Eric, from OpenVirtuals, have sent in their first offer for LowEndBox readers. As part of their grand opening celebration, they have decided to offer the following offers, exclusive to the LEB community.
Mini
| Standard
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OpenVirtuals is a new service of Intercom Online, a voice and data solutions provider that’s entering its 20th year of business. These servers have both SSD and HD storage (combo storage). Your vps will have a 2nd mount using hard drives with more capacity (SSD & HD mounts = combo storage). The promotional codes will only work on your 1st order as a new client, and can be applied multiple times if your order more than 1 vps on your 1st order. These promotion codes will be valid until the end of April 2013. It seems you have to use Facebook to sign up. What are your thoughts on this?
OpenVirtuals accept Paypal and have a 10 day money back guarantee. Servers will be provisioned instantly and all vps come with a 100% Uptime Guarantee supported by a generous and proactive SLA. We are told that they have pre-made templates for popular installations such as: 64 bit Linux OSes, development frameworks like Ruby on Rails and web applications like WordPress. You can find all of their legal documents on their ‘Terms’ page.
Network Information:
Servers are colocated in New York, New York with Peer1.
Test IPv4: 64.34.14.26
Test File: http://64.34.14.26/test100M.bin
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Looks legit. A New York offer in a less used location around these parts as well. I’m in. Ordered one. Running a few test files, bandwidth looks clean.
To expand on what I meant to add to that but quickly forgot. I’m confused about the SSD vSwap. Does that mean that when the RAM is used then the node’s swap goes to SSD? Which would then mean each client past that point is using SSD as RAM and as vSwap, or that everyone is using RAM as vSwap and no one is really using the SSD?
Thanks for the order! That’s a good question.
As of RHEL6, the OpenVZ kernel uses RAM for vSwap when available (emulating swap by giving lower priority to the processes which are vSwapped), and swaps to disk only when there’s a global memory shortage in the physical node.
In a virtual which has exceeded its RAM allotment the next process will still use RAM as long as there is RAM available globally, but at a lower priority in order to emulate swap.
The only time the SSD is used for swap is when the node is out of RAM globally. It’s our job as a provider to load balance virtuals across our nodes in order to minimize the occurrences of such events, but when a global memory shortage happens its better to swap to SSDs than to spinning disks.
Got ya. Node seems good and fast. You might want to consider revising the wording though. Your front page says “SSD vSwap” as does this offer. The FAQ page says “We dedicate SSDs for vSwap in every node” but since vSwap is allocated in RAM then the first thing to hit the SSD is going to be RAM and not swap, so if at any point anyone is swapping to the SSD then the node is going to become trash, albeit less trash than a SATA disk. So you’re really not allocating vSwap to SSD, you’re allocating node swap to SSD. Node swap can be RAM or vSwap to the container, but hopefully neither, so by advertising it that way it actually creates a negative statement to say that “It is possible that your RAM allotment will hit the node’s swap.”
Just friendly advice :)
jarland,
We’re appreciate the feedback. So what do you think of calling it SSD Swap rather than SSD vSwap?
My personal opinion is that on a platform where RAM and Swap are both allotted to physical RAM up until the point where RAM is 100% full, marketing either of the two is marketing the node running out of memory as a positive, when there really is no positive aspect to an OpenVZ container ever actually hitting disk swap. Of course, it will never be an issue I’m sure, you could probably sell 3x the amount of memory on the node and never see more than 30% of the total node’s memory used.
Maybe something like “We use SSD for our swap partition as an extra buffer between you and excessively reduced performance in the unlikely event that something goes horribly wrong.”
It’s a difficult angle to market so that any type of reader can look at it and see a positive. If it were me, I’d probably drop the angle altogether to avoid confusion, but obviously it’s not me ;)
Why Facebook login? Never seen before on VPS offers. They wants know more about you :)
Speedtest from 1Gbit NJ based server:
[root@host07 src]# wget http://64.34.14.26/test100M.bin
–2013-04-04 22:19:12– http://64.34.14.26/test100M.bin
Connecting to 64.34.14.26:80… connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 200 OK
Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: “test100M.bin”
100%[==========================================================================================================================================================================================================================>] 104,857,600 10.6M/s in 9.4s
2013-04-04 22:19:22 (10.7 MB/s) – “test100M.bin” saved [104857600/104857600]
Facebook to sign up? I don’t have any so thanks but no – there’s enough competition to skip offers with silly unprofessional requests like this one.
