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vRocket.io - Need Advice from Community - Page 2
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vRocket.io - Need Advice from Community

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Comments

  • Hi Petar, not sure if it's too late but I'd like to add my $0.02 comment. This is from the perspective of somebody that has used the typical junky oversold shared hosting providers and later migrated to VPS. I've tried DigitalOcean and Linnode, and I currently use Vultr for testing and two RamNode production VPSes for a rather high traffic web site I own. I am by no means a guru, but I can read and follow instructions pretty well, and I've been using Linux for many years.

    Overall, I think your offering is quite compelling. You're obviously passionate about your technology, which is a huge factor in a successful hosting business, so that instills some confidence. The prices look pretty good to me. Also ZFS backed storage is a killer feature in my book. I also like that your platform claims to be more resistant to the "bad neighbor" effect, which frequently caused me major headaches at DigitalOcean and Linnode.

    Suggestions:

    1. On the home page under "A SOLUTION FOR EVERY PROJECT", the three main columns feature "cPanel Shared Hosting", "vRocket Antares [512MB] SmartVPS", and "vRocket Juno [2GB] VPS". This is a bit confusing to me, because it would look as though the Juno "VPS" offering was a different platform than Antares "SmartVPS", while I gather that they are actually just different resource levels on the same SmartVPS platform. Or is Juno just a "VPS" and not "Smart"? :-) So it seems a bit strange to offer two different platforms across three side-by-side columns.
    2. I like the 512MB offering for $4. But I think it might be good to offer another one to compete directly with Vultr's 768MB offering for $5. Or even bump up the minimum to 768MB for $4? :-O :-) 768MB of RAM for $5 or less is the sweet spot for me when I'm testing a configuration or wanting to try out an application that is slightly more RAM intensive.
    3. I get the DIY Support arrangement, which seems fair and in line with what other VPS providers are offering. But the frequent usage of the phrase "for developers" is actually a turn-off for me, because I had a very bad experience with DigitalOcean, which also claims to be "for developers". And I suspect I'm not the only one who had an experience like that. So you might want to take into account the fact that many of your potential users are probably DigitalOcean refugees.

    Questions:

    1. Do you have any fine-print resource usage limits, such as a hard limit on CPU load, disk I/O or any other limits apart from the major advertised hard quotas? In the case of my occasionally high-traffic LEMP VPS, I had occasional problems where the database server together with some not very efficient PHP scripts were creating a sustained load of over 1.00 for anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes at a time, which the VPS provider didn't like. I understand their reasons for having those limits, but it's not like I was mining bit coins or encoding videos either. Just a fluctuating load of web traffic with some unoptimized PHP scripts.
    2. I'm liking the Instant Snapshots feature very much. Does snapshot storage cost extra, or does it just come out of your VPS storage quota? And what about the cost of the upcoming live offsite backups? And does the underlying ZFS storage somehow allow me to do a point-in-time snapshot of a running MariaDB database, or do I still need to use mysqldump?
    3. Is there 24/365 support for legitimate support tickets? I'm talking about stuff like the hypervisor going down or any other kind of fairly urgent support ticket that affects my website availability at 2:00 AM on January 1st?
    4. I'm glad you have hourly pricing on the agenda, that's extremely important for me. Will it be the same for monthly or hourly pricing?

    I think that's about it. Best luck for your new endeavor, it's looking very promising, and I hope to dip my feet in soon.

    Thanked by 1vRocket_io
  • deadbeefdeadbeef Member
    edited September 2015

    Just found the thread, and while I don't have any use for SmartOS (I never wish to have to resort to DTrace :D), I really like Petar's approach to business - I think its one of the most honest/upfront ones I've ever seen - this guy links to his competitors on his pricing page :o

    Good luck!

    Thanked by 2bersy vRocket_io
  • MikePTMikePT Moderator, Patron Provider, Veteran

    I have an instance @ vRocket, and things run well. Although, I asked to reinstall to CentOS. Some commands missing there, and some procs, but there'll be a stable CentOS image soon. IO performance is outstanding by the way.

