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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
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    Thumbs down Early review of Managed.com - Not too pretty at the moment...

    May 5
    ----------
    Called sales to ask a few questions. My call was answered promptly by a woman (I didn't get her name), and she answered all of my questions. Starting off on the right foot, let's see how things go from here.

    Sent in order & PayPal payment, automatic response.

    May 7
    ----------
    I called Managed.com again, since I hadn't heard anything about if my payment was received. It was received, and I was told that it would be up by 6PM Pacific time (9PM here).

    May 8
    ----------
    The server was delivered at 2:35AM EST - 5.5 hours late, but I can deal with that. Not a major problem at all. I logged on to find that my custom partitioning had been set up correctly, and everything looked fine.

    I proceeded to install Webmin without a hitch, which I have done many times before. Even though it's single homed bandwidth right now, Assertive/AboveNet has some nice connections in the San Jose area. I was pulling 6MB/s to mysql.he.net, 4MB/s to RackOnline. West coast speeds were good. Central and East Coast tests only yeilded 500K/s to 1.3MB/s though. Still not too bad.

    I then installed Nagios which I have done before, and left it unconfigured, not running (didn't have the time to modify it).

    SMART Check & badblocks produced no errors on the HD, so everything looked alright.

    May 9
    ----------
    I decided to shut down the server at 7:58AM EST and send in a reboot ticket, just to test them out. I test reboot times with all providers before sticking with them, unless they offer remote reboot ports. This can make or break a host in emergency situations. I have tested this without a hitch at *******, Wholesale Internet, and Nocster before deciding to stay with them or not.

    At 9:40AM EST, I get a reply. 1 hour and 40 minutes for a reboot was pretty long I thought, but it was even worse:

    -----------------------------------------------
    (Managed SS)
    -----------------------------------------------
    Dear customer,

    Your server has been rebooted; but would not react to access.

    We will assign an engineer to check into details of the server.

    Sorry for the delay.
    I did not touch the kernel, or change any bootup items (besides adding httpd to start on boot), so this looks like a configuration issue on their end. I've done this many times before, never an issue. I've been waiting for 5 hours to get my server back online, and nothing so far. It's been over 3 hours since they said an engineer would look at things, it's still down & no word from them. I can only hope that their engineers don't only work M-F, 9am-6pm PST... This is my 6th datacenter that I've tried, and I've never had a server down this long due to either bad hardware or a bad software configuration.

    I will be updating this as progress is made & I'm able to test more things. Please do not turn this thread into a Managed.com bashing-fest like all the other threads turn out to be. I know that "you get what you pay for", and am just testing them out. I have no plans to put mission critical data (or much of anything, besides software that I'd like to test before putting it on a production server) on this box.

    - Matt

  2. #2
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    Update:
    -----------------------------------------------
    (Managed SS)
    -----------------------------------------------
    Dear customer,

    A manual reboot has been performed. At this point unless we have console access to the server, we will not know the cause of why the server won't reboot.

    Did you change the password to this server? if so, please provide password for debug.

    Sorry for the delay.
    Just got that email from them at 12:56, I now emailed them with my new root password. Lets see where this goes... It shouldn't have taken them over 3 hours just to ask for my root password.

    - Matt

  3. #3
    , I've not had a single problem with managed.com, it's seems like it's a toss a coin; get good support, or not
    John Heslop

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Posts
    612
    Matt your server won't be backup untill monday night. I am pretty sure of it lol. I use to work for a managed.com reseller (don't know if they still do) but when this happens on the weekends you will have to wait till monday for a "tech" to come in and slove the problem. As for now you will get really no were lol. Good luck

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
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    Originally posted by jheslop1
    , I've not had a single problem with managed.com, it's seems like it's a toss a coin; get good support, or not
    Unfortunately, I can't afford to put clients at a company whose support quality changes every minute... I hope this turns out decently, I have a lot of scipts to test right now

    - Matt

  6. #6
    Hope it does, please keep us informed if the level of service/support lowers or becomes a better standard
    John Heslop

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Hamilton, Ontario Canada
    Posts
    96
    Their site does clearly state that they do not operate normally on weekends. With the prices they offer, maybe they can't afford to I've had problems with boxes before that have a fresh install but give me some sort of little problem, this sounds like a spark of random bad luck is all. Either that, or the person trying to reboot your box has no clue what he's doing and did something wrong... My main box has been up for over 110 days so far, so a few hours downtime for a reboot wouldn't murder me.

