Vps Expectations.

[astroroxy]

I am curious, what do you guys expect/desire from VPS hosting.

How many cores/ram do you expect. What prices are you looking for.

 

What do you expect to be standard?

 

 

[Daniel B]

There is no such thing as standard, and really no way to answer this question.  When I need a new VPS, it depends on what I need it for as to what I'm looking for...so it can change every single time I spin a new one up.

[Paul]

Yeah it all depends on the application. Most VPS's we spin up here are very minimal on resources, especially since we gravitate to a one role per server rule. Separating each service, HTTP, SMTP, MySQL, etc into different servers means we utilize more but smaller servers. And each role has separate requirements.. a web server may require more RAM than an SMTP server for example.

 

So, depends what your customers are doing. If you can determine that, it should be pretty easy to spec out something that will appeal to many of them.

[Michael]

1GB RAM minimum I have 3GB at the moment as I was hiting 1.3/4GB sometimes so best to ensure you don't hit the limit. 10GB is fair for Diskspace you'd rarely hit it. And then then Bandwidth at least double the diskspace so about 20GB. 1 core is enough as-well but some have 2 - 3. We have 3 at the moment.

[Daniel B]

Though, the core is a stat I don't normally pay attention to, because it's normally not helpful at all.

 

Simply saying "1 core" doesn't tell me anything.  Is that a shared core? Dedicated Core (doubt it)? 1.8ghz core? 3.3ghz core?  So if you are looking for advice on planning offerings...that's one thing I will say...give people details into what you mean by "core".

[PauloV]

VPS are only good for cheap licesing, but I never recommend a VPS for anything in production, only for testing or DNS faillover backup plan

 

Today we can have very cheap servers and we can also, like Paul said and good, to separte services

 

Here is a list of very cheap and reliable servers (we have more several dozens of servers with them) to buy if you are a server admin:

 

hetzner.com (serverboerse.de/en/)

online.net

ovh.com (kimsufi.com)

 

I have in the past back in 2002, I think, some VPS in http://www.serverint.net/ they where the best at that time

 

If today i choose a VPS, because Im a server admin, the first thing I look is Dedicated Ram and Virtual Ram,  the higher the better

 

But for a normal user that is starting buisness or want to move from anouther VPS or from a Hosting package in our feedback they look only for in this order:

 

0.- Price (looool)

1.- Disk Space

2.- Bandwidth

3.- Cpu Hz

4.- Ram

5.- Cores

6.- Datacenter Location

7.- Lisencing/Software included

 

Hope that helps

[Nelsa]

I am curious, what do you guys expect/desire from VPS hosting.

How many cores/ram do you expect. What prices are you looking for.

 

What do you expect to be standard?

You as provider probably are refering to VPS you will provide to your customers?If so it depend what is your target auditory and also it depend what virtualization you will offer.

See 256Mb RAM in kernel level OVZ and 256mb RAM in OS level KVM/XEN is not even close when it comes customer,for example if you use two VPS both with 512mb RAM and on both  install same centos 6 you will have more free ram  in OVZ no metter you use same amount of RAM in every VPS and same distro .

It is because OVZ share node kernel with VM  while in KVM/XEN you are installing full OS.that is why start point for OVZ VPS can be lower than for KVN/XEN.  Almost all providers have128MB plans (some even even lower but it is ...well low) for OVZ VPS while for KVM/XEN start is min. 256MB or mostly 512 MB.

So basicly for OVZ you can make start plans from 128MB while start point for KVM/XEN is 256mb or 512MB ,now it depend from you and your target auditory what will you use as start point ,if you target midle or high end level than probably you won't need 128-256 plans but if you are new it is hard to start right now in that class where price isn't first on the list to no one.

I woud go with low end and midle class and I woud start with two option OVZ(from 128Mb-2Gb plans) and KVM (from 512Mb-4Gb)  ,but if you decide to go fight in high end class right now than be ready for havy advertising.When it comes to CPU it depends of CPU itself,Virtulization(again) and menagment,basicly if you intend utitly CPU as vCore=Real Core than for small VPS you can give from 0.5-1 vCore and from 1-8 vCore for larger VPS but I will say again it depend from many factors ,I don't know which CPU and how many you have on node and also it depend what  % of CPU load you will set as limit....

CPU is shared no metter which virtualization you use you use so it is essential to find right solution for menagment .

[astroroxy]

There is no such thing as standard, and really no way to answer this question.  When I need a new VPS, it depends on what I need it for as to what I'm looking for...so it can change every single time I spin a new one up.

Ehh, I disagree. There are some things I expect to be standard. For example, I expect to be able to chose my OS, to be standard.

I have seen some providers that have some weird custom OS that you can not change.

