Finding a reasonably priced European dedi or large VPS with DDOS protection

[graeme]

Not entirely sure which where this should go, so defaulting to "general talk".

I have a client who needs a significant upgrade from his current (2 virtual core, 4gb RAM, vmware) VPS.

It has come under occasional attacks from people who dislike assertions of the identity of the ethnic group his site is aimed at, and the more successful it becomes the more it will be attacked.

Visitors from Europe and the Middle East, no objectionable content (AFAIK - I do not know the language its in!), so I think hosting somewhere in Europe is preferable. Too politically contentious over there to put in the Middle East.

The question is, can I find reasonably prices with some level of DDOS protection? The attacks have not been serious and have not been DDOSs (small scale attempts at DOS and looking for vulnerabilities), but I think its only a matter of time.

I do not know what the final budget will be, so I want to start looking at the cheap end.  I am comfortable running a normal VPS or dedi, but something that will draw attacks is entirely new to me. Any suggestions? If not specific suggestions, what I should be looking for?

 

[willie]

Normally this would go in "service requests" but the obvious place to try is OVH--all their stuff has basic DDOS protection and their current VPS pricing especially in their budget (SSD) line is quite competitive and they have lots of dedis too.  They are in France and Canada and their English-language site for France-based hosting is here:

http://www.ovh.ie/vps/

 

[drmike]

I've recommended others with 'offensive' social and political content and freedom of speech 'issues' towards BuyVM.  They have yet to let me down with such.

They have Luxembourg location that is very good for Europe (peered to bunch of exchanges and LUX government is owner / investor of the network).  DC info here: http://buyvm.net/luxembourg-datacenter/

 

[graeme]

I did not put it in "service requests" because we are not ready to buy - my client wants to know how much it would cost to move to something better.

OVH look good, I have read quite a lot of negative comments on their customer service - but a lot of those seem to be from people who did not understand that they were hiring an unmanaged server. Not sure what to make of it. On the other hand, the only other dedi's with DDOS protection seem a lot more offensive so unless we have a bigger budget than I expect...

BuyVM look pretty good too and I have heard good things before. I did not know they had a DDOS protection option, am getting in touch with them

Just to be clear, it is not offensive content per se, it is just that anything in this particular language that has a high profile (which my client is aiming at) gets attacked.

 

[DomainBop]

OVH look good, I have read quite a lot of negative comments on their customer service - but a lot of those seem to be from people who did not understand that they were hiring an unmanaged server. Not sure what to make of it. On the other hand, the only other dedi's with DDOS protection seem a lot more offensive so unless we have a bigger budget than I expect...

If you know how to manage a server you won't have any problems. OVH's equipment is very good (i.e. very few hardware problems) and they actively monitor their servers and network so if there is a hardware or network problem you probably won't even need to open a ticket--in most cases by the time you notice there is a problem their automated monitoring system will have already created an incident report and dispatched a technician to fix your server.  In the past 3 years I've only opened 2 tickets and neither of them were server related (both were billing related: one was a request to remove VAT from an account, and the other  related to a  domain name purchase).

Online.net (owned by French telecom giant Iliad) also offers DDoS protection and reasonably priced servers.  Their basic DDoS protecton is free and included with all servers and if your needs are more complex they have different tiers of paid protection (see http://www.online.net/en/dedicated-server/ddos-arbor#pricing ).

If you want something located in Europe but not in the EU, HostEasy.eu in Moldova offers DDoS protection and reasonably priced servers (500 Gbps, included  free with all dedicated servers, https://www.hosteasy.eu/ddos-protection.html ).

 

[DomainBop]

Adding this: Online.net is running a special this morning (and it will probably be sold out within a few hours) but you won't find a better deal in Europe for a dedicated:

https://console.online.net/en/order/server_limited
Intel Xeon E3 1220, 16GB RAM, hardware RAID, choice of drives 2x2TB SATA111 or 2x450 GB SAS 15K, 1Gbps unlimited transfer (200 Mbps guaranteed), free basic DDoS protection
€19.99/mo, no setup fees

 

[willie]

As an alternative to a protected server you should probably also look into CDN options.  Cloudflare, OVH, etc. have them, they are good at dealing with DDOS, and they serve your content from multiple locations, so even if one place gets DOS'd, other places still work.

It also seems to me that if the site is commercially successful, server costs within reason won't be a significant factor in the operation's finances, so you don't really have to be looking for super cheap servers.

I do notice that there are some pretty interesting online.net special offers still available.

 

[graeme]

Willie, I am looking at CDNs as well, although I had not looked at OVH's. I am not sure what will protect against a well designed HTTP flood though, so I am still doing research. Costs are an issue because the site will be retained and improved even if it is nor an immediate commercial success.
DomainBop, thanks, that is what I hoped to hear about OVH.

I seem to have more options than expected, in that there are more suitable suppliers of DDOS protected server add VPSs and a wider choice of affordable CDNs than I thought.

 

[willie]

Well what I mean about server costs is that if the site operator is an actual business paying salaries, office rent and expenses, and so on, then the cost of servers is almost insigificant compared to everything else.  I believe this is basically why so many startups around here use AWS.  It's ridiculously overpriced by VPSboard standards; but it's considered reliable and convenient, and unless the amount of servers is huge, its cost is still not noticible compared to the other costs of running a company.

 

[graeme]

Well what I mean about server costs is that if the site operator is an actual business paying salaries, office rent and expenses, and so on, then the cost of servers is almost insigificant compared to everything else. 

Usually true. In this case the operator is an actual business, but this site is a new venture that is not yet making much money, does not have its own staff. That said, paying me and other developers still dwarfs the cost of hosting.

 I believe this is basically why so many startups around here use AWS.  It's ridiculously overpriced by VPSboard standards; but it's considered reliable and convenient, and unless the amount of servers is huge, its cost is still not noticible compared to the other costs of running a company.

I think the cost of S3 is quite reasonable given 1) you pay for what you use and 2) it has eleven nines durability. VPSs are a bit expensive, but, again, comparing real cloud servers to a simple VPS is not entirely like with like.

My object to AWS is not the cost, it is that you end up having to develop quite a lot of stuff specifically for AWS, and you lose flexibility. I am not a fan, but some of my clients are....

 

[Scudlayer]

The question is, can I find reasonably prices with some level of DDOS protection? 

Yes, you can
Generally you can choose between two solution type, proxy or directly protected VPS/Dedicates.

In the first case you don't need to move your website from your current host, but you got a small added latency.

In the second case you have to move your website on the provider service. A DDoS Protected VPS works as a normal VPS. Simply the provider is responsible to filter bad traffic before it hits you vps.

If you haven't good reasons to stay on your provider I'd suggest to move to a DDoS protected VPS.

 

[suhas]

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