Get HALF OFF your first month with promo code WHT340L2


All accounts include:
--------------------------
-Virtual Dedicated server (you have 'pseudo root' access, using FreeVSD)
-Dedicated IP address
-Unlimited POP E-mail Accounts
-Unlimited E-mail Aliases / Forwarders
-CGI
-PHP4
-Your VERY OWN MySQL server (as many databases as you'd like)
-FULL access to the web server (including httpd.conf)
-Perl5 (with access to install your own CPAN libraries)
-Python
-C++ compiler access
-Unlimited Subdomains
-Unlimited Domains
-Ability to resell space
-Web based control panel
-PhpMyAdmin
-SSH/telnet access
-FTP access, with ability to restrict access using your own config file
-SSL based sites (upload your own cert if you'd like -- or use a FREE one from http://www.freessl.com )
-Cron jobs

Our plans have changed -- check out the new specs!

VS Storm
==========
-$19.95/Month
-$10 Setup Fee -500 Megabytes storage
-(Get HALF OFF your first month with promo code WHT340L2)
-2 Gigabyte Bandwidth

VS Twister
==========
-$29.95/Month
-$10 Setup Fee
-(Get HALF OFF your first month with promo code WHT340L2)
-1000 Megabytes storage
-5 Gigabytes Bandwidth

VS Cyclone
==========
-$39.95/Month
-$10 Setup Fee
-(Get HALF OFF your first month with promo code WHT340L2)
-2000 Megabytes storage
-10 Gigabytes Bandwidth

VS Vortex
==========
-$49.95/Month
-$10 Setup Fee
-(Get HALF OFF your first month with promo code WHT340L2)
-3000 Megabytes storage
-15 Gigabytes Bandwidth



The datacenter overview:
=========================
Our servers are located in a secure, temperature controlled, power-conditioned, high-speed datacenter. The datacenter is located in Phoenix, AZ and is connected to the internet via multiple redundant connections.

Our network carriers (and our connection with them):
======================================
UUNet (WorldCom) - OC12
Sprint - OC12
Cable & Wireless - OC12
BroadWing - Dual OC3
AT&T - OC12
BBNPlanet (Genuity) - OC3
Qwest - OC3

Equipment:
==============
In order to fulfill our requirements for performance and scalability, our network equipment is comprised of:

Core - Foundry BigIron 8000's.
Edge - Foundry NetIron 400's, Cisco 7500 Series
Distribution - Foundry FastIron II's
Load Balancing - Foundry ServerIron XL

Power:
==============
Our datacenter provides a premier power system that features continuous, redundant and protected AC power, and built to N+1 redundancy. The redundant power in our Data Centers enables your servers and equipment to run continuously, even in the event of a significant power outage. Automatic Transfer Switches (ATS) and bypass/isolation switches provide this N+1 redundancy for dual source power capability.

As part of our redundant infrastructure, we have emergency generators with a 1 hour response time on fuel and repair. All maintenance contractors are located within a 20 mile radius of the Data Center.

HVAC
==============
The datacenter's climate control is provided by multiple Liebert cooling systems, configured in N+1 to ensure the highest availability. Our datacenter is designed to ensure that all cabinets receive consistent airflow, eliminating the need for 'spot cooling' needed in most datacenters.

Fire supression
==============
The datacenter offers a state-of-the-art fire detection and suppression system, based on combination of FM200 and dry-pipe, pre-action fire suppression sprinklers. The pre-action double interlock dry system has become the industry standard. The fire detection system consists of both smoke and high temperature heat detectors that eliminate the accidental dispensing of water.

Security
==============
Authorized users have 24x7 Unescorted access to the datacenter using biometric security, access is controlled by state-of-the-art palm scanners at all entry points. In addition, the facility is monitored by closed circuit television systems.

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Pick the plan you like the best and order today -- you'll have your own virtual dedicated server today, most servers are setup within minutes!

http://www.cagedtornado.com/plans.php
-----------------------------------------------------

If you have any questions please feel free to e-mail us at sales@cagedtornado.com.

Can I host more than one domain on these accounts?

Oops, I see it now.

You certainly can!

Dan

Are these Ensim Virtual private servers?

They run FreeVSD.

Wondering about a couple things.

How much for additional bandwidth?
What type of control panel, and is there a demo or screenshot?

Lastly, I don't know much about FreeVSD and haven't seen many hosts using it. I'm guessing there are probably benefits and downsides to using it, any more details that anyone here knows about?

