The new hosting at MediaTemple sounds like it's gonna be sweet.

giginger

Just read that techcrunch post. Damn that's some bad news for Media Temple. 200 -> 9000 users in that short amount of time and they didn't expect major issues?

TomTester

Hmmm, I actually just called rackspace, that's not an option @ $440/month for a
starter server, *but* they turned me on to MOSSO.com (a rackspace "venture"?)

I read the TC thread and noticed many people mentioning it there. Then read on
WHT, who seem to like the Mosso package. Has anyone here used them?

Apparently Mosso supports both Windows & Linux hosting (hybrid) and its a server
cluster (i.e. not a grid) with major load balancing. They allow reselling, and offer
support to your clients.

Spent 30 mins on the phone/chat with support. Very nice (and seemingly honest)
peeps. Going to get a server after the holidays to try it out and compare against
MT. If I can aggregate all of my sites on one server ($100 a month) I'll do it in a
heartbeat.

They gave me ONE reference site (http://www.HDRadio.com) and I found another
somewhere else (http://www.www.emovieposter.com). If anyone here has used
them for a Vanilla install I'd love to see it.

Edit: those sample sites are really fast.

aloicious

I've had me some of the (mt) Grid Server goodness for a good few weeks now. Happy happy joy joy.

aloicious

Oh, and as for Mosso - I can't remember what it was, but they lacked one glaring hosting necessity when I was evaluating them. I can't for the life of me remember what it was, but it was like no SSH access or something... correct me if I'm wrong.

Dinoboff

no ssh access, you're right.

aloicious

Hot diggity! What do I win? But seriously, that's a real let down for what seems like it could be a rotten-hot platform. Makes sense though, I guess. I'm no SysAdmin, but cross-platform command line access doesn't strike me as that simple.

TomTester

I've read thattoo, but can anyone explain why I would need SSH access (note: I know what SSH is, I have MT now, never used SSH)?

FWIW, I asked them (Mosso) about it and they told me it is "in the works" but that it's not there yet.
Mosso support mentioned Java, Ruby and .NET 2.0 were not available, but they were adding Ruby by Jan(?), and .NET by Dec 5th.

Anyway, I'll just try them out for a month and let you know my findings.

giginger

SSH can be useful if you're uploading something with a lot of files in. You can upload a rar or a zip and unpack it straight on the server. Saves a lot of time. That's a basic use but it's a good one that's saved me a lot of time in the past.

aloicious

Yeah, I should've clarified-it was a real let down for me in particular; I spend most my time on the ol' command line.

TomTester

@Gig: see your point there, but how many gigs do you upload really. For me the importance of SSH shell access
ranks about a 1 on a scale of 1-10. I use it mainly to set access permissions, but that can be taken care of with
regular FTP clients. A stable host and other flexibility ranks much higher for me. ..

Anyway, I'm arguing a hypothetical case here, let me sign up and tell you if it sucks or not. Did the same for MT,
and can say it's got its share of problems right now...

3stripe

Problem with my Grid hosting - there's no direct IP address to access a site.

A client wants to repoint his domain name rather than change the nameserver settings, and it looks like this isn't possible with the Grid-Server???

TomTester

You do not need your own IP address. Use the one MT gave you when you signed up for (GS) and add the domain name as an 'Alternate Domain'.
Once completed any requests for pages at their 'Gridserver door' will be sent on to the proper account.

Steps:
- Log in at MT Control Panel, Domains -> Add New
- Enter client domain name at the top
- Select 'Add an Alternate Domain (Host another domain on your (ss) Shared-Server or (gs) Grid-Server.)'
- unselect 'Add DNS zone' (that is to point out)
- click [Next]
- Select appropriate GridServer

This will create a new 'yourdomain.com' folder in the Domains folder. Just upload you client's site there, then log in to the
clien't DNS hosting provider, and change the domain name aname record to the IP address MT to point the domain
to the MT gridserver. If you need to move email as well, change the MX record too.

Note: MT's DNS is instantaneous. I've actually move several domains to MT for that reason.

PS Try it out with another domain first and you'll see it's pretty straightforward.

3stripe

Ah cool, might give this a try - didn't get a answer from MT yet so you beat them to it!!

Minisweeper

I'm curious what you mean by 'MT's DNS is instantaneous'...DNS changes being instant all over the web as soon as theyre changed at the provider is technically impossible due to the nature of the system. I dont care who the hosting provider is... If you just mean that as soon as you make a DNS change on their control panel it's immediately effective *across their servers* then that's really nothing special at all.

TomTester

You are (partially) right. The DNS propagation delay depends on several 'links' in the chain as well as the TTL (time to live).

Step #1 is the delay introduced by your DNS hosting company (e.g. MT). Updates to your DNS at MT are near-instantaneous
(which is what I meant) whereas others update their DNS servers only several times a day (register.com was notorious in
that respect).

Since MT updates are very fast, you can skip a large part of delays caused by 'out of sync' update schedules (e.g. if register.com
updated at 4PM, and DNS server X updated at 3:45PM with 6 hour intervals, your record at DNS server X would not be updated
for another 6 hours).

Secondly, the TTL info for the DNS record determines how long OTHER dns servers may cache your DNS listing (see
http://www.simpledns.com/help/index.html?df_ttl.htm) which I understand is also pretty low, resulting in shorter
overall propagation times (others need to/may refresh more often).

Of course world-wide it all depends on how fast/often other DNS servers update their records, but as per my experience,
a change in MTs DNS generally propagates to the big US ISPs in 10-60 mins (if times well, under 10 mins for places like
earthlink, 1and1, etc.)

A good way to explore timings etc. is http://www.dnsstuff.com.
FWIW, MT gets an A+ score on DNS speed (82ms for my domain)

3stripe

DNSstuff looks great, ta for that.