# Dacentec - Unreliable Network Ran by Amateurs - Recommendations



## drmike (Jan 31, 2016)

I have boxes with Dacentec.   Lured like others by the pricing with the RTO. Easier than purchasing and shipping units to colo... well it was...  Been blah about the network whole time there.


Lately it's non stop performance issues.  That is when the place doesn't drop power or get DDoS'd offline.


SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.... With no end in site and at the point where gear there is idle due to many issues, I am moving things...  Just haven't figured out where quite yet.


Looking for current recommendations for older generation RTO and cheap colo.  Prefer an established company / larger brand / one ran by adults / one with heads on straight.  One with legit policies, and an actual support team when/if I ever use such. 


Looking for preferably US East, US Central or Canada.  No OVH.


----------



## Licensecart (Jan 31, 2016)

All them emails they keep sending it's hard to believe they are a datacenter, but yeah not many RTO providers out there that I can find.


----------



## HalfEatenPie (Jan 31, 2016)

Well one of the few RTO providers out there don't have the hardware as good as that. 


Versaweb has RTOs right now, however any customization isn't monthly and is all one-time-pay at crazy amounts (100 dollars for a single 1 TB HDD or 200 dollars for a 2 TB HDD).  


I've previously loved Dacentec, however nowadays it seems they've been having a harder time dealing with their network.  Also Level 3 has always kinda been very flaky.  


*Edit:* From the looks of it on LET, seems it's a skid DDoSing Delimiter and Dacentec: https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/1515074/#Comment_1515074  I guess it's another day at the office with DDoSing skids.


----------



## wlanboy (Jan 31, 2016)

Looking forward for recommendations too.


----------



## HalfEatenPie (Jan 31, 2016)

I'll start with this:


https://www.versaweb.com/rto.php


A Xeon L5630 (1 processor by the way, you can buy a second one though), 36 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD and 25 TB on 1 Gbit for 60 dollars a month.  Or a L5639 with same specs ora E3-1230 for 70 dollars a month.  That's a start.


----------



## Licensecart (Jan 31, 2016)

HalfEatenPie said:


> Well one of the few RTO providers out there don't have the hardware as good as that.
> 
> 
> Versaweb has RTOs right now, however any customization isn't monthly and is all one-time-pay at crazy amounts (100 dollars for a single 1 TB HDD or 200 dollars for a 2 TB HDD).
> ...





Kids today, back in my day I was more focused on website building (tables) and school work. Well until I was 16 then I started to use whmcs and cpanel and helping a mate who was in College run his business.


----------



## mikeyur (Jan 31, 2016)

HalfEatenPie said:


> Edit: From the looks of it on LET, seems it's a skid DDoSing Delimiter and Dacentec: https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/1515074/#Comment_1515074  I guess it's another day at the office with DDoSing skids.



Layer 7 against our billing panel, mix of open proxies and a couple OVH IPs. Atlanta had a decent sized UDP flood, but that was squashed before any customers were impacted (1:1 internal switching, so a lot less customers being impacted by person getting nuked).


Not even 2 weeks into the job and my first DDoS attack, gotta love it...


----------



## DomainBop (Jan 31, 2016)

> Well one of the few RTO providers out there don't have the hardware as good as that.



The only RTO provider I'd consider (good hardware offerings and an excellent network) is Worldstream (current RTO offerings are E3-1231v3, E5-2420v2, and 2 x E5-2620v3) but they're in NL.  I've always avoided Dacentec (and providers who list Lenoir as a location) due to their combination of crap network and antiquated hardware.



> Looking for preferably US East, US Central or Canada.



Canada: Netelligent in Montreal offers affordable colo.  


US: several excellent providers in NYC/NJ area but $$$$.   Atlanta or Dallas is probably your best bet if you want cheap east/central US colo.


----------



## HalfEatenPie (Jan 31, 2016)

DomainBop said:


> The only RTO provider I'd consider (good hardware offerings and an excellent network) is Worldstream (current RTO offerings are E3-1231v3, E5-2420v2, and 2 x E5-2620v3) but they're in NL.  I've always avoided Dacentec (and providers who list Lenoir as a location) due to their combination of crap network and antiquated hardware.
> 
> 
> Canada: Netelligent in Montreal offers affordable colo.
> ...



