# Looking for Xen based Linux VPS



## sanjay_arora (Jul 19, 2013)

Hello all

I am a newbie looking for a VPS with specs. similar to those given below.

Request offers & comments on what & whom should I look for. Use case is personal/company hosting for dns, mail, web, vpn, proxy & databases & backups plus some web-scraping scripts.

XEN/KVM on Centos 64 bit
CPU: one core, 3+ GHz
4 GB RAM (guaranteed)
50-200 GB disk space, should be dynamically expandable
Individual reverse DNS (=PTR) entry
2 IPs
Geographical Location not a prob.-Europe/US

UNLIMITED traffic Gb port coming down to 100 Mbit/s or even 10 Mbit after fair use is exceeded…though will not in my case…I just want the comfort of knowing I will not be charged extra if my use calculations or something else goes wrong.

Root access
Reboot web interface
VNC access

cPanel/WHM or similar control panel preinstalled with auto application install scripts, so the vps is ready for hosting reseller like usage, though I will not be reselling.

should be permitted to install vpn server & proxy server (require these for personal use)

Monthly billing with no minimum period….though will upgrade to 3-4 cores & annual billing once I am satisfied with the provider.

Awaiting comments, pointers & offers.

With regards.

Sanjay.


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## SeriesN (Jul 19, 2013)

The big question,

How much are you planning to spend?


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## sanjay_arora (Jul 19, 2013)

Well, had thought of 20-25$....maybe a bit more.....don't know what's realistic. Maybe will have to raise budget a bit or maybe scale down the specs.


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## GVH-Jon (Jul 20, 2013)

I'm sorry, I know you're new but the specifications of the VPS you're asking for is *extremely* unrealistic for the price that you want to pay.

Now you may ask, why?

*Reason #1 - *An unmetered gbit port for a server costs hundreds of dollars a month to purchase and maintain, especially at datacenters with quality bandwidth providers.

*Reason #2 - *You're asking for Xen/KVM. This means that it's either paravirtualization or full virtualization, and the host cannot oversell ANY resources.

*Reason #3 - *A 3Ghz+ Core means that the provider will likely be using a Xeon E3 series server and the prices will be higher since the server is smaller. You're better off looking for 2 or more Xeon E5 cores with 2+Ghz.

*Reason #4 - *cPanel VPS licenses are $14.95 month (from BuycPanel). That's significantly more than HALF your offer price.

*Reason #5 - WEB HOSTING COMPANIES ARE NOT NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS. WE ARE HUMANS TOO AND WE NEED TO MAKE A LIVING.*

You need to get yourself out of dream land.

I would compare your thread to some lower middle class guy walking into an Apple store with $5 and asking for a Macbook Pro.


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## WebSearchingPro (Jul 20, 2013)

What kind of "web scraping scripts"?


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## sanjay_arora (Jul 20, 2013)

Jon

Thanks. I needed input on this....researching the net gives such conflicting info....many don't disclose the type of virtualization & overselling they are doing, but their prices tend to stick with one 

In any case, the way prices have gone down in the last few years....I expect your comment about being realistic won't be relevant in a couple of years and in some more years hosting companies will be paying buyers 

I will be scaling the processor down to 2GHz and am now looking around 50GB hdd & 2/3 MB Ram plus 100MB unmetered with a post fair-use down to 10.

Is that more realistic in around 25-30$ with cPanel?

Thanks & Rgds.

Sanjay.


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## sanjay_arora (Jul 20, 2013)

WebSearchingPro said:


> What kind of "web scraping scripts"?


Scraping mail of web boards & b2b sites plus scraping newer leads off b2b sites...nothing illegal...mostly removed drudgery out of manually visiting sites & doing the same job.


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## GVH-Jon (Jul 20, 2013)

sanjay_arora said:


> Jon
> 
> Thanks. I needed input on this....researching the net gives such conflicting info....many don't disclose the type of virtualization & overselling they are doing, but their prices tend to stick with one
> 
> ...


You won't find any reputable or quality hosting company paying buyers to try their services no matter if it's 1851 or 1990 or 2013 or 2120. You're looking at all the circumstances from a *consumer* point of view but from a *provider* point of view there's more circumstances and variables to consider that most consumers are unaware about.

