Thread: Hosted servers with good DB disk performance?
I keep falling into situations where it would be nice to host a server somewhere else. Virtual host solutions and the mysterious cloud are no good for the ones I run into though, as disk performance is important for all the applications I have to deal with. What I'd love to have is a way to rent a fairly serious piece of dedicated hardware, ideally with multiple (at least 4) hard drives in a RAID configuration and a battery-backed write cache. The cache is negotiable. Linux would be preferred, FreeBSD or Solaris would also work; not Windows though (see "good DB performance"). Is anyone aware of a company that offers such a thing? -- * Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD
Greg Smith wrote: > What I'd love to have is a way to rent a fairly serious piece of > dedicated hardware, ideally with multiple (at least 4) hard drives in a > RAID configuration and a battery-backed write cache. The cache is > negotiable. Linux would be preferred, FreeBSD or Solaris would also > work; not Windows though (see "good DB performance"). We tried this with poor results. Most of the co-location and server-farm places are set up with generic systems that areoptimized for small-to-medium-sized web sites. They use MySQL and are surprised to hear there's an alternative open-sourceDB. They claim to be able to create custom configurations, but it's a lie. The problem is that they run on thin profit margins, and their techs are mostly ignorant, they just follow scripts. If somethinggoes wrong, or they make an error, you can't get anything through their thick heads. And you can't go down thereand fix it yourself. For example, we told them EXACTLY how to set up our system, but they decided that automatic monthly RPM OS updates couldn'thurt. So the first of the month, we in the morning to find that Linux had been updated to libraries that were incompatiblewith our own software, the system automatically rebooted and our web site was dead. And many similar incidents. We finally bought some nice Dell servers and found a co-location site that provides us all the infrastructure (reliable power,internet, cooling, security...), and we're in charge of the computers. We've never looked back. Craig
On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 11:51 PM, Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com> wrote: > I keep falling into situations where it would be nice to host a server > somewhere else. Virtual host solutions and the mysterious cloud are no good > for the ones I run into though, as disk performance is important for all the > applications I have to deal with. Perhaps you'll be satisfied with http://www.ovh.co.uk/products/dedicated_list.xml ? Personally I have only one machine there (SuperPlan Mini) - I asked them to set up Proxmox (http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Main_Page ) for me and now I have four OpenVZ Linux containers with different setup and services. So far I can't be more happy. Regards, Marcin
Depends on the level of facility you are looking for. Peer1 (www.peer1.com) will sell you just about whatever you need contained in a single box and I believe their Atlanta facility and some others have a managed SAN option. Since you want a customized solution, make sure you talk with one of their solutions engineers. Another good option in this range up to mid-enterprise hosting solutions is Host My Site (www.hostmysite.com). On the very high end of the spectrum, gni (www.gni.com) seems to provide a good set of infrastructure as a service (IAAS) solutions including SAN storage and very high bandwidth - historically they have been very successful in the MPOG world. If you are interested, I can put you in touch with real people who can help you at all three organizations. Jerry Champlin|Absolute Performance Inc. -----Original Message----- From: pgsql-performance-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-performance-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Greg Smith Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 3:51 PM To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org Subject: [PERFORM] Hosted servers with good DB disk performance? I keep falling into situations where it would be nice to host a server somewhere else. Virtual host solutions and the mysterious cloud are no good for the ones I run into though, as disk performance is important for all the applications I have to deal with. What I'd love to have is a way to rent a fairly serious piece of dedicated hardware, ideally with multiple (at least 4) hard drives in a RAID configuration and a battery-backed write cache. The cache is negotiable. Linux would be preferred, FreeBSD or Solaris would also work; not Windows though (see "good DB performance"). Is anyone aware of a company that offers such a thing? -- * Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance
On Tue, 2009-05-26 at 17:51 -0400, Greg Smith wrote: > I keep falling into situations where it would be nice to host a server > somewhere else. Virtual host solutions and the mysterious cloud are no > good for the ones I run into though, as disk performance is important for > all the applications I have to deal with. > > What I'd love to have is a way to rent a fairly serious piece of dedicated > hardware, ideally with multiple (at least 4) hard drives in a RAID > configuration and a battery-backed write cache. The cache is negotiable. > Linux would be preferred, FreeBSD or Solaris would also work; not Windows > though (see "good DB performance"). > > Is anyone aware of a company that offers such a thing? Sure, CMD will do it, so will Rack Space and a host of others. If you are willing to go with a VPS SliceHost are decent folk. CMD doesn't rent hardware you would have to provide that, Rack Space does. Joshua D. Drake -- PostgreSQL - XMPP: jdrake@jabber.postgresql.org Consulting, Development, Support, Training 503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/ The PostgreSQL Company, serving since 1997
On 5/26/09, Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com> wrote: > I keep falling into situations where it would be nice to host a server > somewhere else. Virtual host solutions and the mysterious cloud are no > good for the ones I run into though, as disk performance is important for > all the applications I have to deal with. > > What I'd love to have is a way to rent a fairly serious piece of dedicated > hardware, ideally with multiple (at least 4) hard drives in a RAID > configuration and a battery-backed write cache. The cache is negotiable. > Linux would be preferred, FreeBSD or Solaris would also work; not Windows > though (see "good DB performance"). > > Is anyone aware of a company that offers such a thing? www.contegix.com offer just about the best support I've come across and are familiar with Postgres. They offer RHEL (and windows) managed servers on a variety of boxes. They're not a budget outfit though, but that's reflected in the service. -- Dave Page EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
On Tue, 26 May 2009, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > CMD doesn't rent hardware you would have to provide that, Rack Space > does. Part of the idea was to avoid buying a stack of servers, if this were just a "where do I put the boxes at?" problem I'd have just asked you about it already. I forgot to check Rack Space earlier, looks like they have Dell servers with up to 8 drives and a RAID controller in them available. Let's just hope it's not one of the completely useless PERC models there; can anyone confirm Dell's PowerEdge R900 has one of the decent performing PERC6 controllers I've heard rumors of in it? Craig, I share your concerns about outsourced hosting, but as the only custom application involved is one I build my own RPMs for I'm not really concerned about the system getting screwed up software-wise. The idea here is that I might rent an eval system to confirm performance is reasonable, and if it is then I'd be clear to get a bigger stack of them. Luckily there's a guy here who knows a bit about benchmarking for this sort of thing... -- * Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD
Greg, > I keep falling into situations where it would be nice to host a server > somewhere else. Virtual host solutions and the mysterious cloud are no > good for the ones I run into though, as disk performance is important > for all the applications I have to deal with. Joyent will guarentee you a certain amount of disk bandwidth. As far as I know, they're the only hoster who does. -- Josh Berkus PostgreSQL Experts Inc. www.pgexperts.com