Like I expect at least CentOS or Ubuntu or Debian, at least. While Being able to use your own, a plus.

I also feel that  openvz is a "hack" and you do not get exactly what specs you pay for.

[astroroxy]

1GB RAM minimum I have 3GB at the moment as I was hiting 1.3/4GB sometimes so best to ensure you don't hit the limit. 10GB is fair for Diskspace you'd rarely hit it. And then then Bandwidth at least double the diskspace so about 20GB. 1 core is enough as-well but some have 2 - 3. We have 3 at the moment.

I agree, now these days 1GB is a minimum. 10GB might be fine for a minimal linux install. I personally would prefer at least 50GB.

Hmm that brings up a good point. What do you think about HDD vs SDD?

[astroroxy]

Though, the core is a stat I don't normally pay attention to, because it's normally not helpful at all.

 

Simply saying "1 core" doesn't tell me anything.  Is that a shared core? Dedicated Core (doubt it)? 1.8ghz core? 3.3ghz core?  So if you are looking for advice on planning offerings...that's one thing I will say...give people details into what you mean by "core".

I agree, it pisses me off when a company says includes one core. I am like wtf does that mean?

Take dreamhost for example http://www.dreamhost.com/hosting/vps/

I can't even tell how many cores I get, let alone what speed.

[astroroxy]

VPS are only good for cheap licesing, but I never recommend a VPS for anything in production, only for testing or DNS faillover backup plan

 

Today we can have very cheap servers and we can also, like Paul said and good, to separte services

 

Here is a list of very cheap and reliable servers (we have more several dozens of servers with them) to buy if you are a server admin:

 

hetzner.com (serverboerse.de/en/)

online.net

ovh.com (kimsufi.com)

 

I have in the past back in 2002, I think, some VPS in http://www.serverint.net/ they where the best at that time

 

If today i choose a VPS, because Im a server admin, the first thing I look is Dedicated Ram and Virtual Ram,  the higher the better

 

But for a normal user that is starting buisness or want to move from anouther VPS or from a Hosting package in our feedback they look only for in this order:

 

0.- Price (looool)

1.- Disk Space

2.- Bandwidth

3.- Cpu Hz

4.- Ram

5.- Cores

6.- Datacenter Location

7.- Lisencing/Software included

 

Hope that helps

Hmm interesting. I do the opposite  . I run almost everything on Virtual Private Servers. It offers things like snapshots, easy backups, share one powerful host, etc.

 

I would agree though that most VPS hosting company really give you shitty performance(cough ovh cough), and because of that most people think that VPS systems are bad.

[astroroxy]

You as provider probably are refering to VPS you will provide to your customers?If so it depend what is your target auditory and also it depend what virtualization you will offer.

See 256Mb RAM in kernel level OVZ and 256mb RAM in OS level KVM/XEN is not even close when it comes customer,for example if you use two VPS both with 512mb RAM and on both  install same centos 6 you will have more free ram  in OVZ no metter you use same amount of RAM in every VPS and same distro .

It is because OVZ share node kernel with VM  while in KVM/XEN you are installing full OS.that is why start point for OVZ VPS can be lower than for KVN/XEN.  Almost all providers have128MB plans (some even even lower but it is ...well low) for OVZ VPS while for KVM/XEN start is min. 256MB or mostly 512 MB.

So basicly for OVZ you can make start plans from 128MB while start point for KVM/XEN is 256mb or 512MB ,now it depend from you and your target auditory what will you use as start point ,if you target midle or high end level than probably you won't need 128-256 plans but if you are new it is hard to start right now in that class where price isn't first on the list to no one.

I woud go with low end and midle class and I woud start with two option OVZ(from 128Mb-2Gb plans) and KVM (from 512Mb-4Gb)  ,but if you decide to go fight in high end class right now than be ready for havy advertising.When it comes to CPU it depends of CPU itself,Virtulization(again) and menagment,basicly if you intend utitly CPU as vCore=Real Core than for small VPS you can give from 0.5-1 vCore and from 1-8 vCore for larger VPS but I will say again it depend from many factors ,I don't know which CPU and how many you have on node and also it depend what  % of CPU load you will set as limit....

CPU is shared no metter which virtualization you use you use so it is essential to find right solution for menagment .

What do you guys think is best OpenVZ or KVM

[Paul]

What do you guys think is best OpenVZ or KVM

 

I'm not a fan of OpenVZ at all, if you ask me it's not really even virtualization. It's the shared hosting of VPS, but hosting providers love it because they can oversell. Each have their benefits I suppose. I prefer KVM or Xen PV personally.

[astroroxy]

I'm not a fan of OpenVZ at all, if you ask me it's not really even virtualization. It's the shared hosting of VPS, but hosting providers love it because they can oversell. Each have their benefits I suppose. I prefer KVM or Xen PV personally.

