Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 25 of 26
  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Posts
    3,784

    Thumbs down Softlayer has become horrible!

    We have one left over server that we got from The Planet a while back, it was great until the The Planet <-> Softlayer merger. I figured I would have received better support with the merge, not the other way around.

    Each person will have a different experience with them, I'll share ours.

    - We have a sata backup drive in this server, it appeared dead so I asked them to replace it. They informed me it would be replaced, they wouldn't have to shut down the box, etc, so we told them to go ahead.

    What really happened: They took out the wrong drive, took one of the SAS drives in the raid and rebooted the box, which somehow corrupted the raid.

    We were down for a few hours.

    - We didn't want to attempt to replace the backup drive again, so we waited a few months and asked again. Explained to them what they did wrong last time and they promised it would be fine. They replaced the drive and the machine stayed up, so that was good.

    What really happened: Although they removed the correct drive and didn't reboot our server this time, we rebooted it on our own and found out that someone else's operating system booted up instead of ours. They put a old customer's drive into our server which took over.

    Pretty scary, imo, obviously they are not destroying data once customers quit.

    - We asked for a SLA credit for these issues, it was submitted a week and a half ago. They responded a week and a half ago with 'We'll look into this', no updates since then despite us asking for updates.

    Good job Softlayer, you're useless.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Posts
    3,531
    The first instance sounds like an unfortunate mistake, these do happen 'everywhere' and are just unlucky.

    However the second I am quite shocked about, not the fact that they used a old hard drive but they didn't even perform a quick format on it

    You should chase them up again, as you probably are due SLA for both instances...
    BotWars.io - Code the AI of your Battle Bot!

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Ashburn VA, San Diego CA
    Posts
    4,615
    Ouch... good luck.
    Fast Serv Networks, LLC | AS29889 | DDOS Protected | Managed Cloud, Streaming, Dedicated Servers, Colo by-the-U
    Since 2003 - Ashburn VA + San Diego CA Datacenters

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Datacenter
    Posts
    4,414
    Not too good of an experience if you ask me, but mistakes can happen with every respected company.
    » www.InstantDedicated.com - Online in no time
    » Dedicated Servers in [EU] Netherlands + Belgium with DAILY support, also on weekends
    » 3.2 Tbit/s Network AS49453 with only 100 Gbit/s uplink backbone
    » 1G/10G/40G/100 Gbit ports available | 99,99% Network Uptime goal

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Houston, Texas
    Posts
    240
    We had 7 hours of downtime just last night from their cloud service. The VM would not respond at all even though it appeared to be running. After hard rebooting it twice to no effect, I contacted support.

    Support couldn't figure it out either and after 1 hour, told me that had contacted emergency senior cloud administrators that were on-call.

    After going back and forth with support techs and 5 hours of downtime (4 hours of loss of sleep), it was clear that the senior administrators could not be found. I was told that someone should always be available in emergency situation, that does not appear true. In total, the server came back online at around 6, likely when the next shift started, totaling 7 hours of downtime.

    Very unsatisfied with SoftLayer at the moment and will likely be leaving them in the coming weeks.
    GarrisonHost - Premium High Performance Hosting
    Shared Hosting • SSL Certificates • Domains

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Posts
    3,784
    Quote Originally Posted by ServerBoost View Post
    Not too good of an experience if you ask me, but mistakes can happen with every respected company.
    I can understand #1, but not erasing customer data and not responding to tickets after 10 days is not really excusable ;-)

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Posts
    3,784
    Quote Originally Posted by GarrisonHost-John View Post
    We had 7 hours of downtime just last night from their cloud service. The VM would not respond at all even though it appeared to be running. After hard rebooting it twice to no effect, I contacted support.

    Support couldn't figure it out either and after 1 hour, told me that had contacted emergency senior cloud administrators that were on-call.

    After going back and forth with support techs and 5 hours of downtime (4 hours of loss of sleep), it was clear that the senior administrators could not be found. I was told that someone should always be available in emergency situation, that does not appear true. In total, the server came back online at around 6, likely when the next shift started, totaling 7 hours of downtime.
    Sorry to hear that SL used to be so good -- I wonder what happened.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Savannah!
    Posts
    58
    Good review, others will not be trapped

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Posts
    4,151
    Seems like SoftLayer has taken a turn for the worse after the buyover from The Planet.

    Frankly, not surprised - The Planet's reputation had always been slightly poorer than that of SoftLayer's around here.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    2,469
    Quote Originally Posted by tsj5j View Post
    Seems like SoftLayer has taken a turn for the worse after the buyover from The Planet.

    Frankly, not surprised - The Planet's reputation had always been slightly poorer than that of SoftLayer's around here.
    Like they say, history repeats its self.

    Take for example when The Planet aka GI Partners bought out EV1.

  11. #11
    Is there any relation between The Planet and Host Gator?