Yeah honestly dacentec wasn't too bad until the giant influx of LET/LEB providers (I've been using them way before the first Lenoir offer showed up on LEB).  Also doesn't help that from the looks of it, Dacentec only has Telia as their upstream/central ISP and routes their other "peers" through them (e.g. Level3 -> Telia -> Dacentec).  From what I can tell anyways.  If I recall that is.  


I could never in good conscience nowadays put actual important data on their network.  I mean they sell a ton of used/RMA-ed hardware.  May be fine for end users as long as that's told, but I don't know if their core switches and infrastructure is actually 100% reliable.   From the looks of it (and the recent power outage), that view and opinion does seem to falter a little bit, however we do have to give them credit they are dealing with an immature skid.



mikeyur said:


> Layer 7 against our billing panel, mix of open proxies and a couple OVH IPs. Atlanta had a decent sized UDP flood, but that was squashed before any customers were impacted (1:1 internal switching, so a lot less customers being impacted by person getting nuked).
> 
> 
> Not even 2 weeks into the job and my first DDoS attack, gotta love it...



Congrats on the promotion by the way!  Also welcome to the nature of the business!  Someone annoyed you won't 100% cater to them?  DDoS.


----------



## DomainBop (Jan 31, 2016)

DomainBop said:


> US: several excellent providers in NYC/NJ area but $$$$.



A few miles south:  DatabaseByDesign in Philadelphia WHT 1U offer



> $17/moFor the first 3 months (pre-paid)Then just $35/mo thereafter (month to month)Free Setup*Note: Your server MUST include a IPMI/iLO/iDRAC ect for remote reboot and console. *



in terms of reliability: they had a short outage today, thread on WHT, SLA https://www.databasebydesignllc.com/sla.html 99.965% network/1 day credit for each 15 minutes of downtime, 99.9% infrastructure SLA/1 day credit for each 45 minutes of downtime)


----------



## AuroraZero (Jan 31, 2016)

Saw over at LET that @mikeyur  might be doing some cheap colo. Not sure how you feel about them though. I have never had any problems using them. Always been a good service and the support was good.


----------



## drmike (Jan 31, 2016)

My issue at this point with Dacentec isn't that problems happen, it is that these are manageable problems.  Power failures were completely avoidable and more than one is unforgivable.


The DDoS stuff, where is the management / ownership at when they went neck deep into LowEndTalk and went hardcore selling the floor there?  Did they just pump ads and run or what?  Failed to know the marketplace, understand what it attracts, etc.?  Perhaps, but irresponsible if so.


I found Dacentec prior to them being bought out, not via LowEnd.... been there for years, heck likely a very very early customer.  I've left multiple times due to similar fubars there.   You know, come back because network reblended, new ownership, etc.  Meh.   Last freaking waste of my time.


Feels to me that the place is being ran to maximize profit without regard for the service stability, network quality, etc.  This is ownership leading the show issues. Time for perhaps core infrastructure upgrade, time for some process or equipment for mitigating packet therapy.



DomainBop said:


> I've always avoided Dacentec (and providers who list Lenoir as a location) due to their combination of crap network and antiquated hardware.
> 
> 
> Canada: Netelligent in Montreal offers affordable colo.
> ...



Dacentec problem is management of the network.  Reminds me of another former discount DC in the Carolinas that was far more hands on with network but cut corners and lacked knowledge to ever make it stable.  Being a lot of backhaul to say ATLanta usually, I'd rather pick another state if not being in ATL proper.  Carolinas = meh for this stuff and it's been a chunk of a decade down there with me waiting and watching.


Netelligent long has been on my radar.  They had some price upticks and I think they had at last glance a 1A power window which was meh.  But their network last check and prior checks was freaking awesome.  Everything in that Toronto-Montreal-TORIX zone is pretty darn nice.   Just tend to get crappy routes from my upstream to there...


Antiquated hardware --- maybe for some   I'll take 54xx's and onward all day long.  I use this gear internally and in DCs...  still does fine.   If the price is right, the RTO makes math sense.. that's how I roll with this.  I hate doing colo builds.  I hate shipping gear (no shipping co here by me and quite a damn chore to get things built, boxed, taken to shipping, etc.)... and I am a stickler about it cause I've had multiple units trashed in shipping over the years.