Amen! From their privacy statement:
“The only message we will post to your Timeline is when you purchase a new virtual. We’ll announce it with a post like: “Yippee – I just got a shiny new virtual server at OpenVirtuals.com!””
What a load of shit
Can post on my wall all they want, I’m the only one that can read it :P
Nice way advertising for free
What does the 100% uptime cover?
Nothing!!!
http://www.openvirtuals.com/uptime
“Do you really guarantee 100% uptime?”
“Since we’re not almighty we can’t factually guarantee anything. But we’re committed to the highest possible uptime and to standing behind that commitment with no excuses.”
This company seems like a load of crap
I LOL’d, but then I found they do offer SLA credits for uptime.
http://www.openvirtuals.com/Terms#SLA
I think you are jumping to conclusions too quickly. From their FAQ (link):
“What about credits?
We offer generous service credits, and we apply them proactively, even for outages caused by “Force Majeure” or “unavoidable accident.”
You mean I won’t have to submit a log and proof you were down?
It may be a novel idea, but we think you probably have better things to do than trying to prove you had an outage to a vendor that already has that information.”
Also, if you look at their SLA (link), you will notice that they offer credit for any downtime (<100% uptime), and full credit for uptime <99.1% monthly.
Thank you Nate for noticing our SLA which offers generous proactive credits for any outage.
And thanks to the comments here we decided to update our Uptime FAQ to make it more clear.
How do you guarantee 100% uptime?
All providers are subject to natural disasters and other events beyond our control. At OpenVirtuals we simply take full responsibility for 100% uptime, which means we provide SLA credits for any outage whatsoever even if it’s cause is a natural disaster.
Why do you guarantee 100% uptime rather 99.99%?
The difference between 100% and 99.99% is about 4 minutes of downtime per month. We’d rather not quibble about those 4 minutes.
I’d be signed up already if there was no FB account requirement.
FB sign up?
LOOL!
The FB requirement cost them my business too.
login with facebook, Nice!
Facebook required = lost business.
We thought that Facebook login would raise legitimate concerns, and that’s why we posted this explanation on our pre-signup page:
Why We Use Facebook Connect
Enhanced Security
Facebook Connect protects your login credentials with a world-class security infrastructure. The best practices of even a great startup company cannot compare. Thanks to Paypal and Facebook we don’t store any critical personal data, and that’s ultimately the best security.
Ease of Use
Facebook Connect makes it easy to sign up and saves you from memorizing another password. And when you’re on Facebook you can log into OpenVirtuals with just a click.
Privacy Conscious Marketing
Facebook extends our marketing network but only with your permission. See our Privacy FAQ for more info.
And in our Privacy FAQ we explain the following:
1. The benefit that we do not store your personal data
2. That the only message we’ll post to your timeline is: “Yippee – I just got a shiny new virtual server at OpenVirtuals.com!”
3. How to opt out of timeline posts in a few simple steps
We’re happy if the customer allows us to post, but if the customer opts out they retain the benefits of enhanced security and ease of login.
So that was the logic behind launching with Facebook Connect. And we know the biggest concern is that a provider might misuse the ability to post. So we’ve tried to address that with a clear statement of what we’ll post and clear instructions on how to turn off posting. But we understand that some will still not like it. And we’re definitely willing to consider other authentication options. So please give us more feedback.
It’s not just about “not like it”. I hope you’re aware that some people don’t even have facebook and that this market is big enough to choose hosting company with normal sign up instead hosting company with silly childish unprofessional requirement to sign up throug some third party social networking site.
Anyway, just read comments above and you will get idea what people think about your sill sign up requirement.
“Facebook Connect protects your login credentials with a world-class security infrastructure. The best practices of even a great startup company cannot compare. Thanks to Paypal and Facebook we don’t store any critical personal data, and that’s ultimately the best security.”
That’s complete horse-shit. There’s exactly one way to store passwords in a secure manner, and that’s a way anyone can implement: salted and hashed with a proper algorithm. If you can’t do that and can’t find someone to do it for you, you shouldn’t be running a business. And let’s not forget that using Facebook Connect means that if someones Facebook account is compromised, so is their hosting account.
“Facebook Connect makes it easy to sign up and saves you from memorizing another password. And when you’re on Facebook you can log into OpenVirtuals with just a click.”
That’s what OpenID was invented for. And it gives you the choice who to sign up with, and doesn’t require you to trust a business whose sole purpose is data mining. And really, you shouldn’t be trying to ‘memorize a password’ in the first place – that’s what KeePass is for.
