanet.com/lookingglass/lg.php).
"ping 69.93.xxx.xxx
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 69.93.xxx.xxx, timeout is 2 seconds:
....!
Success rate is 20 percent (1/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 1/1/1 ms"

I usually get 100% Success rate, but several times of the day the server stops responding and when I ping, I receive the 20% rate.

The second drive has a lot of bad blocks. It caused a long down time to disk check. The support tells me Its not a problem because the server detects the bad blocks and do not use.

They did a network maintenace last sunday on all totalcontrol car4 router, but the problem persist.

About the packet loss, they tell me it´s all OK because they do not detect.

I really hope that they take a good look into the server.
If the problem do not disapear, I think I will move back to my servermatrix's servers.

ymfm
:(

Short Update:
I have gotten acknowledgement of my cancellation order. No word yet on if they are issuing the refund. Obviously, a free month on a closed server isn't gonna cut it. ;)

Right now, I'm out $500 for something that was never fully setup, and simply want to move on in peace.

Will advise more later.

What do you mean "never fully setup"?

Originally posted by Kaith Sutai-Rustaz
Short Update:
I have gotten acknowledgement of my cancellation order. No word yet on if they are issuing the refund. Obviously, a free month on a closed server isn't gonna cut it. ;)

Right now, I'm out $500 for something that was never fully setup, and simply want to move on in peace.

Will advise more later.

Never fully setup?


2/24/04 - ordered TC2800 server with security hardening.
2/25/04 - got server access
2/26/04 - hardening completed
3/12/04 - server compromised
3/13/04 - veritas backups installed
3/15/04 - ordered OS reload due to Cpanel compromise on 3/12/04. Also ordered was reapplication of security hardening, backup services and managment
3/16/04 - OS reload completed, but mis-noted.
3/23/04 - managed services reinstalled.


Sirius

Well if it was compromised after the security work it could be argued the security work wasnt fully setup:) Thanks for the heads up, Im currently researching wheres best for this kind of product, methinks Ill be stopping with my current provider and simply upgrading as required.

The comprimise I assume that was used was rapidly exploited -- not really their fault.

The compromise was the Cpanel password exploit that had come out a day or so prior. Due to a combination of bad timing, by the time I got to the box and clicked the "fix", it was too late. Guess I was just 'lucky'. heh.

The "Never fully setup" concerns the fact that the backups took 17+ days to install on the first pass, and were never resetup after we were charged for the OS reinstall. Maybe its just me, but a "Full Reinstall" should also include those little things. :)

The backups were not correctly setup on the first pass either. They ran, but we had no control over them ourselves. We were told that ncurses4 needed to be installed, and that ncurses5 wasn't compatible. Ncurses4 was required to run the on-server client so we could do our own backup maintenance.

They recommended installing ncurses4 from RPM, and closed the ticket. One could assume that it was their responsibility to ensure that the provided client app was fully working, especially on a managed server. (TC2800i)


I'm not too bothered by the server being compromised, more so from the failure to initially offer a fully ready to go server, and the later failure to return to me a fully functional server. (I don't consider a server without functioning backups to be fully functional). The extreme lag in the support ticket system as well as a few other issues were my reasons for canceling and seeking refund.

We'll see how it works out.
They were very fast in adding the extra ram to the server and setting up Fantastico, and the techs I spoke to there were pretty good.

Like everything, YMMV. :)

Does anyone heve packet loss in the total control?
IP: 69.93.xxx.xxx

Sometimes It goes apears offline and then 30 seconds or one minute later it comes online again.
All my other servers are fine.

When the problem occurs, I can access the Total control Panel normally.

I need to know if the problem is in the network or in the rack.

Thanks
ymfm

Originally posted by FreedomNet
…stuff…

Don

Pretty similar to my experience when I got a Windows 2003 server a couple of months back. Regarding the multiple tickets, I think that they bounce the tickets around internally until it gets to somebody who can deal with it. Each time they update it, Orbit spits out another "ticket updated" email when it hasn't really been updated. I got a ton of those emails when I first signed up, but I figured that at least every time I got one, it means somebody had actually looked at the ticket :)

Regarding the IP you used, anything on a 10.x.x.x network is for internal use only (the 10.128.x.x IP is for the Total Control connection, the 10.7.x.x is for the Veritas backup). Your public IPs will be 69.x.x.x or similar. Anything the outside world needs to connect to needs to be on your public IP.