DomainBop said:


> A few miles south:  DatabaseByDesign in Philadelphia WHT 1U offer
> 
> 
> in terms of reliability: they had a short outage today, thread on WHT, SLA https://www.databasebydesignllc.com/sla.html 99.965% network/1 day credit for each 15 minutes of downtime, 99.9% infrastructure SLA/1 day credit for each 45 minutes of downtime)



DatabaseByDesign has always been a fairly good company.  Thanks for the reminder about them.   Hadn't shopped WHT yet...  Glad their prices have come down to earth on things... they were high performance beefy box focus for a long while. Time to pull their network and see how it performs currently from here.


----------



## willie (Jan 31, 2016)

LET thread about Delimiter's Dacentec refugee offer is here:


https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/74600/delimiter-doing-a-dacentec-colo-refugee-offer


----------



## qps (Jan 31, 2016)

drmike said:


> Carolinas = meh for this stuff and it's been a chunk of a decade down there with me waiting and watching.





Charlotte now has POPs for many of the major transit providers, so it is definitely possible to avoid backhauling traffic to Atlanta or Washington DC now.  There just aren't that many data centers in Charlotte yet.  Many of the data center developments have occurred outside of Charlotte, and as a result they are having to rely on backhaul.


----------



## NickL (Feb 1, 2016)

Are you looking to colocate or lease server space? It seems that Dacaentec does both.


----------



## willie (Feb 1, 2016)

And nowwwwwww, big drahmaz at Delimiter (8 hour power outage)...


https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/74687/delimiter-major-packet-loss-in-atlanta


:-(


----------



## DomainBop (Feb 1, 2016)

> And nowwwwwww, big drahmaz at Delimiter (8 hour power outage)...
> 
> 
> https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/74687/delimiter-major-packet-loss-in-atlanta



DELIMITER REFUGEE SALE!


----------



## PowerUpHosting-Udit (Feb 1, 2016)

Hey Mike, we have our Cabinets in Los Angeles, Dallas & New Jersey so far in the US and we have discuss your requirement in detail over the phone for RTO/Leasing/Colocation Deal. Maybe send me a PM where we can discuss things out and initiate the conversation.


----------



## drmike (Feb 1, 2016)

Not to derail my own thread  But....


Delimeter face punch today has me chuckling...  That's some karma for MarkTurner right there....


Refugee offers are nasty and I've created a number over the years for companies.  Refugee deals on physical servers, yikes, with that audience, that's going to hurt. Welcome to the microscope.


I do like Delimeter better since *@mikeyur* joined the team.  Just saying, congrats to @mikeyur.


----------



## sv01 (Feb 1, 2016)

drmike said:


> That's some karma for MarkTurner right there....



+1000000000000 he talk trash every budget provider out there, and turn every thread about the other downtime their sales thread.


Let's wait what his execuse


----------



## DomainBop (Feb 1, 2016)

drmike said:


> Not to derail my own thread  But....
> 
> 
> Delimeter face punch today has me chuckling...  That's some karma for MarkTurner right there....
> ...



The most interesting thing about their 12+ hour outage is what the forum post counts about the outage reveal about their marketing focus and customer base: 348 posts and rising on LET, 0 posts on WHT.  


_Goes back to waiting for that promised new microloan funded datacenter in Stockholm_


----------



## mikeyur (Feb 1, 2016)

DomainBop said:


> 348 posts and rising on LET, 0 posts on WHT.



LET just seems to scream the loudest


----------



## jarland (Feb 1, 2016)

So drmike, I signed up with Psychz today because I've been watching their success lately among VPS providers on LE*. Have you looked into them any? I don't know about you but I like a little DDOS protection in my network, and they're in the Carrier-1 facility in Dallas which is a pretty nice facility... same one Incero just moved to.


Maybe worth checking out? They've got some decent deals.


https://www.psychz.net/special-psychz.html (I had to open a ticket to actually get the listed deals)


----------



## drmike (Feb 2, 2016)

jarland said:


> So drmike, I signed up with Psychz today because I've been watching their success lately among VPS providers on LE*. Have you looked into them any? I don't know about you but I like a little DDOS protection in my network, and they're in the Carrier-1 facility in Dallas which is a pretty nice facility... same one Incero just moved to.



Yeah Psychz is on my short list... last go round pricing wasn't where I wanted it / shopping at.  I am still on fence with them and running a clean network, as they have taken in a lot of unsavory providers and had a fundraising method being friendly to mailers in the past.  Wait and watch with them, with no disrespect meant - just little old me has given free ride tickets in the past prematurely and taken it on the chin.


