New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
AlexHost/Moldova repeated outages (Ukraine energy infrastructure strikes)
At this point do not be surprised if your AlexHost VPS has a hard power-off few times a week. Their data center apparently lacks backup power generation. If you're doing some I/O heavy task, maybe consider moving it to a server in a different region to avoid headaches.
What should a provider do when power loss is imminent?
- What should a provider do when power loss is imminent?46 votes
- Shutdown servers gracefully34.78%
- Save the VM states to restore them after the outage is over26.09%
- Just flip the swich off and corrupt data in the process (the "AlexHost option")39.13%
Comments
Any other affordable and reliable yearly VPS deals (No DMCA/DMCA ignored)?
LowEnd: iHostART €5.50 for 50GB HDD.
HighEnd: IncogNET $25 for 20GB SSD.
Saw iHostART and AlexHost complaints a lot on this forum... IncogNET looks good, do you mind sharing the link to this deal?
Only need to use this as a reverse proxy, nothing fancy.
Who cares about AlexHost? They leaked the email addresses of their clients. Such threads should not even exist.
Problem with outages is that you cannot predict them, and typically a real outage is too long for a UPS to last, and a lot of places you cannot even have your own permanent generators, plus generators are mad expensive to maintain. Buying them is "cheap", like 35k € for a 100KVa unit, and just gets cheaper per KVa higher you go, it's everything else that's super expensive.
Typical generator also has fuel tank for 1-2hr max, you need to buy bigger fuel tanks separately to have i think for 12hrs max is what Atlas Copco offers.
After you got everything installed at GREAT expense. I mean with GREAT expense, just the cabling alone uh ... 100KVa 3phase == 145A per phase, at least 20% oversizing is you need 180-200A (depending on length) sized cabling. So that cable alone could cost well north 100€ per meter, and if you need even 50 meters of it (most likely way way more) that's 5 000€ by itself alone. Electrical install costs could wind up at around 10k € mark per 100KVa genie, then the mechanical install and transport costs probably 2k €
You are already at nearly 50k € just for one time costs. You got to sell A LOT of 5€ a month VPSs to cover that 50k €.
Never mind keeping them fueled, maintained etc. so in reality generators are mostly reserved for the big boys, you need tons of scale that the cost becomes marginalized.
Operating costs are actually where the real costs lie.
For example, diesel is supposed to be replaced annually, engine oil etc. even if you have all of 2hrs of testing run time on it. Oh and each time you test it you run the risk of your servers crashing due to the power source switch.
For 100KVa unit your annual upkeep for the unit could well exceed 3k €, with ~0hrs on the clock. Depending a lot on how much diesel you keep at hand, and if you take the hit on run hours to consume it OR do you dispose of it as hazardous waste. Nope, you cannot legally use that diesel on your car either (tax reasons)
We once had this issue for a huge office building housing one of the FICIX POPs + tons of small DCs among with offices -- for transformer maintenance a full sea freight container sized unit was brought in, electrical phases were matched and timed exactly with power grid, and it came time to switch over ... Whole building and all DCs (except FICIX who was only one permitted to have a genie there) went dark ...
What happened? No one remembered to crank the revs up on the genie before cutting off power grid! It took something like 60mins to bring the power back on that unit. Fortunately there was a backup genie on backyard Pulsed Media servers could use back at that time. We took 2 power outages due to that -> First the failed switch over to the big genie, and second when moving from the small genie back to grid.
Most locations indeed does not allow you to have your own permanent install genies because it's a fire hazard plus needs outside air access etc.
Because outages are unpredictable, by the time you get to the DC with portable genie (ie. a trailer genie) and hook it up it could very well be over.
Oh and the IRONY of legacy UPS units -> They cause more downtime than they prevent
ALSO they are a fire hazard.