    Thanked by 1vRocket_io
  • @sb56637 Thanks for your awesome comments and suggestions. It's definitely never too late to receive them :)

    Overall, I think your offering is quite compelling. You're obviously passionate about your technology, which is a huge factor in a successful hosting business, so that instills some confidence. The prices look pretty good to me. Also ZFS backed storage is a killer feature in my book. I also like that your platform claims to be more resistant to the "bad neighbor" effect, which frequently caused me major headaches at DigitalOcean and Linnode.

    You read me like a book. vRocket is the outcome of all I love about technology. As for the noisy neighbor issues, here's my approach:

    • We do not over provision (no need, plenty of resources)

    • SmartOS is really smart (their approach to IO congestion for example is quite unique, and it is to increase latency to the disk of a noisy neighbor by just a couple of milliseconds. it turns out it's a ridiculously effective approach which no one feels, but it keeps all in check)

    • As for CPU - some providers, for example, will kill a long running process which is using the CPU (say installing cPanel), even if you are "guaranteed" 1 vCPU. We don't do that. You get what you pay for, and you can because you're guaranteed the performance.

    Suggestions:

    1. On the home page under "A SOLUTION FOR EVERY PROJECT", the three main columns feature "cPanel Shared Hosting", "vRocket Antares [512MB] SmartVPS", and "vRocket Juno [2GB] VPS". This is a bit confusing to me, because it would look as though the Juno "VPS" offering was a different platform than Antares "SmartVPS", while I gather that they are actually just different resource levels on the same SmartVPS platform. Or is Juno just a "VPS" and not "Smart"? :-) So it seems a bit strange to offer two different platforms across three side-by-side columns.

    I agree. It looks ugly and confusing to me as well. I will change it shortly.

    1. I like the 512MB offering for $4. But I think it might be good to offer another one to compete directly with Vultr's 768MB offering for $5. Or even bump up the minimum to 768MB for $4? :-O :-) 768MB of RAM for $5 or less is the sweet spot for me when I'm testing a configuration or wanting to try out an application that is slightly more RAM intensive.

    I'll do either-or. Will decide this weekend, but I do believe you're right - 768MB should be available at a compelling price.

    1. I get the DIY Support arrangement, which seems fair and in line with what other VPS providers are offering. But the frequent usage of the phrase "for developers" is actually a turn-off for me, because I had a very bad experience with DigitalOcean, which also claims to be "for developers". And I suspect I'm not the only one who had an experience like that. So you might want to take into account the fact that many of your potential users are probably DigitalOcean refugees.

    There used to be a really cool VPS hosting company once called SliceHost. Some may remember it. Then RackSpace purchased it and it was history. Their main meme was "for developers" and I loved them so much. My idea was really to resurrect Them in some way, not necessarily copy DigitalOcean - which people either love or hate.

    Also - within just a couple of months I will offer Docker support, so "for developers" will have more meaning than now. I was kind-of counting for the future too when choosing the meme :)

    Questions:

    1. Do you have any fine-print resource usage limits, such as a hard limit on CPU load, disk I/O or any other limits apart from the major advertised hard quotas? In the case of my occasionally high-traffic LEMP VPS, I had occasional problems where the database server together with some not very efficient PHP scripts were creating a sustained load of over 1.00 for anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes at a time, which the VPS provider didn't like. I understand their reasons for having those limits, but it's not like I was mining bit coins or encoding videos either. Just a fluctuating load of web traffic with some unoptimized PHP scripts.

    CPU is limited to what you're promised, as the resources are guaranteed, but you can utilize 100% of it 100% of the time without issues. As for the disk - there are some values that define "weight" based on the size of the plan, but almost never it'll come into play in our setup as per host we have enough SSD cache to fit 100% of customer workloads into it (and a decent amount of host's RAM is also allocated for ZFS which makes it even faster).

    1. I'm liking the Instant Snapshots feature very much. Does snapshot storage cost extra, or does it just come out of your VPS storage quota? And what about the cost of the upcoming live offsite backups? And does the underlying ZFS storage somehow allow me to do a point-in-time snapshot of a running MariaDB database, or do I still need to use mysqldump?

    Snapshots are free as they are really just ZFS snapshots kept right on the host. The way ZFS snapshots work, they only take a couple of KB and that's about it. You can take them at any time, but if you want a 100% application consistent snapshot, you should probably stop the VPS.