Now for Delimeter.... I am failing to understand WTF happened in ATL.  No one else in 55 Marietta had an issue with power that I can find.   A bird questioned if Delimeter has UPS units and gensets in place. Smells like they don't.  Not like people are paying to have such, just that Delim I think prior said they had all that stuff.


My experience in DCs is a bit, but not a DC engineer by any means.   This HVAC stuff + power is a weird ass combo.   Both break at the same time when utility power goes down.  Either a brownout with lame gear inline on the power conditioning or none.  Or worse, the utility drops the line for whatever reason, be it invoice overdue or some slob with a jackhammer. No slob seen.


And back to HVAC, the overheating and conditioning clearly indicates HVAC tonnage isn't aligned with the BTUs put out by that dense blade gear / all that gear in the space.  I've seen this multiple times in the past.


And the power tiering of bringing units up - Delimiter is over loading circuits period.  No reason to tier like this to get gear back online.  Other than trying to prevent fuses from popping and the electrician from having to deal with humming deads man switch when the whole buildout pops for over current.


I am inclined to run a fine toothed comb over this and contact everything and everyone in 1 block area from 55 Marietta.  Cause my spidey senses are ahh tingling.


Stuff doesn't add up on this one.   Call me names and tell me I am full of it, been in DC environments since 1990's.  Seen too damn many stunts.


----------



## GM2015 (Feb 2, 2016)

Servers are down for more than 1 day now. I hope I won't be sorry for renewing my server with them.


----------



## jarland (Feb 2, 2016)

drmike said:


> Wait and watch with them, with no disrespect meant - just little old me has given free ride tickets in the past prematurely and taken it on the chin.



I feel ya.



drmike said:


> Now for Delimeter.... I am failing to understand WTF happened in ATL.



To me it sounds like a major failure of their colocated equipment combined with remote hands. We all know well how inefficient remote hands can be at times, and often having no sense of urgency or care for the impact of what they're doing. Anyone taking mild offense to that is quite likely an exception to that so they shouldn't 


Edit: I stand corrected, according to Mike they have direct employees there.


----------



## drmike (Feb 2, 2016)

jarland said:


> I feel ya.
> 
> 
> To me it sounds like a major failure of their colocated equipment combined with remote hands. We all know well how inefficient remote hands can be at times, and often having no sense of urgency or care for the impact of what they're doing. Anyone taking mild offense to that is quite likely an exception to that so they shouldn't
> ...



They claim to have staff there on location.. they claim to have own build out.. claim to have had power failure on power transfer switching was it and the HVAC....  


Shit happens, but that was an unreasonable amount. Karma bitch slapped them either way.


I fully expect to see a DC tour and busted stuff... after all that drama and lost revenue and shredding of reputation.   Lots of us don't believe the build is what it is.   Posting some real stuff would put many at ease. @mikeyur see what you can do.


----------



## DomainBop (Feb 2, 2016)

jarland said:


> I feel ya.
> 
> 
> To me it sounds like a major failure of their colocated equipment combined with remote hands. We all know well how inefficient remote hands can be at times, and often having no sense of urgency or care for the impact of what they're doing. Anyone taking mild offense to that is quite likely an exception to that so they shouldn't
> ...



30+ hours downtime = major failure by Yomura/LTT management in planning/design/running of their data center.  The equipment failure they had should not have resulted in a 30+ hour downtime for many customers. The hired "remote hands" at Delimiter (or on site techs) weren't responsible for cutting corners on cost and building a DC with no power redundancy, crappy DC infrastructure equipment (just like, getting back to the original topic, the remote hands at Dacentec weren't responsible for that unreliable network with no redundancy or for CentriLogic's  monumental flop Mothership1).  


The decision by hosting companies to write a business plan that includes relying on crappy inefficient 3rd party unmotivated workers to cut costs (which is often a necessity because the companies had the bright idea of engaging in a race to the bottom on pricing), whether they're remote hands in a DC or outsourced poorly trained overseas labor (or in some cases 10 yr old migration specialists) also rests entirely with the management of the companies.