“Privacy Conscious Marketing
Facebook extends our marketing network but only with your permission. See our Privacy FAQ for more info.”
This is a joke, right?
“1. The benefit that we do not store your personal data”
Oh, you don’t? Then who do you invoice to?
“2. That the only message we’ll post to your timeline is: “Yippee – I just got a shiny new virtual server at OpenVirtuals.com!””
The only message? So you get to pay and have your timeline spammed? Nice way to treat your customers.
“3. How to opt out of timeline posts in a few simple steps”
Opt out? I fail to see how this is acceptable. Posting advertising on someones personal account should be opt-in, not opt-out.
“And we’re definitely willing to consider other authentication options. So please give us more feedback.”
Give the option between either registering a separate on your account, and using OpenID. Using Facebook Connect for this is an absolutely insane and unacceptable practice.
registering a separate account on your site *
I can’t seem to reply to your last post. So I’ve posted at the end of the comments section.
Storing salted hashed passwords has been shown to be fallible. http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/06/our-password-hashing-has-no-clothes.html
As stated in our Privacy FAQ – we use Facebook Connect for authentication to our site hence we do not store your password. We use Paypal for billing so we do not store any billing information. The only data we keep is your email address.
We’ve adopted these policies not because we can’t implement best practices, but out of a recognition that even big firms with competent security departments get hacked on a regular basis. The fact that we don’t have store passwords and other sensitive personal data should be a plus if you’re being objective.
We think the issues that should be of greater concern are:
1. That so far we have outsourced authentication only to Facebook. But we’re considering adding other options.
2. Posting to your timeline. Every company has the need to do marketing. The question of how ethically one does so is not determined by whether you use FB Connect or not, but how you handle all the relevant issues. If you review our FAQ and pre-signup page you’ll see we’re quite transparent about what we’ll post and how to permanently opt out. But until you permanently opt out the Timeline posts are actually via opt-in because when you sign on even from the very first time you are presented with the option to “allow” or “skip” and as long as you choose skip we cannot post anything.
“Storing salted hashed passwords has been shown to be fallible. http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/06/our-password-hashing-has-no-clothes.html”
Uh, no. If you had read the article properly, you would have known that it criticizes slow hashes. That’s what bcrypt, crypt+SHA2 and PBKDF2 are for. Oh, and PHP crypt() (and quite a few other libraries) helpfully use the modular hash format, meaning you can raise the hashing ‘difficulty’ without invalidating previously generated passwords.
“As stated in our Privacy FAQ – we use Facebook Connect for authentication to our site hence we do not store your password. We use Paypal for billing so we do not store any billing information. The only data we keep is your email address.”
Then you’re going to have a problem, as quite a few countries, to my knowledge, require that online sales are invoiced to a physical address. So either you store the data anyway, or you are going to have legal issues at some point.
“We’ve adopted these policies not because we can’t implement best practices, but out of a recognition that even big firms with competent security departments get hacked on a regular basis.”
So instead, you choose to store that data with those “big firms with competent security departments that get hacked on a regular basis”. Right.
“The fact that we don’t have store passwords and other sensitive personal data should be a plus if you’re being objective.”
Proper hashes are not sensitive data. That’s the whole point.
“But until you permanently opt out the Timeline posts are actually via opt-in because when you sign on even from the very first time you are presented with the option to “allow” or “skip” and as long as you choose skip we cannot post anything.”
That’s not what “opt-in” is. One of the most important characteristics of opt-in is that the user is fully aware of what he is agreeing to. The only thing your pre-signup page says is this:
‘Facebook extends our marketing network but only with your permission. See our Privacy FAQ for more info.’
Nowhere is it said that you are going to post advertising to someones timeline, and you know just as well as I do that the majority of people is not going to click that link to the Privacy FAQ.
Additionally, no ‘skip’ option is shown. The only options are ‘Go to App’ and ‘Cancel’. The Cancel button will bring you back to the pre-signup page, not allowing you to sign up.
This is not ‘transparency’. This is giving just enough information to make a claim of transparency and have people believe it, when in reality you’re trying to hide that you’re going to spam someones timeline. Want to be actually transparent? Clearly and explicitly state on the pre-signup page itself that you are going to post to someones wall.
Absolutely would have had some of this if not for the Facebook requirement. I wouldn’t even sign up for a free VPS if it required a facebook login, so I’m certainly not paying for one that requires it. A real shame.