Thanks.

I'll let Dan answer the bulk of this, but FreeVSD actually gives you a virtual server on the box and not a shared account on the server.

You don't have to worry about someone else on the box snooping through your files - they can't see your stuff - and you have your own personal services like Apache, mySQL, PHP, Perl, BIND, etc.

You get to modify your own Apache config files to your hearts content :).

What 99% of the service providers sell as Virtual Server are really Shared Servers - Virtual only in that Apache uses Virtualhost directive to decide where the files are stored...

You create real accounts on the box in your space and can have Shared Servers in your Virtual Server space. You can "reboot" your virtual server when you make changes if you need to.

It's very close to running your own server - but not exactly. Some things are still shared, and you still share the physical hardware with other people.

-t

Thanks for the details, it definately sounds interesting and a good stepping stone to a full Dedicated.

Originally posted by Seer

How much for additional bandwidth?


Additional bandwidth is $2.50 / GB / month with discounts for > 25 GB.



What type of control panel, and is there a demo or screenshot?


We're using a modified version of the FreeVSD control panel. We have a screenshot here: http://www.cagedtornado.com/images/cp-screenbig.gif




Lastly, I don't know much about FreeVSD and haven't seen many hosts using it. I'm guessing there are probably benefits and downsides to using it, any more details that anyone here knows about?


Generally speaking, we provide you with the flexibility of a dedicated server but with the cost of a shared hosting account. You get full access to the web server config, the FTP server config, you can create users, email addresses/aliases/forwarders and we allow unlimited domains on our servers.

As far as comparing FreeVSD to other alternatives (like VMWare, Ensim, etc) I'd say that it is very efficient in terms of what it uses in CPU/memory/disk space especially for the flexibility it provides.

Let me know if you have any additional questions!

Thanks,
Dan

Sounds good, i'm giving it a try. :)

Originally posted by CagedTornado


As far as comparing FreeVSD to other alternatives (like VMWare, Ensim, etc) I'd say that it is very efficient in terms of what it uses in CPU/memory/disk space especially for the flexibility it provides.



It is more efficient at the expense of lost of functionality, for example, the ability to install *any* application. I believe with FreeVSD, only a selected few hand-picked apps are supported.

With VMWare, you get to have a complete virtual machine, yes, you are right that running say 2 or 3 vm on generic hardware is pushing its limits.

With Ensim, you get to have private server that can install most apps ( no kernel mod tho), but you can get to install 20-30 vps per physical server.

Maybe with FreeVSD can install far more than VMWare, and Ensim, but it's not a fair comparison because the functionality set is not comparable. It's like comparing virtual domains to dedicated servers.

xwh

I would encourage anyone reading this thread to do their own research if they're interested in the different technologies being talked about:

FreeVSD
http://www.freevsd.org

VMWare
http://www.vmware.com

Ensim
http://www.ensim.com

User-mode Linux might also be interesting to you:
http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/

Dan

Can extra disk space be purchased? If so, how much is it?

For additional disk space:
$15 / 1GB / month ... discounts for > 2 GB

For additional bandwidth:
$2.50 / 1 GB / month ... discounts for > 25 GB

Additional IP's for any plan:
$1.00 / month ... discounts for > 10 additional IP's

Let me know if you'd like any more information!

Thanks,
Dan

May I ask how many virtual server accounts will be hosted on one machine? Also, how is the CPU load calculated on a virtual server? Does it specifically deal with your own account, or is it calculated across the whole machine?

It depends on the type of accounts provisioned on the servers (you'll see we offer 4 different types of virtual servers, each with their own space and bandwidth quotas).

We will serve a maximum of 10 Vortex servers (3GB space, 15GB bandwidth) per server.

or

A maximum of 50 Storm servers (500MB space, 2GB bandwidth) per server.

Also, CPU is not allocated per virtual server -- the CPU isn't virtualized. CPU usage is monitored per virtual server, though (in terms of percentage of CPU being used).

Make sense? If you need more information, don't hesitate to ask.

From what I can gather you only seem to allow the transfer of current domain names over to your system. Currently all my domain names are hosted on easyDNS.com so if I were to get your hosting services, then I would not like to have my domain transfered over, but would like to do the changes and point my domain to your servers instead.

Hope this makes sense, and hope this is allowed.

SemperFi,

Though I can't speak for Dan, I think what you want to do is just fine.