At least when it comes to EATON PowerWare. Every one i have spoken with, or heard of using these big legacy type UPS's (transformer based with lead acid ... so almost all UPS units currently on market, sold as UPS) has had more downtime because they had them, versus just not having them
Thats why you usually maintain at least two UPS, each seperately per feed. There are datacenters / concepts where you have multiple UPS running as 'cluster' for two feeds. I would not do that, because if one of them fails your servers are without power until someone manages to flip the bypass switch(es).
Regarding eletrical installation, you can do a lot on your own if you know what you're doing and if you have a electrican who handles the final checking / wiring. We did that with our own datacenter, cabling work was mostly done by us - so the electrican just had to wire the plugs and distributions.
Speaking of longer going grid outage, in EU aka ENTSO-E this is pretty rare. However it's still a good practice to have a proper backup generator on site, including motorized transfer switches, which automatically startup the genset(s) and flip the transfer switches based on what the ATS Controller decides to do
Broo
Irrelevant. IHostArt is NOT a provider on LowEndTalk forums.
Considering that it was given as an alternative for his search, I think this screenshot is worth showing.
People can comment whatever they want. But provider tags are given according to rules (which only admins get to decide).
IHostArt is not the only host with nulled license. There are many hosts like that, but not on LET. People can express their opinions however they like, many will still buy their cheap services, precisely because they are cheap.
Just because the WHMCS license checker says that, it doesn't make it true 100% of the time.
https://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1866705
Irrelevant… it’s usually the sign of a shithost. Good to know @FlorinMarian
Yeh, probs best to move away since this will re-occur, Ukraine handles some transit for Moldova and when that goes down, the power in Moldova also gets cut in order to avoid damage to the electrical grid. They're working on a direct line with Romania but that won't be done for another 2 years...
Broo, talking about illegal shit
What is happening is that Alexhost have UPS and many generator. But as you know it won't be Something that can handle for high and long time.
It may help you to restore some services but doesn't guarantee that will be enough.
Alexhost was suffered outages due to War in Ukraine, is not only Alexhost. Other companies are expericing that also in Moldova, you can research in the news and you will find it.
Alexhost doesn't have fault. Since this we can consider "nature disaster" which we can't preview or know when or what will happen next.
For now everything seems to be fixed. Alexhost is buying new generators urgently. The time to prevent this will be less than 2 weeks (doesn't mean that network will be offline). But preventing that from happening again is not easy, and is not made from the night to day. Take sometime.
War is impacting Moldova in certain cities and companies. This is not fun since Moldova will ask for 100 milion of support for energy crysis also (this is not related with outages) but because of war and many other inteterests and conflits.
I'm not affiliated with Alexhost but I have contact with them, consider this a "explaination".
Cociu was laughing until those days...
No one leaked just because yes. That happened due to human error / mistake and that was been wrote in some thread.
I suppose you never did any mistake. So you can find job in way career.
Human mistakes happens, not everyone is perfect. Some may do mistakes that can't be erased even if you can or not.
Did you understand?
So double the power hungry inefficient POS UPSs to counteract their weakness? Not going to cost you at all!
The old transformer type which is the most prevalent consumes like 15% of their rated capacity just idle. All the battery maintenance every couple of years etc.
So more cost, on top of more cost, on top of more cost, on top of more cost, on top of more cost, on top of more cost, on top of more cost.
Modern tho, proper inverter types with lithium packs, that's whole another story. You still loose something along the lines of 8-15% of power tho due to dual conversion often.
So let's say just 10% lost on that, you also add that 10% to cooling, and if your PUE is decent for joe average DC at say 1.25 average year around (25% on top), for 100kw of servers you now need 125kw w/ cooling and 137.5kw with UPS. 37.5% on top of your load.
And that's cheap as peanuts compared to regular UPS + Genies.
This is how you get power prices like 0.88€/kWh on one german datacenter. Now your cheap kimsufi Xeon-D costs 50€/month instead of 10€ a month.
