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How is the VPS market doing, new host advice?
Howdy! I finally got invited for a Beta Test over at VirtKick and I'm excited to try it out. Before I dump a ton of time into the platform and web design, is there any market out there for a new VPS Provider? I'm a software developer who has been sysadmining Linux servers for several years now (SSH, bash scripting, Python development, compile my own kernels kind - not the cPanel/Plesk script kiddie kind - no offense 
).
Some things I'm thinking about:
100% Intel & SSD servers.
1Gbit/500Mbit burst/stable network.
Zendesk integration across website, Twitter, Facebook.
Included Anti-DDoS protection (500Gbit capacity).
2x 480GB SSD RAID 1 per server.
Offsite daily backups of the cluster.
No WHMCS or other garbage.
Full KVM.
North America/Europe Datacentres.
So far on a newly spawned VPS on the platform, I'm hitting:
2510 Unixbench.
279Mb/s IO.
89Mb/s network (Cachefly edge).
This is on an Intel Xeon E5-1630v3 with 32GB of RAM - 512MB RAM 1 Core VPS planned at $10/mo.
I thought I may have a chance since Vultr has been switching over to Xeon D-1540s which average 1,700 on Unixbench if I wanted to target the performance centric crowds. I'm keeping RAM and SSD space low on each server to prevent overselling (well with KVM it's not that possible anyway regarding RAM).
That puts about 30-40 customers on each server (if all customers go for the 512MB plan). I figured that with the higher RAM and SSD Space plans would equate to less customers per server = more CPU Performance overall per node:
1GB RAM = 30 customers
2GB RAM = 15 customers
and so on..
Another thought I had was to offer managed VPS services but I think it may be too much of a time-suck to scale and be profitable.
Thoughts?
Comments
Vultr has/had a habit to crap on people who resell them. Last time I've heard about them they were "relaxing" their rules.
I hear you there! I was considering reselling with them for a managed VPS project but decided against it. For example, the whole ID for SMTP access thing didn't ride well if for example one of my potential customers setup a spam box. I'll be acquiring my Dedicated Servers from OVH in Canada and France, I've been with them for a few years now and never had any issues with a Dedi for some consulting type work.
Here's the site I'm building, feedback welcome! https://www.bitvigor.com/
I like Vultr's service and would recommend them if you need something somewhere quickly, like downloading, storing and transferring files.
But the terminations and suspensions stories from the past are worrying. That's what doesn't make them fine for reselling/hosting. Of course, you could figure out blocking outgoing email and open proxy scripts, but it's too much of a risk.
Inceptionhosting eg sells ovz containers form Tokyo Vultr:
https://clients.inceptionhosting.com/cart.php?gid=13
Huh, interesting! I'd never think to host OpenVZ containers on top of another provider's KVM instances. The whole thing just seems too complex for my tastes and too many providers between the customer and the server. Thanks for the heads up!
Still sounds a bit unexciting
Digitalocean's VM-s (ones I've tried proxmox v4) on supported nested virtualization.
Windows server installation were still too slow for my taste on their higher specced instances despite having SSD underneath.
Part of the reason VPS line is so hard to get started
Basically standard. Everyone does this.
Basically standard. Everyone does this.
Maybe not standard, but useless feature. A support desk is a support desk.
Smells like OVH.
Basically standard. Actually sub-standard. Most of the established hosts seem to be going minimum RAID 10.
Basically standard. Everyone does this.
Nothing wrong with WHMCS? It doesn't particularly make the client experience any harder...
Basically standard. Everyone does this.
Basically standard. Everyone does this.
Most provider's VM CPU offerings are the 2.4Ghz range.
If you position your VMs in the 3+Ghz area you could differentiate your service.
It sounds like I may need to differentiate a bit then. Basically Standard sounds about just right for doing consultant work and launching them on the service (I could think of a million ways of doing worse). I have a ton of consultancy experience getting WordPress sites with WPML+WooCommerce down from 8 seconds to a second loadtime in P3, Pingdom (Nginx, Redis, PHP7, Microcaching). My market may then just be Managed VPS services, catering to the inexperienced who are stuck on some Shared Hosting plan. Ugh, so much time will be wasted setting up DNS records, getting them on Google Apps and such though - I only work over SSH and hand tune my configs.
About WHMCS, it's not a horrible platform or anything, just that everyone is doing it and I didn't want to bet yet another cookie-cutter VPS host or spend weeks writing integration glue - PHP is too verbose for my tastes.
As for ZenDesk, I worked at Apple for many years doing customer cx work. Ticketing is ticketing is ticketing but there is a reason they are rated #1 in customer satisfaction and part of it is fancy ticketing software IMO.
Thanks for the feedback @globalRegisters! I was thinking the same thing. Even Vultr is going with those slower D-1540 CPUs these days!
Are you doing LXC or KVM though?
KVM nesting requires extra kernel flags so unless they went out of their way to enable it, it sounds like you were doing containers?
Francisco
Block outgoing SMTP by default or install something to monitor it. Have threats that you'll kidnap spammer's family in the middle of the night and beat them with stalks of celery. You'll thank me later as it'll keep your relationship with your provider a positive one.
"I send newsletters" = spam
All I did were VM-s and had KVM enabled, so I didn't change anything.