On 5/26/09 6:17 PM, "Greg Smith" <gsmith@gregsmith.com> wrote: > On Tue, 26 May 2009, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > >> CMD doesn't rent hardware you would have to provide that, Rack Space >> does. > > Part of the idea was to avoid buying a stack of servers, if this were just > a "where do I put the boxes at?" problem I'd have just asked you about it > already. I forgot to check Rack Space earlier, looks like they have Dell > servers with up to 8 drives and a RAID controller in them available. > Let's just hope it's not one of the completely useless PERC models there; > can anyone confirm Dell's PowerEdge R900 has one of the decent performing > PERC6 controllers I've heard rumors of in it? Every managed hosting provider I've seen uses RAID controllers and support through the hardware provider. If its Dell its 99% likely a PERC (OEM'd LSI). HP, theirs (not sure who the OEM is), Sun theirs (OEM'd Adaptec). PERC6 in my testing was certainly better than PERC5, but its still sub-par in sequential transfer rate or scaling up past 6 or so drives in a volume. I did go through the process of using a managed hosting provider and getting custom RAID card and storage arrays -- but that takes a lot of hand-holding and time, and will most certainly cause setup delays and service issues when things go wrong and you've got the black-sheep server. Unless its absolutely business critical to get that last 10%-20% performance, I would go with whatever they have with no customization. Most likely if you ask for a database setup, they'll give you 6 or 8 drives in raid-5. Most of what these guys do is set up LAMP cookie-cutters... > > Craig, I share your concerns about outsourced hosting, but as the only > custom application involved is one I build my own RPMs for I'm not really > concerned about the system getting screwed up software-wise. The idea > here is that I might rent an eval system to confirm performance is > reasonable, and if it is then I'd be clear to get a bigger stack of them. > Luckily there's a guy here who knows a bit about benchmarking for this > sort of thing... > > -- > * Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD > > -- > Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@postgresql.org) > To make changes to your subscription: > http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance >
On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 7:41 PM, Scott Carey <scott@richrelevance.com> wrote: > > On 5/26/09 6:17 PM, "Greg Smith" <gsmith@gregsmith.com> wrote: > >> On Tue, 26 May 2009, Joshua D. Drake wrote: >> >>> CMD doesn't rent hardware you would have to provide that, Rack Space >>> does. >> >> Part of the idea was to avoid buying a stack of servers, if this were just >> a "where do I put the boxes at?" problem I'd have just asked you about it >> already. I forgot to check Rack Space earlier, looks like they have Dell >> servers with up to 8 drives and a RAID controller in them available. >> Let's just hope it's not one of the completely useless PERC models there; >> can anyone confirm Dell's PowerEdge R900 has one of the decent performing >> PERC6 controllers I've heard rumors of in it? > > Every managed hosting provider I've seen uses RAID controllers and support > through the hardware provider. If its Dell its 99% likely a PERC (OEM'd > LSI). > HP, theirs (not sure who the OEM is), Sun theirs (OEM'd Adaptec). > > PERC6 in my testing was certainly better than PERC5, but its still sub-par > in sequential transfer rate or scaling up past 6 or so drives in a volume. > > I did go through the process of using a managed hosting provider and getting > custom RAID card and storage arrays -- but that takes a lot of hand-holding > and time, and will most certainly cause setup delays and service issues when > things go wrong and you've got the black-sheep server. Unless its > absolutely business critical to get that last 10%-20% performance, I would > go with whatever they have with no customization. > > Most likely if you ask for a database setup, they'll give you 6 or 8 drives > in raid-5. Most of what these guys do is set up LAMP cookie-cutters... > >> >> Craig, I share your concerns about outsourced hosting, but as the only >> custom application involved is one I build my own RPMs for I'm not really >> concerned about the system getting screwed up software-wise. The idea >> here is that I might rent an eval system to confirm performance is >> reasonable, and if it is then I'd be clear to get a bigger stack of them. >> Luckily there's a guy here who knows a bit about benchmarking for this >> sort of thing... Yeah, the OP would be much better served ordering a server with an Areca or Escalade / 3ware controller setup and ready to go, shipped to the hosting center and sshing in and doing the rest than letting a hosted solution company try to compete. You can get a nice 16x15K SAS disk machine with an Areca controller, dual QC cpus, and 16 to 32 gig ram for $6000 to $8000 ready to go. We've since repurposed our Dell / PERC machines as file servers and left the real database server work to our aberdeen machines. Trying to wring reasonable performance out of most Dell servers is a testament to frustration.