I agree, its closer to Multi-User then Virtualization.

[Nelsa]

I'm not a fan of OpenVZ at all, if you ask me it's not really even virtualization. It's the shared hosting of VPS, but hosting providers love it because they can oversell. Each have their benefits I suppose. I prefer KVM or Xen PV personally.

No OS virtualization(KVM/XEN) can beat OVZ when it comes to perfomance and if you find honest provider you will get better server perfomance than on OS level virtualization.

Second I can oversell xen/kvm also without any problem in 5 minutes only at different way, and funny thing is it will have worst impact than overselling on OVZ because all VMs will try to use whole alocated resources(which don't exist) , and OVZ overselling is not even problem as long as you folow some basic rules and calculate properly,expecually on big nodes ,but if you find honest provider you will get dedicated resources.

If you sell OVZ as lets say Xen/KVM users will have much better perfomance and VPSs than on OS level simple because 1.in OVZ you need less ram/cpu for same in KVM/XEN and 2.You have alocated +burst ram thus you can utitly more CPU than in OS level

Now offcourse OS level has own adventage which OVZ can't provide because of shared kernel, any kernel tweaking impact all users and because of shared kernel it can run only distros compatibile with kernel.

I'm server administrator for years,and I will tell you it is myth that OVZ is shared VPS and OS level are not(if consider perfomance and resources),why you think almost every provider go for KVM insted Xen,mostly because KVM is better for oversell(you can oversell more) and provide CPU cores as vCPU and threads as vCores.First you use cores as vCPU than that cores(orginaly threads) you share among users as vCore ,you can RAM just overcommit or baloon or both

If we look only  perfomance isolated kernel can be considered only as - not + ,shared kernel is main reason for OVZ significantly better perfomance.

You can oversell RAM,HDD, CPU on all virtualization, when it comes CPU it is used almost at same way in every virtualization(only alocation is different) and OS level will not protect you from overselling or overloading,and also it will not provide you true dedicated resources if provider is overselling because same subscription will be provided to more VM.So basicly you get same,it depend from provider.

I'm working with OVZ,KVM and XEN and to be honest not favor any solution because both have adventage and disadventage and there is no definition which is better ,it depend of needs and situation.When ever I need to virtualize my own server for my own needs i'm using OVZ simple because it give me much better perfomance.

[Michael]

I hate OpenVZ with a passion and only use Xen. As it's like a virtual dedicated server, I have more control and it's less likely to be over sold. You can oversell any nowadays but you couldn't before and it's harder than openvz.

[Michael]

I agree, now these days 1GB is a minimum. 10GB might be fine for a minimal linux install. I personally would prefer at least 50GB.

Hmm that brings up a good point. What do you think about HDD vs SDD?

 

SSD is the new trend but I think HDD is fine as long as you don't drop it

[astroroxy]

I have to disagree on some of your points on OpenVZ.

Also sharing the kernel is the main issue. No windows, etc.

I do feel that KVM/Xen provides better performance/security/reliability for the Client.

[Nelsa]

I hate OpenVZ with a passion and only use Xen. As it's like a virtual dedicated server, I have more control and it's less likely to be over sold. You can oversell any nowadays but you couldn't before and it's harder than openvz.

Well yes, OVZ don't have any limits when it comes overselling as long as resources are not 100% utitlized you can ad new VM.

 

 

I have to disagree on some of your points on OpenVZ.

Also sharing the kernel is the main issue. No windows, etc.

 

Well if you look closer you will see it is pointed(if we look only perfomance shared kernel is +) that I talk about perfomance and shared kernel IS main adventage and reason why any other virtualization can't came even close to OVZ when it cames to perfomance,it is well known.Runing only one kernel insted on every VM give adventage in begining. Also you will see  that as disadventage it is pointed that only distros compatibile with node kernel can be installed.(since node only can be linux..)

 

I do feel that KVM/Xen provides better performance/security/reliability for the Client.

Well try use same node and test, install same number of VMs every time than test node and every VM ,it is simple,OVZ is not full virtualization and not run full OS ,while others run Os at same way as dedicated server and as result you need less resources  for OVZ and you can run more VPS,but that also has price.....not only you cant run windows also you can't make changes related to kernel without afecting other VMs,....etc

Now other story is fact that most OVZ nodes are hevy loaded and clients can't feel that perfomance.Paul pointed already ,providers love it because there is no limit for overselling,but I'm talking abut using it as it shoud where you are boss who will not overload own server.

For comparation  OVZ can be installed on top of the XEN to  virtualize VPS ,no one including Me will tell that less is better than more but for some tasks you will find OVZ more sutiable solutions,like if you want to virtualize own dedicated server for your needs where only your VMs will be created.