I have one domain in CagedTornado's DNS servers, two in another, and will be hosting a couple myself in BIND in my Virtual Server space.

-t

Originally posted by SemperFi
From what I can gather you only seem to allow the transfer of current domain names over to your system. Currently all my domain names are hosted on easyDNS.com so if I were to get your hosting services, then I would not like to have my domain transfered over, but would like to do the changes and point my domain to your servers instead.

Hope this makes sense, and hope this is allowed.

Absolutely! This is certainly allowed. In fact, I think Tim is one of our more 'diversified' clients -- using a little bit of everything. As Tim pointed out, you can have DNS information hosted by us, DNS information hosted by someone else (like EasyDNS), or DNS information hosted by yourself (using BIND 9 in your virtual server) ... or all of the above!

Dan

Okay, that's great to know ... thanks for the answers:) Now just another thing ... when I sign up on your site how can I set it so that you do not transfer over my domain and just leave that DNS thing to me? Thanks

Actually, you don't need to do anything.

Our DNS server will have your entries in it, but you would need to point your domain registration information at our DNS server before the information on our DNS servers would get used.

Does that make sense?

If this is still a problem, just send an email to support@cagedtornado.com explaining that you want to carry your own DNS information and we'll make sure it's taken care of. (Like Tim mentioned -- we've done this before)

Thanks,
Dan

Could I see a few sites hosted by CagedTornado? I'd like to see what kind of download speeds I can get with my connection. :)

Certainly!

http://www.cagedtornado.com (of course)
http://www.oopadelic.com - this has a few downloadable files that you can use.

http://www.oopadelic.com/download/COMdocDemoInstall.EXE is around 4.6 Meg.

I'd be curious to see what kind of results you have (if you could post them here). I'd also appreciate seeing a traceroute from your connection to one of the sites above, along with the speed test results. (So we can correlate your experience to what route your traffic is taking -- generally speaking)

Thanks,
Dan

Originally posted by CagedTornado
Certainly!

http://www.cagedtornado.com (of course)
http://www.oopadelic.com - this has a few downloadable files that you can use.

http://www.oopadelic.com/download/COMdocDemoInstall.EXE is around 4.6 Meg.

I'd be curious to see what kind of results you have (if you could post them here). I'd also appreciate seeing a traceroute from your connection to one of the sites above, along with the speed test results. (So we can correlate your experience to what route your traffic is taking -- generally speaking)

Thanks,
Dan Thanks Dan. The speed was good (I downloaded the file at around 5 KB/s over my 56k modem). I've got my traceroute information to cagedtornado.com in the attachment below. :)

Edit: Well, for some reason the attachment isn't showing in my post. But, you should still be able to view it here (http://webhostingtalk.com/attachment.php?s=&attachmentid=369).

I also have another question... :D Do you perform regular backups of all the information on your servers?

We do backup our internal information regularly, and while we don't include a backup solution for our virtual servers by default, we can backup any virtual server's content (to an off-site server) on request.

Let me know if you'd like any additional information!

Thanks,
Dan

Well, let's say, for example, if I signed up for your Vortex plan...and I'm running my vBulletin (http://www.vbulletin.com) forums (such as WHT is)...how many concurrent forum users do you think the virtual server could support before starting to slow up?

That's a very good question, and unfortunately I can't give you a black and white answer. The short answer is I'm confident our servers would perform well.

The rest of the answer is a little longer...
:)

-Our bandwidth is incredible -- it's fully burstable and is across several major providers. (See http://www.cagedtornado.com/speed.php for more information).
-Our virtual servers are NOT cpu bound. They might be considered memory bound, but we can easily install additional memory to scale to your needs (up to 4GB per physical box).
-I haven't seen any metrics that give clear answers on vBulletin performance scalability (if you found some, I could review them with you and we could chat about how they might apply to your virtual server plans)

With that in mind, I'd say you could expect at least 50%-75% of the performance of a physically dedicated server -- and when you're ready, we're certainly willing to grow with you to beyond a virtual server.

Dan

Thanks, Dan. :) I have another question; I'm not sure if it's answered here or your website or not (if it is, I can't find it). But, does phpMyAdmin come pre-installed on the server?

Originally posted by Lancia
Thanks, Dan. :) I have another question; I'm not sure if it's answered here or your website or not (if it is, I can't find it). But, does phpMyAdmin come pre-installed on the server?

It sure does! In fact, it comes pre-installed, password protected, and ready-to-use.

