D. Strout
Resident IPv6 Proponent
As some of you may know, I run my own DNS network, with servers in New York City, Jacksonville FL, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Seattle. They all need to have (near-) native IPv6, which is hard to come by in Seattle. My primary DNS server there is - no surprise - RamNode, but for a while I couldn't find a second provider that met my requirements. Then I saw SkyToaster's ad here on VPSBoard. Unfortunately, they didn't have a plan small enough for a DNS server, so I contacted their sales department and asked if they could help me out with a smaller plan. Patrick was most obliging, and made me an excellent offer on a 256MB VPS. Here is a link showing the VPS info, including age and price.
The initial setup took some time, but that is because I caught them right in the middle of switching from SolusVM to I was pretty psyched to hear that, as anyone not using SolusVM gets an extra couple points in my book. (Speaking of points, SkyToast has an another couple points!) Once set up, I enjoyed taking a look around and seeing what HostGuard had to offer. Not a whole lot more than SolusVM - usual stuff like power, console, logs, root PW. But the big one that you all know I'm a huge fan of: they support IPv6 properly. To be sure, part of this is on the host's end, but panel support is critical as well. Anyway, with my VM I got a /64 of addresses, here's a screenshot of how that works.
More details on my VPS in particular are below, but I want to take a moment to talk about SkyToaster's website. It is well designed, IMHO, and very informative. Undoubtedly the most useful page is the server locations page. Along with server locations (obviously), they have information on peering, links to looking glass pages, and test files/IPs. Here is the looking glass for Seattle. Other highlights of the site include the guarantees pages, which mentions their uptime guarantee (include SLA agreement) and money-back guarantee (15 days, no questions asked). There is also a toll-free phone number for sales, billing, and support. The client area (WHMCS) is well-integrated with the rest of the site, no surprises there. Altogether, one quickly gets the impression that despite the unusual name, this is a company that is well put-together and a good bet for a good VPS.
Before I get to specs/tests, I want to make a quick note about support. I already mentioned they have a toll-free number, but I have yet to use it. In terms of tickets, I haven't yet had cause to open a tech support ticket. In the sales ticket getting things set up, responses averaged 1 hour. In a billing ticket I opened, the response took three hours. Neither were critical, though, so no worries.
OK, specs:
root@ns4:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 44
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5650 @ 2.67GHz
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 2660.027
cache size : 12288 KB
physical id : 1
siblings : 12
core id : 0
cpu cores : 6
apicid : 32
initial apicid : 32
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 11
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid dca sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes lahf_lm ida arat dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
bogomips : 5320.05
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
root@ns4:~# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 262144 kB
MemFree: 103316 kB
Cached: 152008 kB
Buffers: 0 kB
Active: 55952 kB
Inactive: 97428 kB
Active(anon): 400 kB
Inactive(anon): 972 kB
Active(file): 55552 kB
Inactive(file): 96456 kB
Unevictable: 0 kB
Mlocked: 0 kB
SwapTotal: 262144 kB
SwapFree: 256928 kB
Dirty: 0 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 1372 kB
Shmem: 3568 kB
Slab: 5436 kB
SReclaimable: 3520 kB
SUnreclaim: 1916 kB
root@ns4:~#
OK, downsides. As you can see, the link speed is 100Mbit - not exactly RamNode's 1Gbit, but plenty for DNS. Furthermore, traceroutes reveal that IPv6 isn't exactly native - it's a HE BGP tunnel via Fremont, CA. Also, unmanaged VPSes are only available in Seattle - their other 4 locations are only for managed VPSes, which are rather expensive - $660/yr for 1GB.
That's about it. If I have to rate it out of 10, I'd give it a solid 7.5 or 8.
The initial setup took some time, but that is because I caught them right in the middle of switching from SolusVM to I was pretty psyched to hear that, as anyone not using SolusVM gets an extra couple points in my book. (Speaking of points, SkyToast has an another couple points!) Once set up, I enjoyed taking a look around and seeing what HostGuard had to offer. Not a whole lot more than SolusVM - usual stuff like power, console, logs, root PW. But the big one that you all know I'm a huge fan of: they support IPv6 properly. To be sure, part of this is on the host's end, but panel support is critical as well. Anyway, with my VM I got a /64 of addresses, here's a screenshot of how that works.
More details on my VPS in particular are below, but I want to take a moment to talk about SkyToaster's website. It is well designed, IMHO, and very informative. Undoubtedly the most useful page is the server locations page. Along with server locations (obviously), they have information on peering, links to looking glass pages, and test files/IPs. Here is the looking glass for Seattle. Other highlights of the site include the guarantees pages, which mentions their uptime guarantee (include SLA agreement) and money-back guarantee (15 days, no questions asked). There is also a toll-free phone number for sales, billing, and support. The client area (WHMCS) is well-integrated with the rest of the site, no surprises there. Altogether, one quickly gets the impression that despite the unusual name, this is a company that is well put-together and a good bet for a good VPS.
Before I get to specs/tests, I want to make a quick note about support. I already mentioned they have a toll-free number, but I have yet to use it. In terms of tickets, I haven't yet had cause to open a tech support ticket. In the sales ticket getting things set up, responses averaged 1 hour. In a billing ticket I opened, the response took three hours. Neither were critical, though, so no worries.
OK, specs:
root@ns4:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 44
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5650 @ 2.67GHz
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 2660.027
cache size : 12288 KB
physical id : 1
siblings : 12
core id : 0
cpu cores : 6
apicid : 32
initial apicid : 32
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 11
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid dca sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes lahf_lm ida arat dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
bogomips : 5320.05
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
root@ns4:~# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 262144 kB
MemFree: 103316 kB
Cached: 152008 kB
Buffers: 0 kB
Active: 55952 kB
Inactive: 97428 kB
Active(anon): 400 kB
Inactive(anon): 972 kB
Active(file): 55552 kB
Inactive(file): 96456 kB
Unevictable: 0 kB
Mlocked: 0 kB
SwapTotal: 262144 kB
SwapFree: 256928 kB
Dirty: 0 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 1372 kB
Shmem: 3568 kB
Slab: 5436 kB
SReclaimable: 3520 kB
SUnreclaim: 1916 kB
root@ns4:~#
Code:
root@ns4:~# wget freevps.us/downloads/bench.sh -O - -o /dev/null|bash
CPU model : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5650 @ 2.67GHz
Number of cores : 1
CPU frequency : 2660.027 MHz
Total amount of ram : 256 MB
Total amount of swap : 256 MB
System uptime : 1:35,
Download speed from CacheFly: 11.3MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Dallas, TX: 8.36MB/s
Download speed from Linode, Tokyo, JP: 425KB/s
Download speed from i3d.net, Rotterdam, NL: 393KB/s
Download speed from Leaseweb, Haarlem, NL: 605KB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Singapore: 3.44MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Seattle, WA: 11.2MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, San Jose, CA: 10.3MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Washington, DC: 4.78MB/s
I/O speed : 432 MB/sThat's about it. If I have to rate it out of 10, I'd give it a solid 7.5 or 8.
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