Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Vritualis support sux - help finding another

[yossarian]

Hi,

I'm having an absolute nightmare with Virtualis. I have a dedicated server with them, but they seem absolutely unable to follow even the most explicit reconfiguration requests, and will do nothing with regard to my asking them to bolt down my service by disabling certain networek daemons and the like. There support people are obviously not techies....

My sites an MP3/Internet radio related forum. I'm ust starting to get serious, and need a better service than Virtualis obviously offer.

I need:

* Large volume bandwidth and a decent monthly transfer watermark, if one at all.
* Decent speck machine.
* Apache/FreeBSD.
* 365x24 support, and fast reactions to my config' requests. I have an in-house replica of my live site where I test configs' so I normally know exactly what's required, but would also like to be offered advice from time to time.
* Specific config'. For instance, I don't want every network daemon running....just the ones I need and I would like historically buggy/security risk software kept upto date (i.e. sendmail, apache).
* Backup/recovery and all that standard admin type stuff.
* Other means of contacting support..since emails sometimes get lost it seems %(
* If I'm not happy, the chance to complain to someone and for those people to massage my wounds andf reassure my battered confidence

I don't want:

* Root. I want the service run for me. Even though I'm a UNIX admin, I just wanna concentrate on content.

Can anyone suggest a company where I might get most of these things met at a reasonable price?

tia,

Steve H @ yossarian.
http://www.yossarian-music.com

[TerriG]

Steve -

I personally have 2 dedicated servers with Virtualis
and am VERY happy with them. We do a lot of custom
programming and things that are beyond the scope of
what "any" hosting company support provides. Since this
is the case, I do have a sysadmin that I pay to help
with custom set-up issues.

You have to remember that Virtualis support is free and
pertains to standard server issues. They are and have
been very good about installing other things for me for
free. However, since they are doing this for free, it may
not been done as soon as I would like. So, if I need it
quick I have to pay for it. This is not unusual . . .

I have looked all over and haven't found any dedicated
server packages that compare to what Virtualis offers.
Locally, the rates are much higher and include NO support.
They page you if there is a problem and you need to get
your own tech over there to deal with it . . .

Anyway, I think that no matter where you go, you really
need to find your own freelance sysadmin to get want you
need accomplished.

Good Luck,

Terri Gray

[yossarian]

Hi Terry,

I am a sysadmin But I too searched long and hard and could find nothing comparable...I would be gutted to move, but....

My problems recently have been when stating exactly what's required visa-vi config requests. The story goes thus:

Virtualis enabled server side includes (ssi) on my server, only to do so incorrectly and thus have all my cgi files that output text/html parsed as ssi's. Netscrape in particular behaved badly because of this, giving me a 'pick app' dialogue box when dealing with any of my cgi's.

I have a replica in-house of the site, so worked on a fix in-house. After spending lots of time and lots of head scratching, once I worked the fix out (it involved the use of .htaccess files and removal of certain siteide AddType & AddHandler directives under Apache), I mailed Virtualis with exactly what was required.

10 days, lots of frustration and loads of mails later, admittedly with my anger boiling over a few times and with a cost of considerable hair loss to myself, I finally got someone to make the necessary changes and get things working properly.

So support at Virtualis couldn't even follow the most simple and explicit of instructions. My sites about to get v.busy (hopefully ;^), and I will have other such configuration requests to make since I can work on things in-house and decide what needs doing before mailing Virtualis. This means they'll work, as I would have tested them first. I'm now worried that this arrangement, that I thought would've been ideal for a hosting company (no thinking time, just a bit of vi experience ;^) is not possible with the standard of first line support at Virtualis.

I take it you've not had similar experiences then? How do you deal with getting standard configuration changes to standard services implemented if not? Do you have root access? You see, I'd rather not....if I wanted such access I'd co-locate somewhere and build a server from the bottom up, but really I just want to concentrate on content on my live server, and config of that content on my in-house replica. You see, I hav a life too

Rgds,

Steve Huckle @ yossarian
http://www.yossarian-music.com

[JTY]

I would suggest going with a company like,

http://www.rackspace.com/
http://www.dialtoneinternet.com/
http://www.skynetweb.com/
http://www.netinfra.com/

And then either pay someone to do admin stuff, or pay them to do it.

John

[4php]

Originally posted by yossarian

I am a sysadmin But I too searched long and hard and could find nothing comparable...I would be gutted to move, but....
http://www.yossarian-music.com

Cmon a syadmin ? really - if you were a sysadmin you would make those changes in 5 minutes.

I have a dedicated server with them but they don't do any of my support. Im afraid the only way to do it right is do it yourself. If you need stuff done outside their standard set ups it will be more difficult for them to do it.
They give a good deal there even not taking into account the support you get.


I also have a dedicated server at skynetweb.com and have found the pricing quite good. But there you don't get support holding your hand.

[yossarian]

Hi,

>Cmon a syadmin ? really - if you were a sysadmin you would make those changes in 5 minutes.

Yup really....10 years of that, although for the past 2 I've been doing network security.

& yus, I'd have done the changes in 2 in fact, and diod so on my in-house replica, but couldn't 'cause I don't have root, which is why I found it sooo frustrating...and don't want it either...as I said, I just wanted to supply the content.

I s'pose the real answer here is that I probably need root...especially now that I've just sent up Apache-jserv and gnujsp for pushing out dynamic content from a MySQL database...I can't see Virtualis doing it/managing it for me %(

But then again, I've had a few replies to this post. I'm going to post a new question, but one in particular is v.interesting...a v.high spec' machine at virtualy the same price as a vastly lower grade server with Virtualis....anyone had any experience of cheapservers.net?

I'll log that one in a new thread methinks.

Cheers,

Steve H