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    California USA
    Posts
    13,681
    I had the exact same course of events happen myself.
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
    Software Auditing - 400+ Vulnerabilities Found - Quote @ https://www.RACK911Labs.com
    Fully Managed Dedicated Servers (Las Vegas, New York City, & Amsterdam) (AS62710)
    FreeBSD & Linux Server Management, Security Auditing, Server Optimization, PCI Compliance

  13. #13

    meh

    I've been a customer since rackshack and it's just not the same or even close to what it once was.. But damnit the network and power have been rock solid for the last couple years.


    1) mid-late 2010 - Was running an old ensim box something happened with updates/license so I opened a ticket to find out if the update/license server was messed and I was told by the tech that more than 1/2 my file system was now missing (which gave me heart palpitations) come to find out said tech wasn't looking in the wrong folder.

    2) A server for a customer magically lost the CC info when migrated?! from ORBIT and said customer got an angry call that service would be disconnect in x days, blah. Luckily I didn't get chewed out for this one or lose a client which since they were newer almost happened.

    3) Switched to a new box in January on one server, Now every month I get a pre charge email warning of the charge and then an email explaining the charge. I only want to know when something is wrong, I'll log into the control panel if i need invoices / info.

    4) That new box in January, The ips that were given out a few were listed on a few services as known spam lists. Which made for a fun initial switch.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Posts
    3,784
    Quote Originally Posted by jlgreer1 View Post
    Is there any relation between The Planet and Host Gator?
    Hostgator uses TP's servers/datacenter.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    WebHostingTalk
    Posts
    8,901
    Quote Originally Posted by nerdie View Post
    we rebooted it on our own and found out that someone else's operating system booted up instead of ours. They put a old customer's drive into our server which took over.
    We have seen this before with Softlayer as well - a brand new box where the second drive has a former customers data on it.

    This is why we use DBAN on any server we return to any provider.
    I support the Human Rights Campaign!
    Moving to the Tampa, Florida area? Check out life in the suburbs in Trinity, Florida.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    localhost
    Posts
    5,473
    I agree, you should always wipe your data before canceling any server with any provider.
    Respectfully,
    Mr. Terrence

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Orlando, Florida
    Posts
    2,625
    Quote Originally Posted by sirius View Post
    We have seen this before with Softlayer as well - a brand new box where the second drive has a former customers data on it.

    This is why we use DBAN on any server we return to any provider.
    I find that interesting as their automated systems are supposed to run a basic wipe on the hard disks before the servers are reclaimed to the best of my knowledge.

    I've never seen this happen, but then again, the only drives we've dealt with are their new SSD's and Raid 10 based servers, so we'd always have clean drives to start.
    Matthew Rosenblatt, and I do lots of things.
    Used to be a full time server administrator, now I help build cruise ships and inspect homes.
    My company, Ferrell Solutions, specializes in home inspections and property management.
    RecallScan is a service for monitoring appliances and vehicles in your home for recalls.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    WebHostingTalk
    Posts
    8,901
    Quote Originally Posted by Matt R View Post
    I find that interesting as their automated systems are supposed to run a basic wipe on the hard disks before the servers are reclaimed to the best of my knowledge.

    I've never seen this happen, but then again, the only drives we've dealt with are their new SSD's and Raid 10 based servers, so we'd always have clean drives to start.
    Yeah, I believe that's what someone told me in a ticket too, until I was able to produce screenshots of the drive with their former customers data still on it.

    Might be an old bug, hopefully it's resolved now.
    I support the Human Rights Campaign!
    Moving to the Tampa, Florida area? Check out life in the suburbs in Trinity, Florida.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Posts
    3,784
    Wanted to update this thread.

    Opened the SLA ticket on 4/22/2011 8:21:04 PM
    SL replied on 4/22/2011 8:36:53 PM letting me know they would look into it.
    We replied on 4/27/2011 12:44:30 PM asking for an update.
    We replied again on 5/1/2011 8:22:43 AM, asking for an update.
    We call them on 05/05/2011 and they informed me they would look into it, they had no excuse why it's been sitting there for 2 weeks.

    They responded with a whopping $56 credit!

    "Hello,

    I have reviewed your SLA request and it has been approved for downtime of 2 hours and 21 min. This entitles to you to a 20 % credit which equals $56.37"

    Thank you Softlayer for giving me your customer's data and the amazing offer of $56.37. I hope you can still pay the bills with such a huge discount.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Jaipur, India
    Posts
    643
    After merging with ThePlanet, We are also getting poor support.
    RackNap
    Business Automation Platform for Web Hosting and Cloud Solution Providers

  21. #21
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    Brisbane, Australia
    Posts
    2,602
    Quote Originally Posted by nerdie View Post
    We have one left over server that we got from The Planet a while back, it was great until the The Planet <-> Softlayer merger. I figured I would have received better support with the merge, not the other way around.

    Each person will have a different experience with them, I'll share ours.

    - We have a sata backup drive in this server, it appeared dead so I asked them to replace it. They informed me it would be replaced, they wouldn't have to shut down the box, etc, so we told them to go ahead.

