Think twice about Verio .. Iserver.com.. Not Good!

[White Knight]

Well I have been with Verio.. also known as ISERVER.com for about 3 months now and all was ok untill lately..

I went with Package B where its $95.00 a month.. a hit in the pocket since I dont make money off this website. But its well worth it for a hobbie.

I recieved this email today.. And I am pissed.. No one ever said I needed to keep my server below 1.00.. I have anywhere from 50 to 100 users on at a time. so it does bring the site up..

I am very upset a verio since they decided they will just kill the MYSQL process before even asking me about it.

Hello,

On the following server:
sportbikes% sinfo
hostname: sportbikes.net
address: 161.58.166.161
type: B (1)


The load is too high and is affecting server performance:
load averages: 3.65, 2.57, 2.56

These load averages can be viewed using the 'top' or 'uptime' command. The load averages are for the past minute, 5 minutes, and 15 minutes. The 15 minutes load average should never be over 1.00.

The loads appear to be caused by the mysqld process. I will kill this process in order to make other accounts on the machine more efficient. please stream-line your mysql to keep the load down, or upgrade your server.

If you have any further questions let me know.

---------------------
Guys.. this ticks me off.. I know they are trying to make money.. but if you are going to offer something .. make sure people know what they are going to get.

Right now I am trying to figure out what I am going to do.. Becuase I have no clue.. I dont know where to go.. I think I am going to ride this wave for a bit and see what happens.

[fastforward]

You might want to look at vservers/hostpro. Their Freedom range of virtual servers protect other virtual servers on the same machine from the cpu usage and memory use of each other. You are allocated a certain percentage of cpu and you can run it 1,2 or 300 all day without affecting anyone (except your site visitor ) Also when the machine is quiet, you are allocated more resources. You are aways guaranteed the minimum cpu power.

The only thing that will affect other servers is when your disk partition becomes full. Not sure why but I found out the hard way I think they said it had something to with the failed network connections constantly re-trying to connect.

The other good thing about it is when you do an 'uptime' the load averages are specific to your virtual server so you can see exactly what's going on.

Their price is the same as Verio for the Freedom 300. My site at britishexpats.com is running on a 300.

[/end sales pitch]

[nuno]

fastforward:
where did u get that lastpost thread title hack?
thankz

[fastforward]

Originally posted by nuno
fastforward:
where did u get that lastpost thread title hack?
thankz

It's part of my usenet hack. I keep meaning to release it seperately but I never get round to it. It's a simple hack though. Just add a new column to the forum table called 'lastactivethread' or something similar. Then add a bit of code in the indexpost() function to populate it with the thread title each time a post is indexexed. Then you just refer to it from your forumhome templates using $forum[lastactivethread].

I'll see if I can find the time over the weekend to release it as a hack if you don't want to do it yourself.

[nuno]

Originally posted by fastforward


I'll see if I can find the time over the weekend to release it as a hack if you don't want to do it yourself.

that would be awesome
thank you

[tubedogg]

Originally posted by fastforward
You might want to look at vservers/hostpro. Their Freedom range of virtual servers protect other virtual servers on the same machine from the cpu usage and memory use of each other. You are allocated a certain percentage of cpu and you can run it 1,2 or 300 all day without affecting anyone

I would not go with a host that allocated me a percentage of the CPU. Dang, I can't find the thread as to why, but there are very good reasons to steer clear of such a host.

[Me2Be]

I have 3 dedicated servers with Verio - since 1998 and haven't had ANY problems with them. Must be on their shared server side. But I'd definitely recommend them for anyone looking for dedicated service

[fastforward]

Originally posted by tubedogg

I would not go with a host that allocated me a percentage of the CPU. Dang, I can't find the thread as to why, but there are very good reasons to steer clear of such a host.

Read again.
They guarantee a minimum.
Whatever host you go with, you are allocated a percentage of the cpu. The difference is most hosts will simply suspend your site if you use too much. Not only are you affected, but every other site on the server also suffers. By going with a host that doesn't allocate you a minimum cpu usage, you are open to the same problems when another site overburdens the cpu.

With this solution your site is not terminated, it simply acts as any dedicated server would when it runs out of cpu power. Lets face it, even a dedicated server is allocated a percentage of cpu power. It may be 100%, but 100% of a celeron 500 isn't that great.

By the way, I'm not implying that you, or anyone else has a celeron 500 as a dedicated server.

[fastforward]

Originally posted by Me2Be
I have 3 dedicated servers with Verio - since 1998 and haven't had ANY problems with them. Must be on their shared server side. But I'd definitely recommend them for anyone looking for dedicated service

I think the problem with Verio is they are made of little companies that run things independently. They are almost like resellers. So dealing with Verio direct probably isn't the same as dealing with I-server.

It least that's how it all works.

[WildWayz]

Ouch - that is a high CPU usuage!

Don't blame them for killing the MySQL process - that is plain silly for a virtual account!

only time my dedicated server hits 1.2 load, is when I run updatedb to index the files on the server - then it only runs that high for about 5 mins.

--James

[JWS]

We've got one of the VServers Freedom 500x accounts, and other that really needing more disk space (yes, you can eat up 1GB in a hurry), I've been happy with it.

I have noticed, though, that the site can be slow occasionally and that I can't get a good feel of what's causing the slowdown because of the fact that your stats are so "you specific". For instance, I noticed a slowdown yesterday, and I did an uptime to find the load at ~1.2, the mysqld process taking up 15% or so of memory, and the disk at 65% usage. That would lead me to believe that something else was causing the slowdown for users, but it's a little hard to pinpoint it.

I'm considering Ventures Online when they get things straightened out just for the dedicated host + a bigger drive.