    We do have another feature coming soon where you will be able to take a snapshot right from the VPS itself by running a command. So in other words - talk back to the FiFo right from the VPS - which when scrypted may give you what you're looking for.

    As for backups - they'll be quite inexpensive (say $0.05/GB) - and that's counting just utilized space of your VPS, not allocated size. Backups will be ZFS snapshots sent to a LeoFS backed object-storage grid (and replicated at least 2 times). You can then restore VPS from a backup, or say in some super rare event where a whole host would go bad, instead of waiting for a fix, you could restore your backup to a new host from the existing backup right through fifo portal.

    Still finalizing fine details of this.

    1. Is there 24/365 support for legitimate support tickets? I'm talking about stuff like the hypervisor going down or any other kind of fairly urgent support ticket that affects my website availability at 2:00 AM on January 1st?

    Yes - we're always there for anything that's really valid. For example, I noticed this same post you sent to me in a ticket last night, but I assumed it was OK to provide a detailed response today rather than then :)

    1. I'm glad you have hourly pricing on the agenda, that's extremely important for me. Will it be the same for monthly or hourly pricing?

    Yes - same price. Just trying to implement scripts to automatically poll data on your VPS so that we know when it's on so we can bill for it.

    One thing we'll also offer is that if the VPS is OFF - you are ONLY charged for storage. Fair is fair :)

    I think that's about it. Best luck for your new endeavor, it's looking very promising, and I hope to dip my feet in soon.

    Thanks! Hope to see more of your websites on vRocket infrastructure :)

    And also thank you so much for awesome comments, suggestions and questions!

    Petar

  • @deadbeef said:
    Just found the thread, and while I don't have any use for SmartOS (I never wish to have to resort to DTrace :D), I really like Petar's approach to business - I think its one of the most honest/upfront ones I've ever seen - this guy links to his competitors on his pricing page :o

    Good luck!

    Thank you! :)

    Thanked by 1deadbeef
  • @MrGeneral said:
    I have an instance @ vRocket, and things run well. Although, I asked to reinstall to CentOS. Some commands missing there, and some procs, but there'll be a stable CentOS image soon. IO performance is outstanding by the way.

    I checked for you - CentOS 7 is still not avail. It's because of the systemd I believe or something like that.

    Soon we'll offer KVM within a SmartOS Zone so if someone really wants to have a full Linux, or say Windows, they'll be able to do it.

    Sadly it'll cost about $5-6 more as KVM within Zone takes an extra 1GB of RAM to run, per VPS.

    Thanked by 1MikePT
  • MikePTMikePT Moderator, Patron Provider, Veteran

    @vRocket_io said:
    Sadly it'll cost about $5-6 more as KVM within Zone takes an extra 1GB of RAM to run, per VPS.

    Sounds promising!

  • Hi Petar, thanks a lot for the detailed reply!

    vRocket_io said: Will decide this weekend, but I do believe you're right - 768MB should be available at a compelling price.

    Awesome, thanks for listening to feedback and at least considering it!

    vRocket_io said: SliceHost. Some may remember it. Then RackSpace purchased it and it was history. Their main meme was "for developers" and I loved them so much. My idea was really to resurrect Them in some way, not necessarily copy DigitalOcean - which people either love or hate.

    I'm in the latter category. :) Yep, SliceHost was a very cool concept, although the performance:price ratio from modern VPS providers like yourself frankly blows them out of the water. But the "for developers" thing obviously doesn't have anything to do with the actual quality of service you provide, so it's really not a factor in choosing. It's just that with DigitalOcean I had so many major reliability and performance issues at their fault that it made their "developer-focused" line sound more to me like "great for developers, not so much for users", as my website users were pretty much hating me during that timeframe. :-P

    vRocket_io said: Also - within just a couple of months I will offer Docker support, so "for developers" will have more meaning than now.

    Very cool! Any tidbits on how pricing and resource allocation will work for Docker instances? Will we run them inside our VPSes, or have the option to spin them up directly from the control panel, one image per service at low prices?