----------



## drmike (Feb 2, 2016)

@DomainBop 

Ever realize that Mothership1 was another crafted and outsourced creation of a Europe boutique specializing in creating these 'cloud' companies:
http://incubaid.com/company/About%20The%20Company/

Dacentec: http://incubaid.com/successes/Dacentec/

Mothership1: http://incubaid.com/members/Mothership1/


----------



## mitgib (Feb 2, 2016)

DomainBop said:


> rests entirely with the management of the companies.



Does it? Or does the fault rest with the clients? Companies are budgeting what the client is willing to pay.  Not everyone is willing to pay $1k/mo per cabinet in a properly built facility, and when the customer cuts corners on cost and does suffer the eventual failure, why is the DC to blame for giving the customer what they wanted?


Also, as the story goes, shit happens


----------



## drmike (Feb 2, 2016)

I am of the unreasonable school of belief that goes like this... I expect to get crap for this [rant and ramble mode ON]:

* *Customers don't set the prices, the seller does in order to sell and attract customers.*

** In the cheap world, companies are notorious for trouser drops to make sales. Most have no other magic to sell on. It's self robbery / disgrace or sales volume won't happen.*

** Customers expect what is advertised / marketing puts out there*

** In Delim's example they boasted in REFUGEE ad about all this power redundancy:*
"... Every server has multiple power feeds, blade chassis are fed by two independent three phase supplies across 6 separate power modules"
^ This is either fluff or they forgot more important redundancy. Seems like they had everything single legged on power.

** More fluff / lie about quality of gear / age of drives*
"... Every server comes with new or as-new disks, we do not use 5 year old second-hand or refurbished disks ..."
^^^ at least one customer posted data from his drive with over a year of run time on it. Second hand and not new. Violates at least two of the sales BS points.

** Every server is a branded HP server, not some hand-me-down from the latest Ebay liquidation*
These are 54xx and earlier CPUs. No one is selling this new or willing to buy or be stupid enough to buy legit new units at full retail price for those at this point. Therefore these are off lease or if Delim bought them new, they did so many years ago and have used and beaten the life out of them in this time. White lie maybe, total lie maybe.

** Customers should never be lied to or falsely sold. This all happened with Delimeter. Hell doing so is technically against multiple laws / regulations.*

* *Even if customers received services for free, there is expectation level that barely is diminished when it comes to sitting in unknown with data offline.* Free isn't even a valid legal argument for shit service. Service is power + ping + support delivered at level that is advertised or in lieu of, common in competing shops.

* *Price doesn't equate to service delivered. *There are plenty of expensive shit co's overloading things and failing horribly just the same while making a lot more money.

* *Price point only equates with expectations where a company says HEY THIS IS A WARNING.* WE HAVE LIMITED STAFF. WE USE OLD GEAR. THINGS ARE OVERSOLD.
^^^ remember Delim sold people on pipe smoke dope and hype of being a super bad ass company with superior network, great uptime, all this high end up... That's the fatal mistake.

** Never provoke Karma's Wrath or attract Murphy's Law.*
^^^ poking competitors hard with a sharp stick is just bad. If Dacentec failed ugly and booted customers, sure refugee it. Dacentec got DDoS'd 190x probably with blips (why I am running away from them). Sure they have flawed power setup too. But downtime was meh. Only irritated intolerants like me cared enough to bail. I've been on about bailing for months prior to uptick of issues in Lenoir.

** CUSTOMERS DON'T DECIDE PRICE POINT, THESE COMPANIES DO*
--- I have yet to see but a handful of companies honest enough to say they are understaffed, delays in support, old gear, yada yada... Every monkey in this industry screams about enterprise and what super bad ass 15 second support they have. As if they employ 10+ ADHD support agents with an electro shock jock strap that forces them to spring into action when ticket comes in. Utter tripe all of it, 70% of the companies are full of shit and always have been.

*Is Delim's support bad?* Sure, I think it is utterly random at best historically. Shop LET threads and see people waiting days for stuff and not just dedi delivery. Common support matters.

*I am so tired of the shit support all over that I am contemplating starting a support company.* I could train literal monkeys to do better than 50% of the companies out there do on support.

[/rant mode off]


PS:  I felt @mikeyur handled LET well and kindly in light of distance and probably working from limited knowledge / familiarity of that location / limited resources.


----------



## mitgib (Feb 2, 2016)

drmike said:


> I expect to get crap for this


----------



## sv01 (Feb 3, 2016)

how about admin/mod move delimiter downtime to it's own thread? 


WHT Link : http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1547582&p=9625565#post9625565


----------