If a company won't tell you what virtualization they're using or whether or not they oversell upon request, then that company is an absolute joke and doesn't deserve to be in the hosting industry. Hiding those facts from clients (especially when most of the time, an experienced client can find out that information themselves without asking) is a disgrace and a horrible business practice.

On to your request: I'd say that what you are requesting now is a lot more reasonable (given that you're choosing a "budget" datacenter such as ColoCrossing, FiberHub, Incero, etc)


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## sanjay_arora (Jul 20, 2013)

GVH-Jon said:


> You won't find any reputable or quality hosting company paying buyers to try their services no matter if it's 1851 or 1990 or 2013 or 2120. You're looking at all the circumstances from a *consumer* point of view but from a *provider* point of view there's more circumstances and variables to consider that most consumers are unaware about.


That...Jon...was a Joke!! Guess I don't do jokes well


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## Dylan (Jul 20, 2013)

GVH-Jon said:


> *Reason #2 - *You're asking for Xen/KVM. This means that it's either paravirtualization or full virtualization, and the host cannot oversell ANY resources.


I find it somewhat disingenuous when providers say this. KVM and Xen can both absolutely be oversold.


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## sanjay_arora (Jul 20, 2013)

Dylan said:


> I find it somewhat disingenuous when providers say this. KVM and Xen can both absolutely be oversold.


Will you please expand on that ?....what resources on xen/kvm can & cannot be oversold? I am a bit curious....as that was my understanding exactly....I don't deal with virtualization in course of my daily work.


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## GVH-Jon (Jul 20, 2013)

sanjay_arora said:


> Will you please expand on that ?....what resources on xen/kvm can & cannot be oversold? I am a bit curious....as that was my understanding exactly....I don't deal with virtualization in course of my daily work.


Whoops my bad, I was speaking in terms of disk space resources

In *Xen Paravirtualization* and *Xen Full Virtualization (HVM)*, you can *ONLY* oversell *CPU Cores*, *Bandwidth, and Ports.*

In *KVM Virtualization* you can *ONLY *oversell *CPU Cores, Bandwidth, Ports, and Memory.*

let's not forget though, there's another player in the market: *VMWare*.* VMWare *was created way before Xen was released and is *Full Virtualization,* similar to *Xen HVM.*

OpenVZ is the most economical choice and preferred choice by most consumers. The reason for this is because the price is cheaper, the host can oversell (this is beneficial if the host oversells responsibly and doesn't overload), and you get faster speeds because the kernal is shared.


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## sanjay_arora (Jul 20, 2013)

Would these low cost dedicated servers @35$ & 49$ be performance equivalent of 1 core of vps cpu?

AMD Sempron 3000+
1 x 160 GB PATA
1 GB DDR
Unmetered 100Mbps*


1 x 1.2 GHz
AMD Athlon 64 3700+
2 x 300GB SATA
7200 RPM
2 GB DDR
Unmetered 100Mbps*


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## john (Jul 20, 2013)

GVH-Jon said:


> Whoops my bad, I was speaking in terms of disk space resources
> 
> In *Xen Paravirtualization* and *Xen Full Virtualization (HVM)*, you can *ONLY* oversell *CPU Cores*, *Bandwidth, and Ports.*
> 
> ...



Disk on KVM and Xen can be oversold. It's called LVM thin provisioning.


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## GVH-Jon (Jul 20, 2013)

john said:


> Disk on KVM and Xen can be oversold. It's called LVM thin provisioning.


It takes a bit of work to configure, no? Do you think that the average host would go through all that trouble and the risks? Name me one host that oversells Disk Space on KVM and Xen, just one.

Xen and KVM are not meant to be oversold.


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## john (Jul 20, 2013)

sanjay_arora said:


> Would these low cost dedicated servers @35$ & 49$ be performance equivalent of 1 core of vps cpu?
> 
> AMD Sempron 3000+
> 
> ...


With a dedicated server, the CPU is dedicated to you. Most VPS providers are not going to let you use 1 full core 24/7. I'm not familiar with "web scraping scripts" but it sounds like one of those programs that will need a lot of CPU.


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## Dylan (Jul 20, 2013)

GVH-Jon said:


> Whoops my bad, I was speaking in terms of disk space resources
> 
> In *Xen Paravirtualization* and *Xen Full Virtualization (HVM)*, you can *ONLY* oversell *CPU Cores*, *Bandwidth, and Ports.*
> 
> ...





john said:


> Disk on KVM and Xen can be oversold. It's called LVM thin provisioning.


And you can oversell (balloon) memory on Xen.


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## GVH-Jon (Jul 20, 2013)

sanjay_arora said:


> Would these low cost dedicated servers @35$ & 49$ be performance equivalent of 1 core of vps cpu?
> 
> AMD Sempron 3000+
> 
> ...


If you use that dedicated server for a heavy script that's the script equivalent of jumping off a bridge.

Don't listen to the other guys above about overselling resources on Xen and KVM. You won't find any reputable host using those practices.


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## Magiobiwan (Jul 20, 2013)

Yeah. Web scraping scripts use a TON of CPU. Number 1 thing that trips abuse scripts. Other than CryptoCoin (BitCoin, LiteCoin, PrimeCoin, *Coin, etc.) of course.


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## sanjay_arora (Jul 20, 2013)

GVH-Jon said:


> In *Xen Paravirtualization* and *Xen Full Virtualization (HVM)*, you can *ONLY* oversell *CPU Cores*, *Bandwidth, and Ports.*
> 
> In *KVM Virtualization* you can *ONLY *oversell *CPU Cores, Bandwidth, Ports, and Memory.*


One would not mind disk space being oversold. Seller would get ample warning to reconfigure them (if using SAN or similar technology) but cpu processing being oversold would create contention.....not good at all.....in fact that was why I was looking at kvm.....I thought that resources are reserved....memory or processing allocated to my instance will not be used by anyone.....I think I need to read up on differences in hypervisors!!


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## qps (Jul 20, 2013)

Your budget is completely unrealistic, even if you take out the cost of the cPanel license.

If you can increase your budget, it might be worth considering a low end dedicated server given the requirements.  Maybe a Dual Xeon L5420 or something similar.


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## john (Jul 20, 2013)

GVH-Jon said:


> It takes a bit of work to configure, no? Do you think that the average host would go through all that trouble and the risks? Name me one host that oversells Disk Space on KVM and Xen, just one.
> 
> Xen and KVM are not meant to be oversold.


Takes work = not available in SolusVM? A lot of hosts depend on SolusVM so no. DigitalOcean.

The purpose of virtualization is over provisioning.

To OP: Since you need a lot of dedicated processing power for a low cost, take a look at QuickPacket's dedicated server deals.


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## Dylan (Jul 20, 2013)

sanjay_arora said:


> Would these low cost dedicated servers @35$ & 49$ be performance equivalent of 1 core of vps cpu?
> 
> AMD Sempron 3000+
> 
> ...


If you're looking for a super low-end dedicated server there are much better deals here, FYI, from a provider people around here tend to like:

https://www.wholesaleinternet.net/dedicated/

If you're looking for something a bit less low-end, check out QPS.


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## kaniini (Jul 21, 2013)

Dylan said:


> I find it somewhat disingenuous when providers say this. KVM and Xen can both absolutely be oversold.


Indeed.  However, it is less trivial to overcommit resources on Xen than it is on KVM or OpenVZ.

Xen allows you to overcommit CPU Cores, Bandwidth, etc.  It can also allow you to overcommit memory, and with the LVM overcommit patches, disk as well.  However, both of these require increasingly complex levels of configuration.

KVM allows you to overcommit CPU Cores, Bandwidth, Memory and depending on storage configuration, disk space (sparse files).  The LVM overcommit patches allow you to oversell the disk here too, without using files.

OpenVZ allows you to overcommit CPU Cores, Bandwidth, Memory, disk storage, FS inodes, etcetera.  Essentially everything can be overcommitted.


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## sanjay_arora (Jul 21, 2013)

Comments on this?

http://contabo.com/?show=vps

10 Euros --- states KVM, 200 GB hdd, 4 gb guaranteed ram, unmetered 100 mbit port......too good to be true...???


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## kaniini (Jul 21, 2013)

sanjay_arora said:


> Comments on this?
> 
> http://contabo.com/?show=vps
> 
> 10 Euros --- states KVM, 200 GB hdd, 4 gb guaranteed ram, unmetered 100 mbit port......too good to be true...???


I can guarantee you that is not going to include the cPanel license.


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## sanjay_arora (Jul 21, 2013)

That's true...cPanel's extra....they haven't quoted for that....but still its impressive & after this thread I'm wondering ...what's the catch?

cPanel is available for 14.95$ independent from hosting provider....some quote as low as 10$, some as high as 30$....in which case one can buy 14.95 independent.


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## kaniini (Jul 21, 2013)

sanjay_arora said:


> That's true...cPanel's extra....they haven't quoted for that....but still its impressive & after this thread I'm wondering ...what's the catch?
> 
> cPanel is available for 14.95$ independent from hosting provider....some quote as low as 10$, some as high as 30$....in which case one can buy 14.95 independent.


Well, there is this on their fine print:



> Unlimited traffic: No additional costs due to traffic (if average traffic consumption continuously exceeds 40 Mbit/s over a timespan of at least 5 days the connection is switched to 10 Mbit/s).


Also, looking at the routes I have to 91.194.91.215 (AS51167) it seems that they use Telia and Level3 for transit with a preference to Telia, at least from the routing table view we have at London.

This may affect connectivity to the US negatively verses routing to the US via Level3.


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## sanjay_arora (Jul 24, 2013)

Well, finally purchased from 5gbps.com for 26$/m + 2$ for extra IP and cPanel from 3rd party, as theirs was few dollars expensive. They are totally unmanaged. Specs are as follows:


8 x Intel Xeon CPU
1Gbps Unmetered (10Gbps node)
250GB Dedicated HDD
3GB Dedicated RAM
Linux or Windows OS
Location: Netherlands / Europe
Datacenter: FDCServers
XEN Virtualization
99.9% Uptime SLA
SolusVM Control Panel
No restrictions on anything legal...even torrents allowed. No fair use on bandwidth!!!

I wonder how to measure the processing power of a vps.....oversold or not...everything has a size tag...ram is x gb, hdd is x gb.....how do I calculate the labelled processor spec or test the processing power to compare it to any dedicated cpu.....50% of Intel i3..x Mhz ? Any way to estimate this...even post purchase ?

Regards & thanks to all who contributed to my thread.

Sanjay.


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## mikho (Jul 24, 2013)

Thank you for getting back and lettig us know about your decision.


Let us know how it works for you!


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## sanjay_arora (Aug 26, 2015)

> Well, finally purchased from 5gbps.com for 26$/m + 2$ for extra IP and cPanel from 3rd party, as theirs was few dollars expensive. They are totally unmanaged. Specs are as follows:
> 
> 
> 8 x Intel Xeon CPU
> ...



Hi all

Was on the above package for two years. Service was good, as far as unmanaged goes, so don't have any complaints. Was happy with them.

However, the provider has introduced a FUP and reduced cores and increased prices.....so am in the market for a new provider. Rather than create a new thread, I decided to use the old one here.

So request options. Would be buying one vps for regular testing with above specs immediately, second for production with 4-5 gb ram and if possible couple more processor cores, in two months and third for replication & backup (with above specs) in a different data center one month after that. Would like one provider and single billing and prices cheap/reasonable/competitive to above, for small one man firm, in location where US Dollar is multiplied by 65.

My major issue is unmetered bandwidth. In an earlier provider I was billed huge amount due to some virus problem n automated billing and me not paying due attention, no fault of provider, of course. But since then, I always take unmetered options, with/without reduced bandwidth post fup. With the above provider, I barely used 10% of the fup, he introduced later. But this is an issue with me. I like the comfort of an unmetered bandwidth, though I won't probably be a heavy user.

Looked at option of using cloud providers like Amazon etc., but all seem to be much more expensive than vps options, though I would gain in dynamic vps launch. Of course, unlimited bandwidth is not possible with/without fup with them. But would like to know if there are any low cost options in that segment though. But just curiosity here, don't really expect to get anything. Checked only Amazon & Rackspace thoroughly.

Best regards & thanks.

Sanjay.


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