On 5/26/09 6:52 PM, "Scott Marlowe" <scott.marlowe@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 7:41 PM, Scott Carey <scott@richrelevance.com> wrote: >> >> On 5/26/09 6:17 PM, "Greg Smith" <gsmith@gregsmith.com> wrote: >> >>> On Tue, 26 May 2009, Joshua D. Drake wrote: >>> >>>> CMD doesn't rent hardware you would have to provide that, Rack Space >>>> does. >>> >>> Part of the idea was to avoid buying a stack of servers, if this were just >>> a "where do I put the boxes at?" problem I'd have just asked you about it >>> already. I forgot to check Rack Space earlier, looks like they have Dell >>> servers with up to 8 drives and a RAID controller in them available. >>> Let's just hope it's not one of the completely useless PERC models there; >>> can anyone confirm Dell's PowerEdge R900 has one of the decent performing >>> PERC6 controllers I've heard rumors of in it? >> >> Every managed hosting provider I've seen uses RAID controllers and support >> through the hardware provider. If its Dell its 99% likely a PERC (OEM'd >> LSI). >> HP, theirs (not sure who the OEM is), Sun theirs (OEM'd Adaptec). >> >> PERC6 in my testing was certainly better than PERC5, but its still sub-par >> in sequential transfer rate or scaling up past 6 or so drives in a volume. >> >> I did go through the process of using a managed hosting provider and getting >> custom RAID card and storage arrays -- but that takes a lot of hand-holding >> and time, and will most certainly cause setup delays and service issues when >> things go wrong and you've got the black-sheep server. Unless its >> absolutely business critical to get that last 10%-20% performance, I would >> go with whatever they have with no customization. >> >> Most likely if you ask for a database setup, they'll give you 6 or 8 drives >> in raid-5. Most of what these guys do is set up LAMP cookie-cutters... >> >>> >>> Craig, I share your concerns about outsourced hosting, but as the only >>> custom application involved is one I build my own RPMs for I'm not really >>> concerned about the system getting screwed up software-wise. The idea >>> here is that I might rent an eval system to confirm performance is >>> reasonable, and if it is then I'd be clear to get a bigger stack of them. >>> Luckily there's a guy here who knows a bit about benchmarking for this >>> sort of thing... > > Yeah, the OP would be much better served ordering a server with an > Areca or Escalade / 3ware controller setup and ready to go, shipped to > the hosting center and sshing in and doing the rest than letting a > hosted solution company try to compete. You can get a nice 16x15K SAS > disk machine with an Areca controller, dual QC cpus, and 16 to 32 gig > ram for $6000 to $8000 ready to go. We've since repurposed our Dell / > PERC machines as file servers and left the real database server work > to our aberdeen machines. Trying to wring reasonable performance out > of most Dell servers is a testament to frustration. > For a permanent server, yes. But for a sort lease? You have to go with what is easily available for lease, or work out something with a provider where they buy the HW from you and manage/lease it back (some do this, but all I've ever heard of involved 12+ servers to do so and sign on for 1 or 2 years). Expecting full I/O performance out of a DELL with a PERC is not really possible, but maybe that's not as important as a certain pricing model or the flexibility? That is really an independent business decision. I'll also but a caveat to the '3ware' above -- the last few I've used were slower than the PERC (9650 series versus PERC6, 9550 versus PERC5 -- all tests with 12 SATA drives raid 10). I have no experience with the 3ware 9690 series (SAS) though -- those might be just fine.
On 5/26/09 7:27 PM, "Scott Carey" <scott@richrelevance.com> wrote: > > For a permanent server, yes. But for a sort lease? You have to go with Ahem ... 'short' not 'sort'.
