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Digital Ocean is doing it right
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Digital Ocean is doing it right

pavspavs Member

I have been using VPS for quite a few years now. And I have tried all kinds from quite a few providers, even outside the eco-chamber of LET/LEB. Though I have really enjoyed some of the providers I have tried from here, the one that really hit the spot for me is DigitalOcean.

DO reminds me of Slicehost, I really really liked slicehost. I thought it was way ahead of its time, the only problem with it was that it wasn't reasonably priced. Which is why linode ate some of its business. Now I think history is repeating itself as I believe DO is eating Linode business, both by undercutting them, being better product and security problem with Linode itself.

I admit that DO is still seems "unpolished" in some ways, as they always seemed to be experimenting with features and some of their pricing model, like bandwidth, backup, snapshots, and deploying snapshots to all region are not clear or even non-existent. But even at its "unpolished" state, it seems quite ahead in terms features and simplicity and pricing model.

Last year I had a problem with making online payments from the country I am currently living in. So I asked LET community to sponsor a server. Alex_LiquidHost from Liquid Solutions was kind enough to sponsor my server for one year. Never had a problem in one year.

But now that I have sorted out the online payment issues (for good hopefully) I wanted to give something else a shot, and DO has really fit the bill and has exactly what I was looking for (auto-backup/snapshot/resize-vps). Is there any other LE providers out there who also has backup/snapshot/resize features with comparable price?

Some of things that makes DO standout from almost every VPS providers I have tried:

  • Hourly billed.
  • Reasonably priced.
  • Auto-backup.
  • Snapshots and deploy from said snapshots.
  • Ability to add funds.
  • Resize VPS at will.
  • Custom kernel.
  • Fast deploy at any available location. (assuming you deployed your snapshot to all location first, or it might take some time for obvious reasons.)

Some of the negatives I can think of:

  • Though never experienced it myself, I have read of a few incidents of server failure with everything being wiped out. (thats why you backup guys).
  • Always changing, adding new features, might be a good or a bad thing depends on the way you look at it.
  • I still don't know what their transfer speed is. I couldn't find it mentioned clearly anywhere in their site, personal test on different DC showed speed between 50mbit/100mbit. Would be nice to know it clearly, surely.

[Disclaimer: I recently got $20 coupon for DO, but thats way after I started being a paid customer, it didn't affect my opinion on them. Liquid Solutions gave me a free vps for a year in exchange of ad placement.]

Comments

  • erhwegesrgsrerhwegesrgsr Member
    edited May 2013

    Ability to add funds.

    This must be a joke, look around, almost everyone with WHMCS allows account funds

    Custom kernel

    Love makes blind - DO never supported this on purpose.

    Though never experienced it myself, I have read of a few incidents of server failure with everything being wiped out. (thats why you backup guys).

    What you use backups for? I know almost every server host owner around here and they all make offsite back-ups WITHOUT additional charge.. DO is a joke on this; how can you lose a fucking entire SAN, that obviously wasn't an accidant...

    You should open your eyes: DO is not that great. I still like DO but they've becomen really shady...

  • awsonawson Member

    inb4 an influx of naysayers saying their LEB provider is superior (even though OP didn't say DO is)

    All I can say is: jealousy.

  • Thanks for the review! Despite a few incidents, DO is indeed a good host. They need to find their way a bit, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

  • LeeLee Veteran

    @BronzeByte said:
    I think I know almost every server host owner around here and they all claim to make offsite back-ups WITHOUT additional charge.. but lol what a joke as you will find out if something goes wrong and you ask about backups

    Fixed that for you.

  • asterisk14asterisk14 Member
    edited May 2013

    i like their service, better than atlantic who tried to call me at 2am to verify my ID (stupid gits), and their snapshot feature is great so you can have a backup machine ready just in case. atlantic don't do the snapshot thing yet.

  • pavspavs Member
    edited May 2013

    @asterisk14 said:
    i liked their service, better than atlantic who tried to call me at 2am to verify my ID (stupid gits), and their snapshot feature is great so you can have a backup machine ready just in case. atlantic don't do the snapshot thing yet.

    Got a link for Atlantic?

    Never mind, found it: http://www.atlantic.net/vps/vps-vs-cloud.html

  • rds100rds100 Member

    @asterisk14 said:
    better than atlantic who tried to call me at 2am to verify my ID

    Did you place the order at 2am?

  • flyfly Member

    most likely his time zone was such that normal business ours at atlantic = his 2am.

  • seriesnseriesn Member

    @BronzeByte said:
    You should open your eyes: DO is not that great. I still like DO but they've becomen really shady...

    Kinda how the provider linked on your signature is ;)

  • erhwegesrgsrerhwegesrgsr Member
    edited May 2013

    @seriesn said:
    Kinda how the provider linked on your signature is ;)

    Uhm, yeah... kinda is, but I couldn't help or change that (but that's what you see, not what I see, it's not really shady when you know how the entire operation sticks together :P)

  • LeeLee Veteran

    @bronzebyte - you are right about DO, an entire SAN, something fishy about that, just as the loss of data from 1,000 containers due to a hack at CVPS not so long ago.

  • pavspavs Member

    Oh my, how fast the discussion has gone out of whack about something else...

  • edited May 2013

    Just some comments...

    Reasonably priced.

    Actually, RamNode OVZ packages (with the 35% off coupon) are pretty competitively priced to DO. Sure, it's apples to oranges because DO is a KVM provider, but there's other fish in that sea.

    Snapshots and deploy from said snapshots.