Dan

You may have already covered this.. if so, i missed it.. or lost it while absorbing the rest of the info.. anyway.. How long have you guys been in business? I wouldn't want to sign up and end up looking for a new host 6 months down the road..

Also, how easy is it to upgrade to the next level of plan when i outgrown my current account?

Do you offer an annual payment cycle.. or just monthly? If annual, do you offer any pre-paid discounts? Is payment by check an option? I have been burned too many times by buggy billing procedures form hosts.

We've been in the hosting business for about 6 months now (since June of 2001). We're privately funded by our parent corporation (a software product corporation) -- and they've been in business since August of 1998.

Let me know if you've got any additional questions!

Thanks,
Dan

Sure do.. these seemed to have been missed..


How easy is it to upgrade to the next level of plan when i outgrown my current account?

Do you offer an annual payment cycle.. or just monthly? If annual, do you offer any pre-paid discounts? Is payment by check an option? I have been burned too many times by buggy billing procedures form hosts.

I just signed up for an account to test things out.. so we will go from there.. but im still curious abotu the billing and payment cycle..

Sorry I didn't catch these before!

Originally posted by sabolchi
Sure do.. these seemed to have been missed..

How easy is it to upgrade to the next level of plan when i outgrown my current account?


Very easy -- just send an email to support@cagedtornado.com with your request. There is a $10 fee that will be added to your following month's bill and you'll be upgraded right away.



Do you offer an annual payment cycle.. or just monthly? If annual, do you offer any pre-paid discounts? Is payment by check an option? I have been burned too many times by buggy billing procedures form hosts.

I just signed up for an account to test things out.. so we will go from there.. but im still curious abotu the billing and payment cycle..

We only offer a monthly billing cycle for our hosting plans -- this is a restriction of our merchant gateway processor. Payment by check is not currently an option, but should be in the next few weeks (we just requested this capability from our merchant gateway) and we'll need to integrate this into our billing software.

Thanks,
Dan

Thanks for the update!

Just one more question.. do you think annual payment will be an option anytime in the future?

To be honest, we haven't explored this option. If we get a lot of requests for it, we'll probably talk about our options with our merchant processor -- but until then we have no plans for annual pre-payment.

Thanks,
Dan

How I setup my Proftpd with mysql and quotas enabled.
Would You install this for my account (admin@xocm.net)

For support on existing virtual servers, please contact support at support@cagedtornado.com or look at the 'Help' section on our site at http://www.cagedtornado.com/help.php .

I'm not sure that this is the appropriate place to post support requests. :)

Thanks,
Dan

Thanks a bunch for your quick replies! I should point out that i really do like your plans.. im just being cautious.. :)

Originally posted by CagedTornado
To be honest, we haven't explored this option. If we get a lot of requests for it, we'll probably talk about our options with our merchant processor -- but until then we have no plans for annual pre-payment.

Thanks,
Dan
I wouldn't mind an annual billing process either - if it was accompanied by a discount.

If you take the monthly amount that the credit card processor charges, and add that up for a year, you'll get an idea of how much discounting room you have without losing any money.

In some cases, you can actually make more money - not counting things like holding my cash for a year - by offering a 10% discount for an annual bill, just because of the way your merchant account is set up.

-t

Very good points.

(You're 'preaching to the choir') ;)

We actually started off with an annual plan when we had CardService International as our merchant gateway processor. When we switched to ECHO, they strongly suggested that we only have a monthly billing option for hosting because of the legal issues in chargebacks. (In fact, after we persisted, they told us they flat out wouldn't let us.)

Apparently, the idea is that if somebody pre-pays for one year -- and then decides after six months to cancel service it becomes difficult to 'prorate' a chargeback, if push comes to shove. It's all or nothing -- or so it was explained to me.

I personally don't see a high incidence of these kind of fighting matches, so I don't see this as a particularly big issue either -- but maybe I'm just being naive.

Anyway, those are the facts of why we don't currently have an annual pre-pay option. I plan to take this up with ECHO in the coming months, as this seems to be a pretty popular option for our clients.

Thanks for your great feedback!
Dan

Hi Dan,
I am considering Echo right now. In fact I have all the paper work in front me as I write this. I went over the annual prepay thing with them as well. The person who explained it to me said that it was actually an issue with VIsA Mastercard and not so much Echo itself.
I have added on the XpressChex services they have for taking electronic checks which should work for the annual prepay and of course there is the virtual terminal as well.