On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 8:27 PM, Scott Carey <scott@richrelevance.com> wrote: >> Yeah, the OP would be much better served ordering a server with an >> Areca or Escalade / 3ware controller setup and ready to go, shipped to >> the hosting center and sshing in and doing the rest than letting a >> hosted solution company try to compete. You can get a nice 16x15K SAS >> disk machine with an Areca controller, dual QC cpus, and 16 to 32 gig >> ram for $6000 to $8000 ready to go. We've since repurposed our Dell / >> PERC machines as file servers and left the real database server work >> to our aberdeen machines. Trying to wring reasonable performance out >> of most Dell servers is a testament to frustration. >> > > For a permanent server, yes. But for a sort lease? You have to go with > what is easily available for lease, or work out something with a provider > where they buy the HW from you and manage/lease it back (some do this, but > all I've ever heard of involved 12+ servers to do so and sign on for 1 or 2 > years). True, but given the low cost of a high drive count machine with spares etc you can come away spending a lot less than by leasing. > Expecting full I/O performance out of a DELL with a PERC is not really > possible, but maybe that's not as important as a certain pricing model or > the flexibility? That is really an independent business decision. True. Plus if you only need 4 drives or something, you can do pretty well with a Dell with the RAID controller turned to JBOD and letting the linux kernel do the RAID work. > I'll also but a caveat to the '3ware' above -- the last few I've used were > slower than the PERC (9650 series versus PERC6, 9550 versus PERC5 -- all > tests with 12 SATA drives raid 10). > I have no experience with the 3ware 9690 series (SAS) though -- those might > be just fine. My experience is primarily with Areca 1100, 1200, and 1600 series controllers, but others on the list have done well with 3ware controllers. We have an 8 port 11xx series areca card at work running RAID-6 as a multipurpose server, and it's really quite fast and well behaved for sequential throughput. But the 16xx series cards stomp the 11xx series in the ground for random IOPS.
On Tue, 26 May 2009, Scott Marlowe wrote: > Plus if you only need 4 drives or something, you can do pretty well with > a Dell with the RAID controller turned to JBOD and letting the linux > kernel do the RAID work. I think most of the apps I'm considering would be OK with 4 drives and a useful write cache. The usual hosted configurations are only 1 or 2 and no usable cache, which really limits what you can do with the server before you run into a disk bottleneck. My rule of thumb is that any single core will be satisfied as long as you've got at least 4 disks to feed it, since it's hard for one process to use more than a couple of hundred MB/s for doing mostly sequential work. Obviously random access is much easier to get disk-bound, where you have to throw a lot more disks at it. It wouldn't surprise me to find it's impossible to get an optimal setup of 8+ disks from any hosting provider. Wasn't asking for "great" DB performance though, just "good". -- * Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD
Greg Smith wrote: > I keep falling into situations where it would be nice to host a server > somewhere else. Virtual host solutions and the mysterious cloud are no > good for the ones I run into though, as disk performance is important > for all the applications I have to deal with. It's worth noting that some clouds are foggier than others. On Amazon's you can improve your disk performance by setting up software RAID over multiple of their virtual drives. And since they charge by GB, it doesn't cost you any more to do this than to set up a smaller number of larger drives. Here's a blog showing Bonnie++ comparing various RAID levels on Amazon's cloud - with a 4 disk RAID0 giving a nice performance increase over a single virtual drive. http://af-design.com/blog/2009/02/27/amazon-ec2-disk-performance/ Here's a guy who set up a 40TB RAID0 with 40 1TB virtual disks on Amazon. http://groups.google.com/group/ec2ubuntu/web/raid-0-on-ec2-ebs-volumes-elastic-block-store-using-mdadm http://groups.google.com/group/ec2ubuntu/browse_thread/thread/d520ae145edf746 I might get around to trying some pgbench runs on amazon in a week or so. Any suggestions what would be most interesting? > What I'd love to have is a way to rent a fairly serious piece of > dedicated hardware, ideally with multiple (at least 4) hard drives in a > RAID configuration and a battery-backed write cache. The cache is > negotiable. Linux would be preferred, FreeBSD or Solaris would also > work; not Windows though (see "good DB performance"). > > Is anyone aware of a company that offers such a thing? >