    The only really good thing about DO I've had.

    Ability to add funds.

    WHMCS has this function.

    Resize VPS at will.

    Every other VPS provider I've been with also provides this at will.

    Custom kernel.

    I can easily do this via KVM with any provider. The last time I used DO, they used a single static kernel -- this might have changed or I'm wrong.

    Fast deploy at any available location. (assuming you deployed your snapshot to all location first, or it might take some time for obvious reasons.)

    I actually tried this out when I last used DO. It takes forever.

  • LeeLee Veteran

    Some observations.

    Resizing simple with DO, effortless. With those that use WHMCS (ramnode and others) it needs to calculate out the remainder for the period, issue a new invoice, etc.. This is not required with DO, ok it's not a big issue with others but it's still simpler at DO.

    Not all allow it to happen instantly, many providers have resizing on manual so they can check it out, which cause delays.

    I think what many miss is that DO is all about ease and speed when it comes to doing things.

    I can throw up a $5 droplet, do some work on it for a project, them snapshot and destroy it, stop the billing and come back to it in a month when I have more time and start from where I left off.

    There are of course limitations such as the fact you can only ever have 1 IP address. It's actually not a limitation, it's by design, it's peoples views that would have you believe it's a limitation.

    For what the service offers at the $5 level it's great. Above that then you are probably as well looking at providers such as ramnode but that of course depends on your needs.

  • pavspavs Member

    @PenguinManifesto said:

    Resize VPS at will.

    Every other VPS provider I've been with also provides this at will.

    I guess I was not clear with my point, the DO vps resize is always few clicks away in a matter of minutes (2-3 minutes at best). From my experience with other vps providers, it was always done via support ticket and going through manually. Has this changed recently?

    Custom kernel.

    I can easily do this via KVM with any provider. The last time I used DO, they used a single static kernel -- this might have changed or I'm wrong.

    Yes this has changed recently.

    Fast deploy at any available location. (assuming you deployed your snapshot to all location first, or it might take some time for obvious reasons.)

    I actually tried this out when I last used DO. It takes forever.

    This mostly used to happen when you have snapshots in one location and you try to deploy on a different location; which required them to transfer the snapshot to the new location before they can deploy it there. Now they have added the ability to deploy your snapshot to all their location in one click (takes 2-3 minutes depending on the size of your image), then you should be able to deploy with your custom snapshot under 1 minute. At least this has been my experience. I am not sure if your are referring to deploying a vanilla new droplet taking forever, I have tried more than a dozen droplets (each for few hours of use) and have not seen this problem so far.

  • I guess I was not clear with my point, the DO vps resize is always few clicks away in a matter of minutes (2-3 minutes at best). From my experience with other vps providers, it was always done via support ticket and going through manually. Has this changed recently?

    Yes, it has.

    This mostly used to happen when you have snapshots in one location and you try to deploy on a different location; which required them to transfer the snapshot to the new location before they can deploy it there. Now they have added the ability to deploy your snapshot to all their location in one click (takes 2-3 minutes depending on the size of your image), then you should be able to deploy with your custom snapshot under 1 minute. At least this has been my experience. I am not sure if your are referring to deploying a vanilla new droplet taking forever, I have tried more than a dozen droplets (each for few hours of use) and have not seen this problem so far.

    This was deploying from a snapshot from NY to AMS.

  • @rds100 said:

    yes, I did sign up at 2am UK time, but I thought that it would be a normal sign up process like with DO, Atlantic called me to ask the same questions that I had already filled in when signing up. What the hell is all that about? And they tried to do it at 2AM! Just lucky the phone was off line at the time, otherwise i would have got battered.

  • rds100rds100 Member

    Well, i see no reason to complain that you receive a phone call (automated or not) just after you place an order. Seems normal and expected to me.

  • I tried them a while ago, do they offer ipv6 now?

  • awsonawson Member

    @duckeeyuck said:
    I tried them a while ago, do they offer ipv6 now?

    They're working on it.

  • krypskryps Member

    @pavs DO still only allows you to choose from a list of kernels. The kernel installed inside the VM is not used. Worse yet their list of kernels is outdated. For example the latest kernel they have for Ubuntu 13.04 is 3.8.0-19 which has several known vulnerabilities. Latest is 3.8.0-22.

    Here is the relevant Uservoice thread:

    http://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digital-ocean/suggestions/2814988-give-option-to-use-the-droplet-s-own-bootloader-

  • marcmmarcm Member

    @awson said:
    They're working on it.

    You know, some data centers and hosting providers have the guts to admin that they are not working on IPv6. And then there are those who claim that they are "doing something", but no one knows exactly what that something is. In reality they are doing what everyone else is doing: probably nothing. The reason for that it's because no one wants to mess with perfectly working routers and switches in any data center. Cisco's solution for IPv6 is to run a dual stack. This means that every router and switch needs to run a dual stack. Given the fact that routers and switches update themselves automatically, it is enough to enter one wrong route or network and that network administrator just caused an RGE. I assume that most data centers will upgrade to IPv6 around the same time as they overhaul their network(s).

    This isn't meant in a negative way at Digital Ocean. It's the reality reality that most data centers find themselves in.

  • awsonawson Member

    @marcm They have their IPv6, but haven't rolled it out yet.

    http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET6-2604-A880-1.html

  • marcmmarcm Member

    @awson said:
    marcm They have their IPv6, but haven't rolled it out yet.

    http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET6-2604-A880-1.html

    @awson no doubt about it, but like I've said, it's a pain to implement in a fully functional IPv4 network.

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