    Speaking of the control panel, I have a question: I went ahead and signed up with the LowEndBox50 coupon and created a quick test server. I'd now like to destroy that VPS and try a different image. It's not immediately apparent to me how to do this from the control panel. I have to give a reason for cancelling it, and I can choose between immediate or end-of-billing period cancellation. Will my remaining payment credit still remain if I do this? And will I be billed again if I later create another VPS from a different image? I imagine the infrastructure and interface for this will improve with the hourly pricing you'll soon implement.

    vRocket_io said: CPU is limited to what you're promised, as the resources are guaranteed, but you can utilize 100% of it 100% of the time without issues.

    Nice!!! I see the SliceHost inspiration here, which if I remember correctly allowed to buy CPUs and RAM and storage separately, and it was like building a physical machine that you owned and could actually use those components for yourself to their full capabilities.

    vRocket_io said: Snapshots are free as they are really just ZFS snapshots kept right on the host.

    Very cool. And do they persist after I cancel/destroy the VPS I'm currently running? I would find this to be very useful for testing, as I can try a configuration or set up a VPS for an occasional task I need to do, and then destroy it and later spin up the snapshot from time to time if/when I need it.

    vRocket_io said: As for backups - they'll be quite inexpensive (say $0.05/GB) - and that's counting just utilized space of your VPS, not allocated size. Backups will be ZFS snapshots sent to a LeoFS backed object-storage grid (and replicated at least 2 times). You can then restore VPS from a backup, or say in some super rare event where a whole host would go bad, instead of waiting for a fix, you could restore your backup to a new host from the existing backup right through fifo portal.

    Sounds great!

    vRocket_io said: Yes - we're always there for anything that's really valid. For example, I noticed this same post you sent to me in a ticket last night, but I assumed it was OK to provide a detailed response today rather than then :)

    Glad to hear it, and yes, you assumed correctly. :)

    vRocket_io said: One thing we'll also offer is that if the VPS is OFF - you are ONLY charged for storage. Fair is fair :)

    Now this is awesome! Maybe this could be rolled together with persistent snapshots as well, as I mentioned earlier?

    Thanks again for your time and detailed explanations.

    Thanked by 1vRocket_io
  • @sb56637 said:
    Very cool! Any tidbits on how pricing and resource allocation will work for Docker instances? Will we run them inside our VPSes, or have the option to spin them up directly from the control panel, one image per service at low prices?

    The way SmartOS and Joyent do Docker is better than any implementation out there. The whole physical datacenter is one huge Docker host. You simply configure the endpoint to be our datacenter, and deploy from the CLI as you wold if you were on your local machine.

    Each Docker "instance" actually runs on Bare Metal, within a Zone, with full network stack and IPv4 IP address (no ports and other nonsense). Security, Speed, and portability like never before.

    @sb56637 said:
    Speaking of the control panel, I have a question: I went ahead and signed up with the LowEndBox50 coupon and created a quick test server. I'd now like to destroy that VPS and try a different image. It's not immediately apparent to me how to do this from the control panel. I have to give a reason for cancelling it, and I can choose between immediate or end-of-billing period cancellation. Will my remaining payment credit still remain if I do this? And will I be billed again if I later create another VPS from a different image? I imagine the infrastructure and interface for this will improve with the hourly pricing you'll soon implement.

    This is the biggest downside we have now (in addition of not being able to re-deploy with another image without opening a ticket). You click cancel, choose immediately, as soon as we see a ticket we'll cancel it and you'll get credit back to be used when signing up for another one. It's not as simple as one would wish, but we'll get there. Promise.

    @sb56637 said:
    Very cool. And do they persist after I cancel/destroy the VPS I'm currently running? I would find this to be very useful for testing, as I can try a configuration or set up a VPS for an occasional task I need to do, and then destroy it and later spin up the snapshot from time to time if/when I need it.

    Snapshots are there while VPS is there, as your VPS (file-wise) is a ZFS dataset. If VPS is gone, Snapshots are as well, but backups will persist.

    What you want, however, are "templates" and that feature will be enabled soon as well. Allowing you to deploy from one of our images, customize, then save into private templates to deploy from is coming next year.

    Most of these features are available in Project Fifo (our Cloud Orchestrator) - I just had to start somewhere first :) As soon as per-hour billing comes in, most of other features will be enabled as well.

    Tnx!