    I have heard so many mixed stories about Managed.com that I've given up listening to the general opinion and am going to try them out for myself. After all, I've learned that most people who are happy with a service won't say a word, but if they have a problem, they'll complain to the high heavens and back. *walks away, even more confused about managed...*

  8. #8
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    I can understand if they don't offer normal support on weekends, but if my box goes down at 6:01pm on Friday, I'd think that they'd be able to get the box back online before 9:00am on Monday... I'd also expect them to setup the box correctly so that if the server needs a reboot, that it comes back up... Is that too much to ask?

    - Matt

  9. #9
    Did you happen to reboot it yourself first before you tested them?

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Hamilton, Ontario Canada
    Posts
    96
    Thats definately not too much to ask. You had mentioned reboot ports with other hosts, if you dont mind the newbish question, what exactly is a reboot port? Is it hard to setup? I was just curious as to why managed wouldn't have an option like this.

  11. #11
    Originally posted by mainarea
    Unfortunately, I can't afford to put clients at a company whose support quality changes every minute... I hope this turns out decently, I have a lot of scipts to test right now

    - Matt
    trust me, you don't want to put your clients at managed
    P4HOST.COM -- Specialize in quality Web Hosting solutions.
    Affordable -- Prices are very comparative
    Reliable -- Very low load average guaranteed. 60 day money back. Fast Support --Support Forum -- Providing hosting since 2003

  12. #12
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    Originally posted by lintbox
    Thats definately not too much to ask. You had mentioned reboot ports with other hosts, if you dont mind the newbish question, what exactly is a reboot port? Is it hard to setup? I was just curious as to why managed wouldn't have an option like this.
    A remote reboot port is a unit that the server is plugged into & has a web interface to power-cycle the machine if it's unresponsive (hard rebooot). It costs money, takes up rack space, and Managed.com probably figured that it would be more cost effective to just have somebody at the datacenter reboot machines when needed.


    Originally posted by athlonkmf
    Did you happen to reboot it yourself first before you tested them?
    What do you mean? I shut down the server & it should have come right back online when they pressed the power button. Neither Webmin nor Nagios do anything to the bootup that could cripple the server. I've set up servers with these two options many times, I know how they work.

    - Matt

  13. #13
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    Originally posted by inteltechs
    trust me, you don't want to put your clients at managed
    Quote Originally Posted by mainarea
    I have no plans to put mission critical data (or much of anything, besides software that I'd like to test before putting it on a production server) on this box.
    I have no plans on putting clients there, just making a general statement about all companies that I work with. I'm a server reseller & I always like to test out new providers (it's always good to have a low-cost testing box on a fat pipe - there's only so much our testing machine in the office can do without a terribly fast connection & only a 350Mhz processor)

    - Matt

  14. #14
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    Maybe I won't have to wait until Monday, just got this email:

    -----------------------------------------------
    (Managed CkC)
    -----------------------------------------------
    Greetings,

    I will investigate your server now.


    Best Regards,
    Managed.com
    - Matt

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
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    -----------------------------------------------
    (Managed CkC)
    -----------------------------------------------
    Greetings,

    The server needed a manual fsck. It went through just fine and your server is back online now.


    Best Regards,
    Managed.com
    Now how long did that take? Looks like... a big 3 minutes. Why couldn't they have done that earlier?

    root@managed [/var/log]# last
    root pts/0 bgp534381bgs.ebr Sun May 9 13:41 still logged in
    reboot system boot 2.4.25 Sun May 9 13:40 (00:05)
    root pts/1 bgp534381bgs.ebr Sun May 9 04:56 - down (00:01)


    Total downtime: 8 hours, 44 minutes

    - Matt

  16. #16
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    By the way, is there any way to check to see if they even attempted to reboot the machine earlier on in the day (since it doesn't show anything in "last").

