I signed on with Platinum Server Management in November 2007 after moving to my first dedicated server. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and, because I was on a tight budget, couldn't afford much in terms of monitoring/management services.

I'm now on my 2nd server and am still with PSM. With that said, here is my experience so far:

Support:

Their support techs really seem to know what they're doing. Aside from some mysterious network issues with AOL's mail servers, I haven't come across a single issue they haven't figured out or resolved for me (and the AOL issue was nothing they could have fixed anyways). They've helped with things like PTR records, installing software packages/libraries, mail server issues, php.ini edits and of course system reboots when needed. In the last six months I've submitted about 40 tickets (avg 5 tickets/month).

In terms of personality, I'd say they have a straight forward, no-nonsense approach to support tickets. There isn't a lot of non-essential chatter and, although some might not like the 'this has been fixed' kind of responses...it personally doesn't bother me. I have a tendency to over-explain in my tickets, which they seem rather patient with. As a complete novice, I don't feel as if they're rude or condescending of my inexperience or dumb questions.

Timeliness:

If I had any complaints of PSM, this would be the only area (and it isn't really a true complaint). It isn't that they are obnoxiously slow or don't follow through with their service guarantees (6 hour response guarantee - 24 resolution guarantee) - but that a few times I've run into time-sensitive fixes/updates that didn't classify as an 'emergency' support request but was still causing a significant problem with a client site on my server.

An example would be that I recently moved to a new server and (like an idiot) updated DNS before ensuring everything was configured properly on the server. After my client websites started to propagate, I discovered that the version of mySQL installed was incompatible with my in-house CMS and everyones website was throwing out an error. I submitted a ticket with PSM to downgrade the version of mySQL, but after a couple of hours with no response (and stressed from clients yelling at me), I ended up having Pacific Rack (my new, amazing dedi-provider) do it using their 'off the wave' support option ($5/incident for 10 minute or less updates).

However, in terms of PSM - I completely understand that I can't expect an immediate turn-around on a $30/month retainer, so I don't truly fault them for those rare instances when I needed a quick fix and it took them a bit longer to get to it. When it comes to reboots and passive updates (ie: installing php libraries or other non-essential tweaks), they are absolutely fantastic. And don't get me wrong - they're still great in resolving more serious issues....but it might take longer than what you like. On average...I'd say the majority of tickets I've posted are resolved within 1-4 hours - which is very reasonable and well within their service guarantees.

Price:

You really can't beat $30/month for monitoring & server administration. Even if some tickets take awhile...it is still an excellent value for the services they provide.

Summary:

All in all, I highly recommend PSM for those on a server with cPanel and supported platform (RH,Fedora,CentOS). Especially so for people in the novice demographic (those not at all comfortable with installing software or command line server administration). They may not be the fastest kid on the block...but again, you really get a terrific, no-hassle service for what you pay. My advice would be to retain PSM for the majority of your management support but then have a 'back-up' guy to pay on a per-incident basis for situations where you need something fixed immediately.

Good to hear, and from what I see I agree. For the price you just can't beat them.

I have heard only positive comments about them as well.

there response times to tickets is always fast and always help resolve issues pretty quick. can only say good things about them! :)

True, I really wonder if they could consider doing managed hosting? for example my situation is pretty much the same as the person who opened the ticket...pretty much, been there with AOL ..and psm on my side, if they could manage our clients hosting issues, i would GLADLY give it to them,,psm think about it

http://serverbasement.com/ from what I understand is owned by PSM, however the specs on their site seem to be out of date. May want to ask. I used to be a customer a while back.

i use PSM services about 4-5 month and i am really pleasant because their support is very nice...