All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Hostigation VPS
Hi All,
I'm thinking of purchasing a third VPS for playing about with and learning Linux command line etc.
So far I have two VPSs, one with AlienVPS, and one with OnePoundHosting. Both seem to work fine (well the Alien restarts every so often, but the £1 hosting has been rock solid for over a month now). They are both 'super cheap' options ($15-20 per year up front).
The third I was thinking of going with was Hostigation, as I've heard good things about it on these forums. Again i'm thinking of going with the super cheap option as it suits my needs. The question I'm going to ask here though is - KVM or OpenVZ?
My Alien VPS is OpenVZ, and my OnePoundHosting VPS is XEN. I was thinking of making my Hostigation purchase a KVM, so I've got one of each 
Is this a good idea though? I've been reading that the arcitecture of KVM is different as it runs its own Kernel rather than sharing like OpenVZ. I'm guessing this has an efect on RAM and CPU. Will this affect me? If I go with a 128MB KVM, will this have less performance than my 128MB XEN?
Comments
If you are willing to pay extra for KVM, go for it. Your 128MB KVM and 128MB XEN should both have equal performance.
No, not less than XEN. OpenVZ can limit some options, depending on how is set up, xen and KVM are pretty much full machines on shared hardware, while OpenVZ is sharing some software too. OpenVZ should perform better on similar hardware, but that is not your concern, but the problem of the provider which usually charges more for Xen or KVM than OpenVZ.
Take the KVM, as you learn more you will see the differences, if you just started, they are probably the same to you, provided all have same BW and processor power, which I doubt.
M
Thanks for the quick replies.
I might just go with KVM then, just so I've got one of each!
I'm guessing KVM is like XEN where it cannot be oversold.
Theres not too much detail on the ordering page, but I guess Hostigation have swap file on their VPSs? Also it doesnt mention link speeds, only allowed bandwidth.
For learning, it might be easier to use OpenVZ. The reason being that OpenVZ is easily deployable, you click a few buttons and Linux is installed. So if you screw up the OS, you just go to the Control Panel, click reinstall and come back 5 minutes later to a fresh installation.
On KVM, you have to install Linux manually so re-installation is slower. The plus side is you get to learn how to install Linux whereas it's all done for you in OpenVZ.
As for "overselling" on different virtualization technologies, I can't speak for other companies but we oversell everything...KVM/OpenVZ/Xen you name it and we'll oversell it. There's no such thing as a Virt that can't be oversold as the very concept of a VPS is to overcommit idle system resources aka overselling. There is no technological barrier that prevents overselling on any kind of VPS.
The quality of the server depends on the provider, not the virtualization technology.
Couldn't have put it better myself.
@nimdy
You must also be prepared to have to set up networking etc if need be with KVM.
Oversell is such a mis-used word by VPS clients. As @kiloserve said, we all oversell, it's how each provider manages over allocation and avoids a negative experience for the end user that matters.
KVM and Xen-HVM are fairly identical, both use qemu to provide full virtual environments. I'm guessing your Xen is PV, which has it's own advantages as well. KVM and Xen typically doesn't allow overselling of disk space as each clients space is carved from a larger Volume Group and each Logical Volume allocated to each client. Yes there are ways to use a ballooning virtual disk at the cost of lower drive performance. Openvz has a shared allocation of drive space so over commitment of disk space is extremely common, and as long as you have enough space to do what you need, the provider has managed that aspect well. KVM allocates memory to the client from the host node, but does not limit how much you can allocate to all clients, so a host with 16gb of ram can easily be over committed, with that excess commitment provided by swap on the host node. Personally I avoid this issue by only selling about 90% of memory installed in the host, leaving memory for the host node to operate, and avoiding client containers to using swap for real memory as that would create a noticeable issue on disk performance if the node is swapping that often. CPU is defiantly over subscribed in any VPS node, as each containers need to 100% access of their allowed resources are rarely used, and the power of today's CPU are so great, you'll run out of something else long before CPU most times. Bandwidth I think confuses clients the most. I know I provide a generous allocation for two reasons, first I don't want to have to take the time to bill for overages, and second, clients do not want to worry about owing for overages. Some do actually use 100% of what is allocated, and pre-pay for additional, and that is an option for when you actually need it, but you are talking about a small minority.
I think your goal is a good one, gain experience. And KVM is a solid choice based on what you already have purchased. Of course I will blow my own horn to choose Hostigation, but I think there are enough real paying clients here to toot that horn for me that are satisfied with their service.
Interesting stuff. I might be going with OpenVZ afterall then. I can do installing and configuring from scratch, but I prefer being able to reload pre-made distro templates when needed.
Me! Except I don't pay for it, someone else does
Lol, Hostigation is the one that I use for the majority of my sites and crap because it's the one I trust most, and the one thats the most solid.
@DotVPS thats very kind of you, but I dont mind biting the bullet with one or the other (it'll hardly break the bank). I think I'll read up some more in KVM (how to install from scratch, set up networking and optimising it for VPS etc) first.
https://hostigation.com/wiki/index.php?title=KVM:Install
I got my first KVM with Hostigation and it was a breeze setting it up.
Same here @kalam
I have two KVM VPSs with Hostigation, one in each of their locations.
Both haven't seen a second of downtime, and easily outperform every other provider I'm with currently.
Hostigation's OpenVZ platform is just as good as well
That you've noticed
@miTgiB What's your uptime like miTgiB? I've had loads of downtime and resets with AlienVPS since I've been with them (Dec 28th), but my other provider has been solid.
Nodes reboot at the oddest times for the oddest reasons sometimes, but in general while an outage happens, I've usually corrected it within 15 minutes. Most nodes in LA are still up from when they were first powered on, Charlotte has given me a little more trouble, but I finally found a recommended fix from RedHat for the e1000e nic troubles I've had so they have 1 more reboot coming and then should get into the multi-month uptimes there as well.
Do you have any benchmarks for your OVZ VPS's? I'm having the same issues with AlienVPS and I'm looking to switch.
If you let me know via support ticket your current VPS ID I will add a XEN HVM vps to your account so you can have a play with that for a week or two prior to your time with Tim, who I hear from Joel will certainly look after you.
It will behave similar to KVM in respects to ISO install etc.
There are so many in every benchmark thread on LET......
They're mostly KVM benchmarks, but I just found one for OVZ you posted, guess I should have searched longer
I'd agree with that, I've had a bunch of downtime on my AlienVPS NY vps, a lot of them being reboots too. Only problems I've had w/ Hostigation was network downtime (LA).
@onepound Thanks I'll certainly take you up on that offer.
You guys are so friendly. I must admit I've been a lurker on the forums and only just decided to register
Nope, but there's been two, maybe three, network outages in LA, doesn't mean it shouldn't be stated.
Good to see its not just me having issues with Alien.
@nimdy +1
I can vouch for Hostigation and Tim:
$10 1024mb VPS + $10 cPanel license = selling some shared web hosting on there.. customers are happy and I'm killing shared web hosting which is slow around here
When Tim moved from Rock Hill, SC to Charlotte - I had to shutdown a VPS that had 128 days of uptime (probably more from me goofing around) when he migrated.
+1 is not enough credit to give to Tim. +9001 is more appropriate.