I've started out with an 8GB digitalocean's VM then temp-upgraded to the second highest tier.
I still don't understand though why the install(unpacking windows) was so damn slow on ssd. Online's black friday special without raid on 7200rpm hdd is faster installing windows.
edit:
http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Processor_support
VT-x, shows in /proc/cpuinfo as the vmx flag. (grep vmx /proc/cpuinfo)
user@debian:~$ ssh derplet1 "grep flag /proc/cpuinfo"
Most modern E3's are 3+ Ghz
@GM2015 Last time I checked, in DigitalOcean using Proxmox 3.x it is not possible to run nested KVM with "hardware-assisted virtualization". It could run without that feature but very sloooow.
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Nested_Virtualization
Well, it definitely ran without turning kvm off. And yes, it was slow, so instead I've practiced with pve nested hypervisors for networking on my own dedicated server.
I don't understand your point.
It doesn't change the fact that most hosts don't offer 3+Ghz CPUS on their VMs.
To add to this I had a user the other day that wanted to signup to send 'newsletters' too. I warned him that if there was any blacklists he would be suspended right away. He then went on a rant about how much of a scam spamhaus is because they keep constantly blacklisting him.
Francisco
Most hosts that have a standard line/premium line do offer 3+ghz cpus. If "most hosts" is too generic a term, just go with RamNode. They use E3s on their premium lines.
@Nick_A
Honestly, as the owner of a small hosting business myself, I've really been trying to push to offer the best service at the best price points. However, every time I attempt a VPS solution, I think back on my mistakes and try to think of something that will actually sell. There's just nothing I can do or a location I can offer that RamNode doesn't already do better. Then I think of cool/nifty features... Then I realize BuyVM ( @Francisco ) already does all that better than I can offer. (AND they have 3 locations, one of them being very close to LA where I'm based)
At the end of the day, the vps market is pretty damn full and there are amazing hosts out there that already cover what this guy is trying to do. I'm not trying to shut him down, but am giving realistic advice as I've faced the exact same struggles he's facing. It seems even in the low end market, people are interested either in bargain bin pricing (<$25/year) or "premium" pricing only from established providers. Offering services at "premium" pricing while being new only encourages potential clients to host with more established providers. Offering services at below "premium" pricing encourages potential clients to host elsewhere because it's "not sustainable" and it looks "fly-by-night". Only when you offer bargain bin discounts that are CLEARLY unsustainable is when people go "oh it's only $XX, I'll buy it for the lulz".
I can go on and on but I think the OP gets the gist of the situation. There's pretty much nothing you can do in terms of unmanaged VPS to differentiate yourself at this point. You seem to have experience consulting, so if that's the service you wish to offer, I honestly think using a LARGE host like DigitalOcean ( @Jar
) will be better than trying to administrate and host your own VMs. Your profit will come from the consulting service you offer, and you won't have to spend your time trying to cobble together a working VPS environment.
@jonchun
Only 5 hosts that I know off offer 3+Ghz CPUs with KVM:
ramhost.us
ramnode.com
speedykvm.com
elasticnode.net
hostigation.com
As a consumer, such few options sucks.
3Ghz isn't anything special, even most of HVH's ultra cheap stuff has at least a E3-1240v3. Most VPS's I've had either had a decent E3 above 3Ghz, something super old like an L5520 on super budget hosts or an 2.something Ghz E5 where the number of cores more than makes up for a low clock speed.
Yes you might be able to use that as a selling point to get some clueless idiots from WHT, but no serious client will give a fuck what clock speed is being used, same with stupidly high DD results.
Using your logic you might as well get a 3Ghz AMD Athlon for a VPS node, who cares if it's only got 2 cores as long as it runs 1Ghz faster than the competition right?
You know full well that is not the point.
An E3 at 3+Ghz CPU will flat out fly, specially when the host start filling the node.
We all remember the excitement of 32mb.club. It shall be in our hearts forever
@Jonchun makes sense. Hosting is a growth market, business is risk though. I'm out $300~ month in server costs until I break even. That's $1,800 over six months, tough to swallow. I don't know, I love sysadmin work - paid entertainment maybe.
I registered managemyword.press - let's see if I can pickup some managed customers/consultant work.
What's the guideline on pricing for managed? $10/mo for a 512MB SSD, $20/mo 512mb SSD for site migration, DNS, email, By-Hand Nginx+Redis Tuning, New Relic Performance monitoring? Would it be better to charge up front, flat rate and host @ normal pricing with a coupon for VPS thrown in or discount? Time to test the market!
Quite the interesting discussion here! Will follow this
elasticnode.net possibly gone, their site isn't loading
speedykvm.com US only, Dallas TX
ramnode.com is cool, they are also evaulating VirtKick VPS Panel. Their Anti-DDoS has a monthly fee though
Maybe I can offer my web design services instead 0_o - some of these links have some rather interesting design choices :P
@Jonchun thanks for the advice! I'll let it ride and see how it goes.
Um...how do you know this?
@Nick_A
I'm also curious...
He said he was considering VirtKick.
He maybe made it up, or maybe VirtKick told him.
maybe he is virtkick!
@Jonchun
Ovh it's 480gbps
500gbps it's voxility XD