The tickets seem a bit hit and miss regarding response times. None of mine have gone unanswered for more than a day. The best I had was last Friday when I opened a Reverse DNS ticket at 10:00am my time (which would have been 4am Planet time) and lo and behold, it was updated and closed within an hour :agree:

The Total Control portal is ok when you get in to it, but it took another ticket to get the URL and my login information. To be honest, it’s not very exciting, but I figure that the ability to perform remote reboots yourself is good enough. Having said that, my Windows server has been rebooted once when I installed MS SQL on it, and that was two months ago – been rock solid since.

It took another ticket and round of updates before I understood how the Veritas backups worked. Now they’ve updated Orbit with some FAQs which explain it all. Again, this is working great (I assume, not actually having needed a restore ;) )

At the end of the day, I am very pleased with The Planet. The server was set up as promised (I guess it took about 2 weeks for it to be set up completely, but that’s ok, better done slowly and properly than rushed), everything works great and it’s rock solid. Support is OK, it gets there in the end. If I had to, I would phone directly, even if it cost me a few £ from the UK, but I haven’t needed to.

The only thing I could complain about is the fact that within a few weeks of me getting my server, they dropped the setup charge and stuck in another GB of RAM for the same price, but such is life; after all, it could’ve gone the other way.

I speak as an ex-EV1er, so I do have something to compare The Planet against. No, they are not perfect, but they are good enough for me at the right price. Enjoy your server.

cprompt, ask then to upgrade your memory free.

I asked them yesterday and they moved the ticket after one hour to the correct department.

Sometimes their support is perfect.

ymfm

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a go and see what happens :)

Our service has been great so far with them, we'd recommend them

The Planet has been great to us so far, if they're slow to respond to a support ticket try calling them. someone earlier mentioned moving back to ServerMatrix, they're on the same network, it's simply a branch of The Planet.

I have a server at the Planet and a server at ev1. The support at ev1 is far supperior to the support at the planet. I spoke to my sales rep at the planet and he informed me that received a bunch of new tecks and it's going to take them awhile to adjust.

I have had some bad experiences with their support as well. They have internal notes on the server that the client can't see, but the admin can see.

I have had my server with them for three months now, and it has only gone down twice, both times in off peak hours, and only down momentarily. The bad news is that they completely disregarded my trouble ticket and my special notes that I put in after it went down the first time. They didn't do anything they were suppose to as I was promised they were going to do after it went down the second time.

I then spoke to a tech on the phone who handled getting my server back up personally, then I called back and he had no recolection of working on our server that morning. He then looked at the internal notes and realized he was working on it.

So once again I recieved no explanation it went down, and I received no explination of why it was still down.

I still have faith in the planet, but I wouldn't recommend them to new web hosting companies. Expect to troubleshoot things on your own as their support staff isn't all that great.

However, I'm still geting ready to ship 3 dual 2.8 xeons out to them, so we'll see what happens.

If anyone knows of a tech that is really knowledgable and is an action oriented person at the Planet, please let me know so I can start dealing with them directly. Seems like I keep getting all of the new technicians handling my trouble tickets.

Originally posted by comcage
If anyone knows of a tech that is really knowledgable and is an action oriented person at the Planet, please let me know so I can start dealing with them directly.

What you need is your own account manager that will act as your point of contact. The concept of "account managers" only works when the ratio of customers to managers is quite low, otherwise the manager is too busy to actually manage your account. I don't imagine that TP can offer account managers like this as we will all want one :D

Unfortunately, no helpdesk will offer a guaranteed named contact for similar reasons unless you are paying many $,000s of dollars a year (enough to pay for their time that you are actually using).

We only have a few servers. We manage them our selves. The only reason we need someone who knows what their doing is when our server goes down to help us figure out why it went down, and how to get it back up immediately.

I'd agree with you there, but I guess you pays your money, you takes your choice. I'm not an expert, but I'm guessing (from their prices) that rackspace are more likely to offer this sort of service. In fact, for their prices, I'd expect a tech to be sitting next to my server 24/7 just in case :D

Short Update:
Have agreed upon a refund of the hosting fees, but not the ram upgrade fee or OS reinstall fee. Due to the way my bank processes things I have to wait until April 25th to verify it has hit my account. (It allows more 'float' but in cases like this is a def. negative) Will update then if it happens. :)