  • HaxHax Member
    edited September 2015

    https://vrocket.io/faq.php

    The Fifo SmartVPS Portal link on Customer Support section is linking to wrong url, vps.vrocket.io instead of fifo.vrocket.io. :P

    Thanked by 1vRocket_io
  • @Sixell said:
    https://vrocket.io/faq.php

    The Fifo SmartVPS Portal link on Customer Support section is linking to wrong url, vps.vrocket.io instead of fifo.vrocket.io. :P

    Fixed - thanks! :)

  • Very exciting stuff. Really looking forward to the improvements, and you have a mighty fine service already. Nice job Petar!

    Thanked by 1vRocket_io
  • deadbeefdeadbeef Member
    edited September 2015

    @vRocket_io said:
    The way SmartOS and Joyent do Docker is better than any implementation out there. The whole physical datacenter is one huge Docker host. You simply configure the endpoint to be our datacenter, and deploy from the CLI as you wold if you were on your local machine.

    Each Docker "instance" actually runs on Bare Metal, within a Zone, with full network stack and IPv4 IP address (no ports and other nonsense). Security, Speed, and portability like never before.

    How does this work exactly? Suppose I have an account with 2 VPSs (A & B). From my computer, I connect to your Docker daemon and launch a new container from the registry. This container now runs on a Zone inside VPS A or VPS B? Do I choose, or does it get automatically chosen somehow (perhaps Docker Machine style)?

    And what about volumes? Suppose I want a container with a persistent volume. Can I use the -v flag? Where is that storage coming from? One of the VPSs A/B or a sparate pool and billed accordingly?

  • vRocket_iovRocket_io Member
    edited September 2015

    @deadbeef said:
    And what about volumes? Suppose I want a container with a persistent volume. Can I use the -v flag? Where is that storage coming from? One of the VPSs A/B or a sparate pool and billed accordingly?

    This FAQ page from Joyent explains the implementation: https://www.joyent.com/developers/triton-faq#volumes

    Note that were cooking this in our vRocket lab, and as such I do not know the answer, but whatever we come out with will be very similar to what Joyent offers today. Just a lot more affordable ;))

    And as to where does your Docker container run in. Not in A or B, rather in C. In it's own Zone with all resources you choose for it with other docker parameters.

    Thanked by 1deadbeef
  • @vRocket_io said:
    Note that were cooking this in our vRocket lab

    Oh sorry, I misunderstood, I thought you had this up and running, that's why I asked.

  • @deadbeef said:
    Oh sorry, I misunderstood, I thought you had this up and running, that's why I asked.

    No worries. It's coming soon. Playing with it now and loving it :) Containers are the future after all :)

  • So how's the performance of a Linux Docker image running on SmartOS compared to a SmartOS guest running on your infrastructure, or compared to the Ubuntu or CentOS datasets you currently offer in beta running as an LX branded zone?

  • Do you provide private network, available zones?

  • @sb56637 said:
    So how's the performance of a Linux Docker image running on SmartOS compared to a SmartOS guest running on your infrastructure, or compared to the Ubuntu or CentOS datasets you currently offer in beta running as an LX branded zone?

    They should all be very much identical as they all run on bare metal. SmartOS will be fastest just due to Linux syscall table having to be interpreted, but performance hit there is almost immesurable.

    As for Docker, it will actually run in Linux, not Smart OS - very similar to LX branded zone.

  • @bookstack said:
    Do you provide private network, available zones?

    Working on adding private vlans within a month or so.

  • Which cpus will you be using?
    How about the raid setup?

  • @inthecloudblog said:
    Which cpus will you be using?
    How about the raid setup?

    For current VPS's we utilize Intel Xeon X5670 @ 2.93GHz.

    As for Raid - we utilize ZFS in RaidZ mode w/ 1.2TB SSD cache on each host.

  • Hello Friends,

    I'm happy to announce that tonight we enabled KVM Virtualization!

    It turns out that even though we love SmartOS (which is in reality Unix) about 70% of our customers choose vRocket as a home for their Linux OS instead.

    With LX branded zones in SmartOS it is possible to run Linux, however, this approach left a lot to be desired: cgroups, iptables, traceroutes, openVPN, etc. None of these things really worked.

    Tonight, I'm happy to announce KVM virtualization support, but unlike any other hosting provider our version still comes with SmartOS Zones (for security), as well as unparalleled performance and reliability of our zSSD (SSD-fronted ZFS file system). Yes - KVM machines will be deployed on the same hosts as our SmartOS machines.

