This is a weird problem I've been butting my head against for days now...
I have two OpenVPN servers set up with identical configurations except for the keys. One of them is hosted in a datacenter with a large backbone, the other is hosted on my home server's limited residential internet. One of them delivers consistent topped-out performance(100 kilobytes per second) even while under network load, the other delivers at best 30 kilobytes per second when load-free. Care to guess which one is which?
You'd guess I'd get better performance on the VPS, right? Wrong! My anemic home server gets better performance and throughput than my hosting provider. This is made doubly odd by the fact that throughput to my hosting provider seems fine in any other way I've thought to test. CPU load, I/O load, network load, all of those look minimal.
They're running nearly identical systems, with the same OS(Gentoo Linux) and very similar versions of OpenVPN -- indeed, their specific support for Gentoo and OpenVPN both are reasons this provider was picked. No firewalls or bandwidth throttling is involved yet. The latency to both hosts is nearly identical(i.e. terrible But my client's behind a sat connection, so it's to be expected ) I'm nearly out of ideas. Is it time to fire my hosting provider? Any suggestions for alternatives?
Virtual hosting, yes. The platform is OpenVZ. I can install most any OS I want inside the virtual environment, I've tried several now with no better performance. My provider is vpsville.ca. They supposedly host lots of VPN connections, some with performance up to 60 megabit, but I doubt any of those are dealing with latency like mine.
My experience was definitely nothing like that. Their system was so smooth I didn't even need emailed login information; they needed some passwords and my credit card info and bam, I was already logged in and setting up my system.
Their gentoo environment is also far better than vpsville's. vpsville had an incomplete version that required troubleshooting in order to install packages at all. linode at least included the portage tree, which made everything else easy. vpsville also had special hoops to jump through to install a tun device, and even then I needed to bother their support to get it working right. linode's VPS came with one that worked already.
From that performance review I read, their numbers were impressive.
So far, I have had a great customer service experience with SliceHost. I when for Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic) and was able to get up and running quickly using aptitude to set up Apache2, PHP, MySQL and OpenX.
I had such a negative initial signup with Linode (because of living outside of the US), that I did not make it to the technical part of the game. SliceHost customer service resolved the "flag you because you are out of the country" in minutes v. hours and painlessly.
The good news is that you had a positive experience. I am glad to here it!
The issue (or one issue) is "how" customer service deals with their customers who are flagged from fraud by some "rule".
Because I am in Asia, the rule was IF "US Credit Card" AND "Signup IP == Asian Country" then flag.
Slice has the exact same rule, which I understand and appreciate.
The difference was in how the two companies responded. Slice resolved it within a matter of minutes. Linode would not even respond to my emails after hours. I set up an entire Slicehost operation from signup to serving, in half the time it took to get a call from Linode to apologize.
It is very important for companies who "flag from fraud" whatever their rule-base says, it to be prepared to followup with the customer very fast and very professional and helpful. Slice was excellent in that regard.
But my client's behind a sat connection, so it's to be expected ) I'm nearly out of ideas. Is it time to fire my hosting provider? Any suggestions for alternatives?