My hangup with is...my favorite cycle is the the quarterly prepay and even this was out with them according to the rep I spoke with.

To date I havent done any monthly billing cycles as i have never offered it. I wanted to minimize paper work, overhead and strain on my small brain so that is why I offer the quarterly. It just seemed to make more sense and customers seem really comfortable with it. Its not too much of a commitment for them and not too little.

Did Echo propose a work around for you for the quarterly...that is if you considered offering it?


Originally posted by CagedTornado
Very good points.

(You're 'preaching to the choir') ;)

We actually started off with an annual plan when we had CardService International as our merchant gateway processor. When we switched to ECHO, they strongly suggested that we only have a monthly billing option for hosting because of the legal issues in chargebacks. (In fact, after we persisted, they told us they flat out wouldn't let us.)

Apparently, the idea is that if somebody pre-pays for one year -- and then decides after six months to cancel service it becomes difficult to 'prorate' a chargeback, if push comes to shove. It's all or nothing -- or so it was explained to me.

I personally don't see a high incidence of these kind of fighting matches, so I don't see this as a particularly big issue either -- but maybe I'm just being naive.

Anyway, those are the facts of why we don't currently have an annual pre-pay option. I plan to take this up with ECHO in the coming months, as this seems to be a pretty popular option for our clients.

Thanks for your great feedback!
Dan

Originally posted by MikeF
Hi Dan,
I am considering Echo right now. In fact I have all the paper work in front me as I write this. I went over the annual prepay thing with them as well. The person who explained it to me said that it was actually an issue with VIsA Mastercard and not so much Echo itself.
I have added on the XpressChex services they have for taking electronic checks which should work for the annual prepay and of course there is the virtual terminal as well.

My hangup with is...my favorite cycle is the the quarterly prepay and even this was out with them according to the rep I spoke with.

To date I havent done any monthly billing cycles as i have never offered it. I wanted to minimize paper work, overhead and strain on my small brain so that is why I offer the quarterly. It just seemed to make more sense and customers seem really comfortable with it. Its not too much of a commitment for them and not too little.

Did Echo propose a work around for you for the quarterly...that is if you considered offering it?



We actually haven't considered quarterly billing, so this hasn't been an issue.

Also, I'm not sure what your experience has been with other Merchant Accounts, but I have nothing but good things to say about ECHO so far. Support has been great, their rates have been great, online link status has been great, even the OpenECHO developer support has been great. This is in sharp contrast to the nightmare experience we had with Cardservice International .

Also, if anyone would like to chat more about this, maybe we should start a thread in another forum (or maybe we could just PM each other).

Thanks,
Dan

Originally posted by CagedTornado
We do backup our internal information regularly, and while we don't include a backup solution for our virtual servers by default, we can backup any virtual server's content (to an off-site server) on request.

Let me know if you'd like any additional information!

Thanks,
Dan Dan, you mention that you backup content "on request". If I requested it, would there be any charge, (and if so, how much)? Also, how often would this off-site backup be performed?

If you can take the time to request a backup, I'm sure you can SSH in and then tar up your files. Tarballing up a few directories doesn't take too long and you can do so at your own time. You can then download them via FTP or just scp/ftp them somewhere else.

Originally posted by teck
If you can take the time to request a backup, I'm sure you can SSH in and then tar up your files. Tarballing up a few directories doesn't take too long and you can do so at your own time. You can then download them via FTP or just scp/ftp them somewhere else. Thanks, but that's really not an option for me. I have a very large MySQL database on the site (and plan on having a few more in the future), and downloading them over my dial-up modem is simply out of the question.

Originally posted by Lancia
Dan, you mention that you backup content "on request". If I requested it, would there be any charge, (and if so, how much)? Also, how often would this off-site backup be performed?

There wouldn't be any charge (for content < 50 MB) and backups are performed nightly.

Thanks,
Dan

Originally posted by CagedTornado


There wouldn't be any charge (for content < 50 MB) and backups are performed nightly.

Thanks,
Dan Thanks, Dan. :) But, what if I need to back up more than that?

Excellent question -- and sorry I left you hanging.

For backing up ...

50-100MB nightly - $10 / per month
100-200MB nightly - $20 / per month

more than 200MB please contact our sales department for a price quote.

If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks,
Dan

BTW ... did you notice there are only a little over FOUR DAYS LEFT to Christmas!