On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 6:28 PM, Craig James <craig_james@emolecules.com> wrote: > Greg Smith wrote: >> >> What I'd love to have is a way to rent a fairly serious piece of dedicated >> hardware, ideally with multiple (at least 4) hard drives in a RAID >> configuration and a battery-backed write cache. The cache is negotiable. >> Linux would be preferred, FreeBSD or Solaris would also work; not Windows >> though (see "good DB performance"). > We finally bought some nice Dell servers and found a co-location site that > provides us all the infrastructure (reliable power, internet, cooling, > security...), and we're in charge of the computers. We've never looked > back. I ran this way on a Quad-processor Dell for many years, and then, after selling the business and starting a new one, decided to keep my DB on a remote-hosted machine. I have a dual-core2 with hardware RAID 5 (I know, I know) and a private network interface to the other servers (web, email, web-cache) Just today when the DB server went down (after 2 years of reliable service .... and 380 days of uptime) they gave me remote KVM access to the machine. Turns out I had messed up the fstab while fiddling with the server because I really don't know FreeBSD as well as Linux, I think remote leased-hosting works fine as long as you have a competent team on the other end and "KVM over IP" access. Many providers don't have that... and without it you can get stuck as you describe. I have used MANY providers over they years, at the peak with over 30 leased servers at 12 providers, and with many colocation situations as well. The only advantage with colocation I have seen .... is the reduced expense if you keep it going for a few years on the same box..... which is a big advantage if it lets you buy a much more powerful box to begin with. Providers I prefer for high-end machines allow me to upgrade the hardware with no monthly fees (marked-up cost of upgrade + time/labor only).... that keeps the cost down.
Greg Smith wrote: > What I'd love to have is a way to rent a fairly serious piece of > dedicated hardware, ideally with multiple (at least 4) hard drives in > a RAID configuration and a battery-backed write cache. The cache is > negotiable. Linux would be preferred, FreeBSD or Solaris would also > work; not Windows though (see "good DB performance"). > > Is anyone aware of a company that offers such a thing? I've used http://softlayer.com/ in the past and highly recommend them. They sell a wide range of dedicated servers, including ones that handle up to 12 HDDs/SSDs, and servers with battery-backed RAID controllers (I've been told they use mostly Adaptec cards as well as some 3ware cards). In addition, all their servers are connected to a private network you can VPN into, and all include IPMI for remote management when you can't SSH into your server. They have a host of other features; click on the Services tab on their site to find out more. Alex
Hi, Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com> writes: > I keep falling into situations where it would be nice to host a server > somewhere else. Virtual host solutions and the mysterious cloud are no good > for the ones I run into though, as disk performance is important for all the > applications I have to deal with. A french company here is working on several points of interest for you, I'd say. They provide dedicated server renting and are working on their own OpenSource cloud solution, so there's nothing mysterious about it, and you can even run the software in your own datacenter(s). http://lost-oasis.fr/ http://www.niftyname.org/ OK, granted, the company's french and their site too, but the OpenSource cloud solution is in english and the code available in public git repositories (and tarballs). > What I'd love to have is a way to rent a fairly serious piece of dedicated > hardware, ideally with multiple (at least 4) hard drives in a RAID > configuration and a battery-backed write cache. The cache is > negotiable. Linux would be preferred, FreeBSD or Solaris would also work; > not Windows though (see "good DB performance"). > > Is anyone aware of a company that offers such a thing? Did you omit to say "english spoken" as a requirement? :) -- dim