In China, the facebook.com is blocked by Great FireWall, so facebook account requirement means…
IPv6 available ? And BTW you should definitely look for an alternative to Facebook login. I don’t have a FB account and I will never do.
We expect to offer IPv6 in the near future, and we may add Twitter and Google+ login as well.
How about regular logins? What a novel idea
I wouldn’t buy any product that required me to sign up to another a 3rd-party service first, so Twitter/Google+ won’t help.
I would never purchase a VPS that requires Facebook signup. And yes, I purchase VPS plans on a regular basis but not under these types of restrictions…
At what point do you just give the people what they want? Isn’t that what good business is? Not worried so much about what you think they should want but what they actually want.
continuing from Joe’s last reply ..
We thought we were being transparent by stating in the privacy sections of the FAQ and Terms pages that you’ll be prompted to accept posts and notifications, and that you can opt out by following simple instructions that we provide. If someone goes directly to the pre-signup page they see that we use Facebook for marketing. But perhaps it could be clearer.
Previously the only thing on that page below the Connect button was: “If you are new to OpenVirtuals you will be prompted to accept our posts on Facebook which you can opt out of later (read more), and then you will be taken to our signup page.” but a couple of weeks ago we thought the issue of exclusive FB,login was a question mark for everyone even us, so we used that page to:explain why we use FB Connect and to ask for feedback with the survey. In making those changes the text explaining our Facebook posting got shorter to keep the page from being too long. But now that you mention it perhaps it could be more straightforward. We’ll consider that, although we may be making bigger changes based on all this feedback.
Regarding opt-in we don’t tout that on our site, but if you signed up you’d see we can’t post to your Timeline without you accepting. Every time you log in if you click on Skip you’re able to continue and we can’t post. It’s only if you click Accept that we can post.. you can then permanently disable with the simple instructions or make it private. Even if it is technically opt-in or not we’re aware it could be better such as with a form that lets the user indicate whether they agree to posts or not and if so which post they prefer out of a few options that we’d make when a purchase is made.
Facebook and Paypal have good track records of securing sensitive customer data. So they’re not what I was referring to re big firms that get hacked. Don’t you agree there’s some merit to the idea of letting proven experts handle a challenging job and a benefit to not hosting sensitive data. In any case, based on the feedback we may end up doing our own login after all.
The main point we’re getting from the feedback here is that we should just get away from the FB only login. Even if we have a combination of social network login options but no proprietary login that’s not OK for some. We’ll have to evaluate all these comments. Out of curiosity, assuming we have our own login how does our offer look to you?
There’s no merit in having a third party hold your sensitive data if your customers don’t want a 3rd party having that data. Personally, I don’t want Facebook, Google+ etc having any of my data, regardless of whether they’ll actually do anything with it or not.
Also, from a business point of view, if you’re looking to grow and get some bigger customers on the books, would you seriously expect a small/medium enterprise to buy services from you if they had to create a company FB account first? Many would take one look and walk away.
To answer your final question, if you had a regular login method, I’d have tried one of the $3 plans without hesitation. You don’t get many plans in this particular location, and the price/spec seem reasonable enough.
“Out of curiosity, assuming we have our own login how does our offer look to you?”
i would have bought one about 10 mins ago if you had a way for me to signup without using FB
Everyone:
We appreciate all the feedback, and we’re happy to know that some folks like the service already. But the criticism we’ve gotten for the FB only login is clearly the most helpful. We have no religion about that.
Nick A. said – At what point do you just give the people what they want?
Apparently only after being hit over the head a few times by all the comments!
We’ll implement our own login and post back here when it’s ready.
Thank again!
@Eric A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds… I look forward to your own login implementation. You will get a new customer in NYC as soon as is it done.
Hey Guys,
We’ve implemented our own login now. Check it out at http://www.openvirtuals.com
//eric
Eric,
Are VPN services allowed to run on your servers? Not saying particularly on one of these selections, but in general. I’m thinking of running a Enterprise SSD Cached to run VPN, some storage for my on-the-go storage and some other simple services, like ZNC.
Also, do you think one Enterprise SSD Cached can run Rust or Starbound?
Hello,
I wanted to order a VPS in your NYC location, but none of the order options show NYC. I wanted to get a SSD Cached VPS in the $40.00 range with a extra IPv4 address. Can you hook me up?
Thanks
RJ