    - Matt

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Oct 2001
    Posts
    161
    if you don't get cpanel (which i am assuming you did not) is apache and mysql installed with the redhat?

    also do you know a good link/tutorial for installing webmin?

  18. #18
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    Originally posted by mainarea
    Now how long did that take? Looks like... a big 3 minutes. Why couldn't they have done that earlier?

    root@managed [/var/log]# last
    root pts/0 bgp534381bgs.ebr Sun May 9 13:41 still logged in
    reboot system boot 2.4.25 Sun May 9 13:40 (00:05)
    root pts/1 bgp534381bgs.ebr Sun May 9 04:56 - down (00:01)


    Total downtime: 8 hours, 44 minutes

    - Matt
    You shut down the box. It had a problem coming back on line (you can't point the blame at managed.com until you know what went wrong, you said yourself the box was fine when you got it).

    There is no support on weekends, it's clearly stated. You lucked out in that someone decided to fix what you borked up, over the weekend.

    Sirius
    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
    Jan 2002
    Location
    UK
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    where are your reviews for the other provider's you tested?

    I have to admit this review seems biased against managed.com

  20. #20
    This review appears to have a much more accurately recorded event sequence than the standard "I got a new server at manaqed.com and it's great!" threads that we see here so often....

  21. #21
    Join Date
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    Originally posted by Chrysalis
    where are your reviews for the other provider's you tested?

    I have to admit this review seems biased against managed.com
    Where am I biased against them? I said that things started off great, presales was excellent - I only complained when I hit downtime. When they can't get a server up for almost 9 hours, I think there's a problem. No bias. I also mentioned their great west coast speeds. That's one positive thing, that I was very surprised about, with Managed.com.

    Anyway, here are our other reviews:

    TailoredServers - http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...ailoredservers

    I didn't do a formal review of *******, but you can see my complaints in http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...hlight=******* .

    I would have done a review on WholeSale Internet, but we beta tested DirectAdmin on that server & ran into issues, so it wouldn't be fair to assess them on a server with a buggy control panel (at that time - all the kinks have been worked out, have heard nothing bad about it). They gave us a free CPU upgrade & were great though.

    I would post a Nocster review, but I'd be extremely biased since we're a large reseller of theirs. If any parts of this post seem biased in any way, please point them out so that I can explain them.

    I will post a review on NectarTech/RackOnline soon, we're testing them out currently as well. So far they're working out great.

    - Matt

  22. #22
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    Originally posted by Watcher_TVI
    This review appears to have a much more accurately recorded event sequence than the standard "I got a new server at manaqed.com and it's great!" threads that we see here so often....
    Agreed.

    Sirius
    I support the Human Rights Campaign!
    Moving to the Tampa, Florida area? Check out life in the suburbs in Trinity, Florida.

  23. #23
    Off topic, but I really like that site you have there Mainarea... bold move going with all the yellows, but I think its creative... good work.

  24. #24
    Originally posted by mainarea


    What do you mean? I shut down the server & it should have come right back online when they pressed the power button. Neither Webmin nor Nagios do anything to the bootup that could cripple the server. I've set up servers with these two options many times, I know how they work.

    - Matt [/B]
    i mean... have you done a shutdown -r before, just to be sure that all your settings were correct.

    I have installed hundreds of linux machines with dozens of different distro's, but I can still slip up and have one stupid setting wrong.

  25. #25
    Originally posted by mainarea
    Now how long did that take? Looks like... a big 3 minutes. Why couldn't they have done that earlier?

    root@managed [/var/log]# last
    root pts/0 bgp534381bgs.ebr Sun May 9 13:41 still logged in
    reboot system boot 2.4.25 Sun May 9 13:40 (00:05)
    root pts/1 bgp534381bgs.ebr Sun May 9 04:56 - down (00:01)


    Total downtime: 8 hours, 44 minutes

    - Matt

    you know they don't usually work in the weekend, yet you decided to "test" them in the weekend.
    You still got helped, and then it's still bad of them?

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