# EDIS.at - one year review



## gxbfxvar (Jun 30, 2014)

*Background:*

I am ex-customer of Linode. When Linode had a security incident in Apr 2013,

I decided it was time to change the server provider. After some research,

I found out that EDIS offers dedicated servers with OpenBSD, so end up

trying them. It also affected to my decision that one of the owners had

had various levels of publicity recently (2013). Based on the stuff on Internet,

it looked like he (mostly) knows what he is doing.

 

*TL;DR review:*

 


Purchase date: 2013-05 ..  (current)
 

Servers used/in use:

Dedicated ECO Server - Atom 230 (Austria) http://www.edis.at/en/server/dedicated-root-server/austria/dedicated-eco-server/

VRS BASIC Storage (Switzerland) http://www.edis.at/en/server/linux-vserver/austria/vrs-basic-storage/

KVM Smart (Paris, 256MB ram, vps no longer sold) http://www.edis.at/en/server/kvm-vps/france/

Dedicated i5 Server (Austria) http://www.edis.at/en/server/dedicated-root-server/austria/dedicated-server-i5/

Waveride.at 6GB (Austria) http://waveride.at/plans




Waveride.at 4GB (Netherlands) http://waveride.at/plans


 



Usage of the servers:

Jenkins (SW build automation), various small web sites, IRC, software development

 

Summary: 4/5

Good service in general. At the beginning of 2014 (Jan..Apr) support was very slow

because of support staff shortage. Before 2014 and after Apr 2014 support responses

were on expected level (same day or even within hour).

 



*Experience in detail:*

 

*Dedicated ECO server (Intel Atom 230, single core, Austria):*
This was my first purchase from EDIS (May 2013). I sent
some presales questions and they were answered fast. On the server
I wanted OpenBSD using the official OpenBSD .iso image and it was
fine. After I did the order, they required a copy of my driver's
license and once that was ok, the server ready on the next day.
KVM switch was provided for 5 days for free.

Since then the server has been working very well. I had uptime of
~350 days when I upgraded OpenBSD 5.3 to 5.5 in May 2014. The upgrade
went also very well. I requested KVM switch on 6th of May and it was
ready on the next day. The OS upgrade process itself took something
like 20 minutes. I kept the KVM switch slightly longer, since
EDIS charges KVM switch usage in 24h blocks (they strangely talk about

monthly price on their web pages).

CPU and I/O performance isn't too shabby since the server is Atom,
but it is at the expected levels. With the network, I had some
small problems.

For example, at the end of May 2013, EDIS had two devices with the gateway
IP in the same network, and my server was reporting a lot of arp
problems. An email to [email protected] was answered within 2 hours and
people were working on the issue. Curiously, [email protected] claimed that
the problem had no effect on the network performance. Anyway, the problem

went away quickly and has not appeared again.

I had also twice IPv6 related problems. The first time (in Jul 2013),
the problem was real (on EDIS's side, I think) and my waveride.at virtual
server was also affected.  The second time (Dec 2013), I had
misconfigured my PF (firewall) rules and it was my own mistake.
Both times reply from [email protected] was "Everything is fine on our end.
Monitoring tells nothing.".  From my point of view, this was somewhat

problematic, since as I have limited tools to debug the networking
problems between servers. I had hoped that support would run
tcpdump/wireshark and take a quick peek at the IPv6 network traffic
between my server and EDIS.at routing equipment.  In 5 minutes they
could have verified "we are sending IPv6 ping packets to your server,
but we are not receiving any reply. To a server next to you, ping6 works."
(It is possible that "monitoring" covers it, but saying it explicitly
would have helped.)

On the positive side, the second time, William offered to replace
the network card on my server with better one, but in the end it
was found that the better card did not fit the server.

In addition to those, every now and then (once per 2-4 weeks?) there
seems to be small hickups (lag for 1..5 minutes). I haven't asked
but I suspect that these are or at least were related to DDOS attacks.
After EDIS did some network upgrades, those hickups have not appeared
that often.


*Dedicated i5 server (Austria):*
This was somewhat strange case. I sent some presales questions
to [email protected] and got reply quite fast. However, when I finally
ordered the server (30th of Dec 2013), I heard nothing (but one
automated reply) from EDIS for a week. After one week (8th of Jan 2014),
I sent a query to [email protected], and then on the next day (9th) my
server was ready.