    What really happened: They took out the wrong drive, took one of the SAS drives in the raid and rebooted the box, which somehow corrupted the raid.

    We were down for a few hours.

    - We didn't want to attempt to replace the backup drive again, so we waited a few months and asked again. Explained to them what they did wrong last time and they promised it would be fine. They replaced the drive and the machine stayed up, so that was good.

    What really happened: Although they removed the correct drive and didn't reboot our server this time, we rebooted it on our own and found out that someone else's operating system booted up instead of ours. They put a old customer's drive into our server which took over.

    Pretty scary, imo, obviously they are not destroying data once customers quit.

    - We asked for a SLA credit for these issues, it was submitted a week and a half ago. They responded a week and a half ago with 'We'll look into this', no updates since then despite us asking for updates.

    Good job Softlayer, you're useless.
    Yikes... I had a client i did work for a few years back who was on theplanet and had a similar big boo boo happen. Their hard drive failed and it took several days for them to diagnose it, and when then replaced the drive, they restored the backup to the wrong disk and wiped out the clients data on the existing okay disk! That client left ASAP.

    While mistakes happen, it is indeed scary especially with old customers data disks being intact still.
    : CentminMod.com Nginx Installer Nginx 1.25, PHP-FPM, MariaDB 10 CentOS (AlmaLinux/Rocky testing)
    : Centmin Mod Latest Beta Nginx HTTP/2 HTTPS & HTTP/3 QUIC HTTPS supports TLS 1.3 via OpenSSL 1.1.1/3.0/3.1 or BoringSSL or QuicTLS OpenSSL
    : Nginx & PHP-FPM Benchmarks: Centmin Mod vs EasyEngine vs Webinoly vs VestaCP vs OneInStack

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Orlando, Florida
    Posts
    2,625
    Quote Originally Posted by znetindia View Post
    After merging with ThePlanet, We are also getting poor support.
    What's your definition of poor support? While we do get the guy who won't help over the phone here and there, 99% of the time when we call in, the technicians bend over backwards to get things done ASAP.
    Matthew Rosenblatt, and I do lots of things.
    Used to be a full time server administrator, now I help build cruise ships and inspect homes.
    My company, Ferrell Solutions, specializes in home inspections and property management.
    RecallScan is a service for monitoring appliances and vehicles in your home for recalls.

  23. #23
    I don't want to move, but I'm having very frustrating experiences with Softlayer (SL) recently.

    For example, we use evault from SL (backing up from one datacenter to another). But this weekend discovered that we couldn't access evault. In trying to fix this, SL not once, but twice, disabled our alternative R1Soft backup system. And still, we don't have access to evault. So I don't know what is worse, the fact that it's been multiple days without access to our backup system or the fact that SL keeps fussing with and messing up our alternative backup system. I'm scared to let them touch the darn thing.

    Am strongly considering Gigenet. There is a complaint on a recent thread about them, but I wonder if that is a one-off and if they can trusted for the long haul. Just hate moving server locations.

  24. #24
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    San Francisco, CA
    Posts
    1,031
    Quote Originally Posted by dccgck View Post
    In trying to fix this, SL not once, but twice, disabled our alternative R1Soft backup system.
    How they have disabled R1Soft for you ? I have many servers at SL with R1Soft CDP - never seen any issues.

  25. #25
    Perhaps you don't have evault too? Both have buagents. For some time now we've been unable to access evault via webCC on the control panel. In trying to (unsuccessfully so far) address this problem, they have stopped all buagents (including R1Soft) and left it stopped several times, thus causing our separate R1Soft to fail to connect (thereby losing continuous backups and leaving large gaps in the restore point datasets).

    Actually, we also have had another very longstanding problem with R1Soft at SL. It is on its own dedicated server and had been connected to the primary server via the SL public network, but kept failing to connect . SL insisted on connecting with the Private network rather than addressing the root cause of the public network problem. This has worked, but it also has meant that we have an ongoing, unaddressed problem should we try to install the R1Soft agent on any server outside of SL's private network. It is actually a conundrum I'm currently addressing in figuring how/whether to migrate.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Similar Threads

  1. Planet merger with softlayer horrible mix!
    By rasram in forum Dedicated Server
    Replies: 14
    Last Post: 12-07-2010, 12:19 AM
  2. Replies: 3
    Last Post: 06-09-2008, 11:13 AM
  3. SoftLayer Dallas DC vs SoftLayer Seattle DC?
    By CDK277 in forum Dedicated Server
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 01-05-2008, 07:52 AM
  4. horrible, horrible spam. What can i do?
    By pokerstore in forum Web Hosting Lounge
    Replies: 12
    Last Post: 09-13-2003, 02:31 PM
  5. Dot5 Hosting. Horrible..Horrible service and support
    By tuxwarrior in forum Web Hosting
    Replies: 16
    Last Post: 02-13-2003, 02:19 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •