# INIZ - one year review



## gxbfxvar (Jul 24, 2014)

Purchase date: 2013-08-08 .. current
 

*Services:*

LEB-SSD-1024 OpenVZ server (NL), 2013-08-08..2014-08-08 (will be cancelled when the billing period is over)

OpenVZ.IO 4G OpenVZ server (NL), 2013-08-23..2013-11-29 (cancelled)

VPSBoard special 64MB OpenVZ server (NL), 2013-08-30..current

LE256MB KVM server (Los Angeles), 2014-01-12..current

VZ256 OpenVZ server (NL), 2014-07-24..current

Shared10 shared hosting (New York), 2014-04-10..current

 

 

*Usage of the servers:*

Web sites, some software development, private web proxy, status site

 

 

*Summary:* 4/5

INIZ provides cheap virtual servers with good stability and fast support. Performance of the servers varies, but is at acceptable levels.

 

 

*The story:*

I initially bought virtual servers from INIZ only for backup purposes (in case the primary servers from other provider go down). In addition, I bought some of the cheaper servers mostly because I was curious (how they will perform). However, after a while, I decided to use INIZ virtual servers as primary servers for some of my web sites, since the stability and the performance was good (minimal downtime, no network breaks, etc.).

 

*LEB-SSD-1024 server:*

I bought this server after noticing an advertisement on at LEB. The server is OpenVZ based and had SSD drive and 1024MB memory.

 

"Had" is there, because the SSD drives has had some problems, and I think the server has been migrated once or twice to other physical server.

 

A small snippet from the support email:



```
"As some of may know we recently moved clients from 4 x 512GB Samsung 840 Pros to 8 x Intel 240GB
however we have not seen any huge difference in performance and is below what we'd expected from
the kind of setup we are running. It seems that the latest gen8 HP raid card is having some
compatibility issues possibly relating to the main host node OS and SSDs in general."
```

 

The migrations themselves were always done very nicely. The customers were given multiple choices what to do and the notices have been sent well in advance so there has been plenty of time to prepare for the move. The downtime during the server move was also very short (few hours at maximum, if I remember correctly).

 

The performance of the server also has been great, despite the disk problems. For example, compiling gcc 4.8.2 on this server took about one hour, while same took about two hours on OpenVZ.IO 4G server (tested in November 2013).




> ../gcc-4.8.2/configure --enable-languages=c && time make bootstrap
> 
> 
> 
> ...


But despite the good performance, I will be actually cancelling the server. Currently, I mostly host static web pages on the server and I don't need high performance server for that.
 

*OpenVZ.IO 4G server:*

This high RAM OpenVZ server was bought, because I wanted to compare how it performs against Waveride.at servers. The network stability was better than at Waveride.at, but I ended up cancelling the server because of somewhat poor performance (see above). The server did not feel that snappy as LEB-SSD-1024, and also my Waveride.at server (with 6GB RAM) was somewhat faster.

 

Of course, the server performance wasn't totally bad. If I did not have had LEB-SSD-1024 and Waveride.at already, I would have probably kept the server.

 

*VPSBoard special 64MB server:*

The server was bought when INIZ had special advertisement going here at vpsboard.com. The price was right ($7.75 USD/year) and memory was enough for simple status site. Only two points to say about this server:


 I think this server has happened to be down more than any other of my INIZ servers (maybe 4..5 times during its existence)
I was positively surprised when Patrick was willing to relocate this server to other node, since I already had one server running on the same node as where this server originally was. (Giving this kind of support for <$8/year server blows up your profit margins quite nicely.)

*LE256MB KVM server:*


Not much to say about this either. The server has been very stable (down maybe once for few hours). It acts as a secondary mirror for one of my web pages, so it does not really get any traffic and 256MB memory is more than enough.

 

 

In addition to above, I also have shared hosting package (in NY) and 256MB OpenVZ server (in NL) from INIZ, but I haven't used them long enough to have anything interesting to report.

 

 

*Control Panels and Support:*

 

INIZ uses WHCMS for billing, SolusVM for virtual server management, and Kayako for support tickets. In addition, there is more or less unofficial "best effort" IRC channel in FreeNode network.

 

Support tickets are answered fast, sometimes even in minutes. Normal case is probably 30min..1h and worst case for me so far has been about 8 hours.

 

Curiously, Patrick seems to answer all (my) tickets by himself. I assume this is because he does not have any other people handling the tickets. You also seem to get better response times if you file ticket during UK "working" hours (9am..11?pm GMT). Tickets filed 1..6am GMT get somewhat longer to answer.

 

Likewise, the response times to server failures feel longer if the server happens to die during the night.

 

INIZ used to have a separate status site running, but I think that is discontinued and most of the important notifications happen via email and Twitter (twitter.com/inizcom).

 

 

*Linux distribution templates:*

 

I have tested Debian 7 and Fedora 20 templates and while they seem to be ok and provide working setup right from the start, for me they contain too much stuff. For example, the templates have Apache, Sendmail, and cyrus-sasl installed and running by default. In addition, I noticed that on Debian templates I had samba and consolekit running also - who needs samba on a virtual server?!

 

 

*Final conclusion:*

 

INIZ is a really good provider if you need a virtual server for hobby or "small company" purposes. You need to see some effort when tweaking the servers from the initial setup, but usually that is not too much work.

 

However, because of bus factor of one (my assumption, I have not verified the case), I would not run anything really critical on INIZ's servers alone. Since, if Patrick gets hit by the bus, there might be no one who will take care of the servers. They might run few weeks/months on their own, but after that simply die because lack of care.


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## HalfEatenPie (Jul 24, 2014)

Thanks for the review of Iniz's services!



gxbfxvar said:


> *OpenVZ.IO 4G server:*
> 
> This high RAM OpenVZ server was bought, because I wanted to compare how it performs against Waveride.at servers. The network stability was better than at Waveride.at, but I ended up cancelling the server because of somewhat poor performance (see above). The server did not feel that snappy as LEB-SSD-1024, and also my Waveride.at server (with 6GB RAM) was somewhat faster.
> 
> Of course, the server performance wasn't totally bad. If I did not have had LEB-SSD-1024 and Waveride.at already, I would have probably kept the server.


What do you mean by "feel that snappy"?


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## gxbfxvar (Jul 24, 2014)

HalfEatenPie said:


> What do you mean by "feel that snappy"?


Basically, running "make" (=run gcc and compile some C code) on OpenVZ.IO node was not "instant" or as fast as on SSD node. I then tested this by compiling gcc itself on the nodes and comparing the results.


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## gxbfxvar (Jul 24, 2014)

Oh and, not sure about all meanings of "snappy", but I tried to use it as defined here: http://www.definitions.net/definition/snappy



> quick or sudden in action or performance.


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## HalfEatenPie (Jul 24, 2014)

gxbfxvar said:


> Oh and, not sure about all meanings of "snappy", but I tried to use it as defined here: http://www.definitions.net/definition/snappy


Haha yeah I'm well aware what snappy meant, just simply stating that snappy is a relative term and therefore isn't really that useful unless given explanation. What's snappy for you could be different to me 



gxbfxvar said:


> Basically, running "make" (=run gcc and compile some C code) on OpenVZ.IO node was not "instant" or as fast as on SSD node. I then tested this by compiling gcc itself on the nodes and comparing the results.


Thanks yeah this is exactly what I was asking for


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## DomainBop (Jul 24, 2014)

> However, because of bus factor of one (my assumption, I have not verified the case)...Since, if Patrick gets hit by the bus,...


I'm not worried about that . He got hit by a large bus* during my first month as a customer and just picked himself up off the pavement and the company roared back stronger than ever.  

_*large bus = the infamous February 2013 Maidenhead DDoS attacks_

disclosure: I'm typing this post using an Iniz powered NYC KVM VPN.


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## D. Strout (Jul 24, 2014)

Iniz is a very solid provider. Patrick runs a top-notch business. I especially like the NYC location - pretty good network there through Inforelay.


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