    KVM on SmartOS is even better than KVM on Linux - as the "hypervisor" runs within it's own Zone, and it is absolutely the most secure way to run KVM anywhere.

    If you recall that KVM security bug from not that long ago (Virtual Floppy Drive controller allowed users to get out into dom0 (hypervisor)). That's something that can never happen in our setup for example, as KVM runs within a SmartOS Zone. So if someone does manage to get out of KVM - they'll just find themselves in an even more secure jail :)

    Initially, the following KVM Templates are available: Ubuntu 15.04, Debian 7 & 8, CentOS 6 & 7 and FreeBSD 10.2. I'll work hard during the following few days to bring even more choices (including, if all goes well, Windows Server 2012R2 as well).

    For all of those who are happy with your LX-branded zones, they should keep them. While our KVM deployment is fast, nothing really beats the Bare-Metal speed of pure SmartOS! Promise :)

    Thanked by 2deadbeef bersy
  • JonchunJonchun Member
    edited October 2015

    So... you went from SmartOS based to just another KVM provider? Just a little confused as to what's going on here.

  • @Jonchun said:
    So... you went from SmartOS based to just another KVM provider? Just a little confused as to what's going on here.

    No. Rather we still offer SmartOS and will always make it our priority, but we have improved our support for Linux OS's as one can't fight with economics (70% of people still just order Linux and the idea was to give them an option that works best).

    When you see your largest user base canceling VPS's after just a few days because they can't traceroute or run openvpn on LX branded zone, and are too scared to try SmartOS/Unix, you offer them a solution.

    Furthermore, the hypervisor, unlike with other providers, is still SmartOS, so customers benefit from Zones, ZFS and other goodies infrastructure-wise.

    All we've done is listen to our customers.

    Soon, we'll be offering Docker (as mentioned here earlier) which will see our whole datacenter as one large host. Outside of Joyent, no one else offers this.

    Hope that explains it.

    Thanked by 1vimalware
  • @vRocket_io I like your approach in your replies in this thread and I like the way you build your business.

    I hope you'll have some free time to share the SmartOS know-how through articles in the Tutorial section of this forum, and I hope you'll find a good market for vRocket.io here :)

    Thanked by 2vRocket_io Junkless
  • @vRozenSch00n said:
    vRocket_io I like your approach in your replies in this thread and I like the way you build your business.

    I hope you'll have some free time to share the SmartOS know-how through articles in the Tutorial section of this forum, and I hope you'll find a good market for vRocket.io here :)

    Thank you. My goal is really to have fun, make friends and provide really cool services, especially if they can be better than elsewhere.

    And yes, I've actually already started on multiple drafts for the tutorial section. Should start publishing some by next week :)

  • vRocket_iovRocket_io Member
    edited October 2015

    Hello friends,

    After taking all of your comments into consideration, I've prioritized them and decided on when to start introducing new features and changes.

    One of the first changes I've made is:

    Increased Resources

    • Smallest VPS (SmartOS or KVM Linux) is now 2 x 2.93 GHz cores & 888 MB RAM.

    I believe this is quite competitive, and even though running KVM on SmartOS cost me 1GB of RAM extra for Quemu per VPS (even if VPS is just 888 MB it'll use 1912MB on hypervisor) - I am leaving the pricing between the two platforms absolutely the same :)

    More to come feature-wise soon.

    Oh - and I started a SmartOS documentation site, so if you want to learn anything about SmartOS - please head to http://docs.vRocket.io.

    Am writing new articles and brain-dumping SmartOS info as fast as I can type.

    Thanks!

  • @vRocket_io If I may suggest, it is also a good idea to share your product and knowledge at vpsboard.com, as they are also a good resource for learning and purchasing quality products.

    Thanked by 1vRocket_io
  • vRocket_io said: As for Raid - we utilize ZFS in RaidZ mode w/ 1.2TB SSD cache on each host.

    What about ZIL?

    I've been doing performance testing on ZFS for the past few months with everything from NVMe's to DC3700's; and I find that the caching is giving that good bang-for-buck.

    Out of interest why are you not running RAIDZ2?

    Thanked by 1vRocket_io
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