@ 0.88€/kWh each 100W 24/7 costs 64.5€/Month - Typical 1U server of yesteryear is 170-210W. Even modern ryzens are like 120-130W each.
Installing yourself -> You still got to pay yourself. We are talking about businesses here, not hobbyist grade.
Materials actually can cost you more than just using contractor with their bigger discounts from suppliers. Materials is a very very big cost item when it comes to power delivery, the cables are insanely expensive.
EU power grid outakes used to be rare, don't trust that with the war and green agenda causing lack of production. Which is the whole starting point of this thread. Those issues don't go away with wishful thinking.
Now you talk about ATS Controllers, motorized startups etc. These doesn't become free either if you self install (without license too and hence no insurance??). These are expensive parts and part of the TCO.
UPS, Genies etc. have their place, but don't assume they are free and doesn't cost anything just because you are not on the direct paying side. Increase of 10€/Month on a service means end user might see 30€/month cost increase -- depends on the business and their profit margin targets.
This, the WHMCS system is messed up for this, it can say invalid, even if you have fully valid license. You have to manually go in your install and do a force refresh.
That checking tool is not tied into billing at all.
We've had this issue in the past, which is when we learned one should every now and then go and do a manual force update of the license on their installs.
Indeed, when you need hours or even days of backup power things get insanely expensive insanely fast. While typical power outage in the EU zone is more of a brownout, a flicker. Every few years.
Well that's our experience anyways, every ~1½ years or so there is a tiny brownout lasting less than 1 second when voltage drops a bit. Every 5-10 years there is transformer maintenance, which is preplanned and genies brought on site (unless building manager is moron and doesn't inform you!!)
To cover that you need UPSs, and UPS units adds 10-15% on just power cost overhead alone, for 5minutes of protection.
In our case our PowerWare units have actually caused more downtime than they solved because if battery goes empty -> They won't autostart again, you have to manually start the output. Also i think once it just simply shutdown the output for no reason too.
For us, these units have caused 10x downtime and 100x more cost than just not having. Then again, we are located next to a powerplant.
And that's coverage for just 5 minutes at maximum, when batteries are fresh and new. Those need to be replaced every 5 years or more often too, and the constant battery tests consume power too.
Our experience has been that just on standard operation (not battery testing) this type of UPS causes 15% overhead of their rated max, and you run them at about 40% load max - as double PSU units will jump their load to the UPS when power goes out. Final rating therefore is more like 35% lost, constant 24/7/365 -- even if zero outages.
Further, the 5 year battery replacements even if using off brand unnamed compatible lead acid is like 100€/kva every 5 years. For 100kva that is 10 000€, or 2k € annualized.
Since you are working high voltages here, you cannot legally swap them yourself either, 144VDC is well above the maximum of 48VDC without license. If you swap yourself and burns out you won't get insurance coverage.
TL;DR; It is expensive AF.
Yes, after that I left Alexhost. same with Epik domain registrar. Those companies which expose their clients addresses are big no-no!
Hello @Root @FlorinMarian here it s more informations about this problems https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/179603/whmcs-license-every-3-4-days-don-t-working , i m tryed lot of method , crontab , automaticaly reboots , automaticaly force license update but every time don t working license it s real
Regards,
Calin
Funny thing is that he even responded in that linked thread so he knew about the issue you have when he posted about supposedly nulled WHMCS here...
What a dick move @FlorinMarian
contact whmcs support in that case
he did it in case you overlooked url in his comment
Bear at WHT commented (also in one of the url's above) that this issue appear also if you stay logged in all the time.
Problem fixed , most probality in next 2-3 days will appear again
Regards,
Calin
sorry did not read that thread, so danged busy with all this black friday madness, plus STILL have petabytes of storage to roll online :O arrays ought to be synced now so i can start doing final setup and adding them to automation.
Monday tally was something like 4-5PiB waiting to be finalized (arrays syncing and whatnot)