On Tue, 2009-05-26 at 19:52 -0600, Scott Marlowe wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 7:41 PM, Scott Carey <scott@richrelevance.com> wrote: > > > > On 5/26/09 6:17 PM, "Greg Smith" <gsmith@gregsmith.com> wrote: > > > >> On Tue, 26 May 2009, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > >> > >>> CMD doesn't rent hardware you would have to provide that, Rack Space > >>> does. > >> > >> Part of the idea was to avoid buying a stack of servers, if this were just > >> a "where do I put the boxes at?" problem I'd have just asked you about it > >> already. Heh. Well on another consideration any "rental" will out live its cost effectiveness in 6 months or less. At least if you own the box, its useful for a long period of time. Heck I got a quad opteron, 2 gig of memory with 2 6402 HP controllers and 2 fully loaded MSA30s for 3k. Used of course but still. The equivalent machine brand new is 10k and the same machine from Rack Space is going to be well over 1200.00 a month. Joshua D. Drake -- PostgreSQL - XMPP: jdrake@jabber.postgresql.org Consulting, Development, Support, Training 503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/ The PostgreSQL Company, serving since 1997
> Heh. Well on another consideration any "rental" will out live its cost > effectiveness in 6 months or less. At least if you own the box, its > useful for a long period of time. > > Heck I got a quad opteron, 2 gig of memory with 2 6402 HP controllers > and 2 fully loaded MSA30s for 3k. Used of course but still. > > The equivalent machine brand new is 10k and the same machine from Rack > Space is going to be well over 1200.00 a month. > Presumably true, but owing the gear means: 1) buying the gear; 2) buying backup hardware if you need a "shell" or replacement gear to be handy so if something bad happens you can get back running quickly; 3) a data center rack to hold the server; 4) bandwidth; 5) monitoring of the hardware and having a response team available to fix it. The virtual private server market is interesting, but we've found various flaws that are make our transition away from owning our own gear and data center problematic: 1) they may not offer reverse DNS (PTR records) for your IP which is generally needed if your application sends out email alerts of any kind; 2) they may have nasty termination clauses (allowing them to terminate server at any time for any reason without notice and without giving you access to your code and data stored on the VPS); and 3) performance will always lag as its virtualized and the servers may be "over subscribed." I like the Amazon EC2 solution, though the pricing is overly complex and they suffer the "no DNS PTR" ability. But since you can buy just what you need, you can run warm standby servers or the like and moving your data from one to the other over the private network costs nothing extra. I found their choice of OS confusing (we wanted CentOS, but they have no Amazon-certified versions), too. Does anybody have any recommendations for a good VPS provider? Thanks, David
On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 7:58 PM, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:
On 5/26/09, Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com> wrote:www.contegix.com offer just about the best support I've come across
> I keep falling into situations where it would be nice to host a server
> somewhere else. Virtual host solutions and the mysterious cloud are no
> good for the ones I run into though, as disk performance is important for
> all the applications I have to deal with.
>
> What I'd love to have is a way to rent a fairly serious piece of dedicated
> hardware, ideally with multiple (at least 4) hard drives in a RAID
> configuration and a battery-backed write cache. The cache is negotiable.
> Linux would be preferred, FreeBSD or Solaris would also work; not Windows
> though (see "good DB performance").
>
> Is anyone aware of a company that offers such a thing?
and are familiar with Postgres. They offer RHEL (and windows) managed
servers on a variety of boxes. They're not a budget outfit though, but
that's reflected in the service.
+1
These guys have the servers AND they have the knowledge to really back it up. If you're looking for co-lo, or complete hands-off management, they're your guys (at a price).
--Scott
Hi, Quoting "Greg Smith" <gsmith@gregsmith.com>: > What I'd love to have is a way to rent a fairly serious piece of > dedicated hardware I'm just stumbling over newservers.com, they provide sort of a "cloud" with an API but that manages real servers (well, blade ones, but not virtualized). Their "fast" variant comes with up to two SAS drives, however, I don't think there's a BBC. Hardware seems to come from Dell, charging by hourly usage... but go read their website yourself. If anybody has ever tried their systems, I'd like to hear back. I wish such an offering would exist for Europe (guess that's just a matter of time). Regards Markus Wanner
"Markus Wanner" <markus@bluegap.ch> writes: > If anybody has ever tried their systems, I'd like to hear back. I wish such > an offering would exist for Europe (guess that's just a matter of time). http://www.niftyname.org/ http://lost-oasis.fr/ It seems to be coming very soon, in France :) -- dim