But, even when I had said that I want to do the installation myself,
instead of letting me to do the installation (and therefore also
partition) myself, they had used their automated Debian installation
and created only one big (2TB) root partition. I had planned
to divide the disk into smaller partitions manually.

Oh well, I wasn't planning to use the server for long, so I let it be.

Yet another reinstall it would have meant more delays, and I didn't want it.

The performance (network, i/o, cpu) of the server was at the
expected level, so it was good from that point. The stability
(no unexpected power loss, no hardware failures) was also perfect.

The only real negative side was the price (79e/month + VAT). It was
too expensive for me to keep the server "permanently", so I end up
cancelling it after 4 months after I had finished one side project.

There was also a small messup with [email protected] when trying to cancel

the server, but in the end EDIS support handled it well.

 

 

*KVM Smart (France):*

Specs:  1 vCore 2.5GHz; 256MB RAM; 256MB swap; 5GB HDD; 1TB/month bw

I purchased 256MB KVM server in Jul 2013 (almost immediate setup) and
have been using it as a host for my IRC client since then. The network
in Paris/France seem to be more stable than in Austria, and I rarely
have any problems. I usually have over 100d uptime before I remember to
update the system, so on that front the things are also ok.

Because I use the server for IRC, I haven't measure the performance
in any way.

*Waveride.at (6GB OpenVZ, Austria):*

If I have understood correctly, Waveride.at has different support
staff than EDIS, but they share at least the datacenter in Austria
and the Twitter account (twitter.com/edisat).

I bought 6GB instance of Waveride.at OpenVZ virtual server in May
2013. No questions were asked, I got the server almost immediately.

On the server, I am running Jenkins and provide a public (read-only)
view to various build results. As a Java-based software, Jenkins
requires a lot of RAM, but (in my setup) the real software builds
are run elsewhere and this instance only collects the results. So,
high RAM + some CPU time setup on a "throwaway" vps is kind of perfect
setup for this use case.

The "throwaway" part comes from the fact that Waveride.at provides
no support beyond vps reboot or reinstall. The service which I run
there is not critical and can be built from scratch on a fresh
server pretty quickly. So, it doesn't matter if vps goes down or
is accidentally wiped.

To my surprice, the server has been very stable and I have had
to reinstall it only once, because I locked myself out (my own mistake).

In addition, on my node, the performance (tested by compiling gcc
from scratch) seems to be better than on competitors' equivalent
services ("cheap big ram openvz virtual servers" category).

The server shares some of the network problems as my dedicated ECO
server in Austria. Although, there seems to be some sort of separation
between Waveride.at and EDIS.at servers, since sometimes the other server
is accessible and other is not.

 

In addition, I had two other virtual servers from EDIS/Waveride.at, but

my experience with them is pretty similar to above four servers.

 

 

*Control panel(s) and support interface*

 

For orders and payments EDIS uses WHCMS. When controlling dedicated servers

you have TCP/IP access to KVM switch (costs extra). KVM and VRS servers are controlled

via custom (in-house?) control panel. Waveride.at customers have separate WHCMS

interface and Waveride.at instances are controlled via SolusVM.

 

EDIS support is handled via [email protected] email address (and phone, but I have not tested calling). Waveride.at customers

can submit emergency tickets through WHCMS.

 

I like the email approach for support, but the custom virtual server control panel has

some minor annoyances. For example, some parts of the interface are only in German.

 

For status updates, EDIS uses multiple channels: status.edis.at web site, twitter.com/edisat,

and email. Bigger problems are reported, but very small ones aren't (I guess the situation

has been over before anyone has managed to write the report).

 

*Linux templates*

 

Apart from OpenBSD, I almost solely use Debian on my servers (unlesss they have

some special purpose and require some specific distribution). EDIS' Debian images

are well done. The default selection of packages is quite stripped. For example,

there aren't any services except ssh running by default. However, the basic maintenance

tools (good enough $EDITOR in my case) are provided, so you can quickly setup

the server as you wish.

 

It was also interesting to hear that they have automated OS deployment system

for dedicated servers. If you mess your server setup, a clean Debian install is provided

very quickly.

 

 

 

*Final conclusion:*

Although EDIS isn't perfect, I like them. Especially, the dedicated OpenBSD server and

Waveride.at virtual servers have exceeded my expectations.


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## AThomasHowe (Jul 1, 2014)

Nice, detailed review about a provider I have been interested in for a good long while but never tried because they're a little out of what I would pay for what I need.

Good job OP.


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