Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Slashdot article on avoiding dishonest providers

[eth00]

Article: http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/26/0034248

With all of the crap flying around about managed and some of the other providers I thought that this was an interesting article.

I am not sure which they are saying but it looks like orangefiber/alpha red runs without any power backups, which I have heard rumors in the past though have absolutely no way of substantiating that. They also mention how many claim to be multi-homed and are not - of course that is easy enough to fake with a 10mbps line vs a gige for the main transfer.... It should be interesting to see what other providers come out in the comments sections, maybe it will bring out some knowledge not as commonly known on WHT.

I know there is no real way to do it and realistically it is not a good idea but in a perfect world nobody would lie and everybody would be honest so we did not have these problems to start with that just causes everybody headaches.

[layer0]

orangefiber/alpha red runs without any power backups

A few other forum members and I, are aware of some unethical practices done by OrangeFiber in teh past, however...I do not believe this includes running without any power backups. Though, I cannot guararntee that, I can guarantee that they are multi-homed to AboveNet & Cogent. In addition, they plan to have several new providers into the mix shortly. Of course I am in no way supporting OrangeFiber/AlphaRed, or even bashing them, just stating the facts.

Thanks,

[taylorwilsdon]

orangefiber is multihomed but I still don't respect their network.

[layer0]

Actually..I retract my former statement!

They are not multihomed.

http://www.cidr-report.org/cgi-bin/as-report?as=AS19166

Where's AboveNet? Cogent-only ATM.

[taylorwilsdon]

Upstream Adjacent AS list
AS174 COGENT Cogent/PSI

Boy, I feel smart.

I retract all statements except that their network sucks :]

From their site

ORANGEFIBER features backbone bandwidth connectivity from AboveNET Communications and Cogent Communications.
Our datacenter is located in Metro Houston Texas, the heart of downtown.

That sounds like a filthy lie to me

[layer0]

ORANGEFIBER features backbone bandwidth connectivity from AboveNET Communications and Cogent Communications.
Our datacenter is located in Metro Houston Texas, the heart of downtown.

Yup, that's b.s.

[MSV_AR]

...and I'm sure you all know the current situation as to why we have turned down Abovenet routes?
You can't assume things and try to make it fact, life doesn't work like that.

We don't have backup power? I will provide you with pictures of our UPS's and PDU's tomorrow, if anyone is interested in seeing them.

[taylorwilsdon]

It seems that when somebody claimes to be offering multihomed bandwidth and infact its just straight cogent, you shouldn't come up with excuses and instead mend the page that says the "incorrect" information and get on with things.

I never said you didn't have backup power, only slashdot did.

[MSV_AR]

It's not incorrect information, we have them turned down at the moment, but they are still there and we can start advertising them should we need to compensate for a route or outage.

This is not a permanent situation, it's just as we are working some things out on their end, and turning up 10GigE of Global Crossing.

[eth00]

Originally Posted by MSV_AR

...and I'm sure you all know the current situation as to why we have turned down Abovenet routes?
You can't assume things and try to make it fact, life doesn't work like that.

We don't have backup power? I will provide you with pictures of our UPS's and PDU's tomorrow, if anyone is interested in seeing them.

Ok so sounds like you are admitting you are single homed right now. Was that because they were just having a lot of problems? If you had a lot of bandwidth with them you either started to use a lot more cogent recently or you used almost no abovenet. It may just be you had a lot of unused fiber but 25Gbps is a lot to only have running on a single provider IMHO.

I know that every single datacenter is different and that "enterprise" as you state in your signature is not a term that is well defined but I find that a hard label to use with only a single low-cost provider. I guess that is just by definition but it is not something I would personally want to host an enterprise server in, what happens if cogent has routing issues or gets in a peering fight again?


Again I have nothing to back it up but from what I understand the building you guys are in was supposed to cut power for some building maintance - that is until it was found out you did not have any backup power so they had to delay it. Is this story completely untrue, maybe it was a different provider, or were you just not setup that particular weekend for a few hours downtime?

I did not mean for this thread to turn into this when I first posted it but I guess the article show some of the problems that are in fact there if you do a little investigating....

[MSV_AR]

Its midnight now, but tomorrow when I get to the office I will post pictures of our backup power. I don't know where you are getting your information from, but I have an idea, and trusting information from an ex-client turned competitor wouldn't be in your best interest.

[RayWomack]

There are many ways to cut corners in this business. Unfortunately, the market has driven people to do somewhat "questionable" things.

I purchase bandwidth. Whether I use the bandwidth or not, I still have to pay a commit and a burst. I haven't found anybody yet that will burn fiber doing nothing at no cost.

Where do I get 30gbps to use as a failover? You never know, JIC?

[Fed-X]

IMO, Hottest DC in Houston? <==--- Alpha-Red-Hot.

Been there, sweated greatly.

[RayWomack]

I was sent this file anonymously from a source I do not know. I have no knowledge of the authors or the source; I am putting this up to hopefully inform Alpha Red customers and the community, with no intention of harming those involved.

I will gladly pull this link if it is deemed unappropriate and unethical.

http://psf.biz/powerless.mp3

[eth00]

O_o well I guess they apparently have 1 online at this point so I do stand partially corrected in that you do in fact have at least partial UPS coverage as of late. Would you mind saying how old the UPS system is, it sounds like in the past that you advertised it but did not have it.