Ideal node specs for rented operations

[River]

I'm looking for some ideal specs for a rented (aka. not owned or colo'ed) node for VPS services. I'm running OVZ and hopefully going to expand into KVM soon, however, I'm having trouble picking out a good upstream and a good package for this purpouse. I've had good experience with some providers, and I've had bad experience with others.

So, I'm curious as to what people have to say! Thanks.

 

[Eric1212]

You're running a VPS hosting business? Perhaps you should hire someone with technical background who can explain what your requirements are.

 

[River]

You're running a VPS hosting business? Perhaps you should hire someone with technical background who can explain what your requirements are.

Yes, I am. I understand this stuff, and I have some pretty good nodes setup. I'm just curious as to what other people have setup.

I would appreciate it if you could post a serious comment instead of just flaming and being rude.

 

[Nett]

I'd say... Dual E5, 64GB+ RAM, at least 4 drives in RAID 10.

 

[KuJoe]

If you already have a business running then wait until your budget allows you to buy servers. Renting isn't ideal when it comes to costs unless you're looking to spend a few hundred per month in which case wait a few months and buy a server for a lower cost across the life of the server.

 

[DomainBop]

There's too much competition with providers offering VPS's on systems with E3-xxxx and E5-xxxx x86 processors so you need to make yourself stand out.  Rent something with Power8 processors and you can have the US Power8 virtualization market to yourself until Softlayer finally gets off their collective ass and deploys their long delayed Power8 cloud offerings (plus, if you undercut RunAbove's pricing  you'll pick up some European customers too).   related:  I'd suggest attending the OpenPower Summit on June 10th in Beijing if you decide to go the Power8 route
 
If you want to open a European location I'd rent one of Online.net's  E7 monsters (4 x E7-4870, 1TB RAM, 8 x 900GB SAS, 4 x 1GBps connection) because nobody is selling OpenVZ on E7's yet and as the old saying goes, the early bird catches the worm (customer).
 
I hope you find these ideas helpful. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a more serious note, looking at WHT I see this chain of events involving your hosting business:

1. VPS launch sale in January

2. "I give up, it's not working", company for sale ad on WHT in March

3. VPS relaunch sale in May

4. website that is under construction as of tonight.

Before searching for another server to rent or a new provider, I'd write a new business plan and focus on asking yourself what can you provide that will differentiate your company from the thousands of other hosting companies out there who are offering OpenVZ/KVM.  You appear to be young so there is no rush to immediately become a "CEO".  Rushing to set up a business without having the needed real life experience is one of the biggest causes of business failures I see (right up there with undercapitalization).  Take some time to come up with an idea that will set you apart from the crowd (and while you're working on your business plan go get some real world experience by working for an established hosting company or datacenter )

edited to add:

(River to Eric1212) I would appreciate it if you could post a serious comment instead of just flaming and being rude.

Before you say anything, my suggestion about taking some time to rewrite your business plan is serious and not meant to be rude.

 I understand this stuff, and I have some pretty good nodes setup

"This stuff" (running any business in any field) takes more than just "some pretty good node setups" if you want to build something that will be sustainable and successful.  Take my advice and spend some time working on your business plan and developing something that will set you apart from the crowd.

 

[MightWeb-Greg]

If you already have a business running then wait until your budget allows you to buy servers. Renting isn't ideal when it comes to costs unless you're looking to spend a few hundred per month in which case wait a few months and buy a server for a lower cost across the life of the server.

At a minimum I'd follow this advice. Renting a VPS node is very costly and the margin becomes even smaller this way. Plus the cost of extra IPs etc. Colo is the way to go

 

[Criot]

It depends what sort of market you're aiming to host, dual E5s with 64GB RAM+ are fairly good for multi threaded applications, but single threaded applications won't benefit from good performance, also if you're going with HDDs then you want 6+ in RAID 10 on a larger node, SSD Caching is beneficial for performance as well.

If you're wanting to aim at single threaded applications, then SSDs with E3s or an E5 such as the E5-1650 are better for single threaded applications, you might want to give your customers the choice between the two different product lines.

 

[drmike]

Save your cash and own it cheaper.   X or L 56xx's.   48GB of RAM or more.   4-8 drives.  RAID-10.  SSD cache is a hack and helps if can be added on without breaking things or the bank.

Hardware doesn't matter until you either pack things that heavy or you are targeting power users / gamers / limited niches or selling for real dedicated cores.

 

[SSDBlaze]

For a dual E5 node, you would be best off owning it. Monthly cost could be up to $600 per month just for the node if you want up to 8 drives with hardware RAID10.

What you should aim to get is a Dual E5 node. E5 is good for multiple cores. Most hosts go with Dual E5.

Definitely run RAID10 with 4 or 8 drives. SSD caching would be a bonus in performance for customers. 64GB RAM would be good for this setup.

Agreeing with @drmike If you want to start with a lower cost, get a dual X5650 node. The Xeon X5650 processor is the best performance per dollar out of any processor I have ever seen. Theres also a good amount of cores with a Dual X5650 setup. For Dual X5650, no more than 64GB RAM. You might even have to cap it off at 48GB RAM if the processors are at high usage. Same for the E5, you definitely need a RAID10 setup with the Dual X5650.

 

[iWF-Jacob]

 

Save your cash and own it cheaper.   X or L 56xx's.   48GB of RAM or more.   4-8 drives.  RAID-10.  SSD cache is a hack and helps if can be added on without breaking things or the bank.

I definitely agree, our L5640 CPUs crank and perform just as well as our E5 nodes I find, and they're more energy efficient!

Agreeing with @drmike If you want to start with a lower cost, get a dual X5650 node. The Xeon X5650 processor is the best performance per dollar out of any processor I have ever seen. Theres also a good amount of cores with a Dual X5650 setup. For Dual X5650, no more than 64GB RAM. You might even have to cap it off at 48GB RAM if the processors are at high usage. Same for the E5, you definitely need a RAID10 setup with the Dual X5650.

I'd go for an L series CPU if you're colo'ing -- the X series CPUs really eat through power. If you're not coloing, then go for it, aint your problem! 

 

[concerto49]

 





I definitely agree, our L5640 CPUs crank and perform just as well as our E5 nodes I find, and they're more energy efficient!

I'd go for an L series CPU if you're colo'ing -- the X series CPUs really eat through power. If you're not coloing, then go for it, aint your problem! 

The E5s are definitely more energy efficient than older L series CPUs by quite a bit. Technological advancements have made a difference.

 

[ICPH]

On the OP question: Im noob in this and want to share which node server i have and what i may recommend..

Having 24 threads X5650 @ 2.67GHz, 2 ent. 7K HDDs in HW Raid 1, 24Gb RAM, 1Gbit shared, 15TB/mo.. ($100 incl. IPs)

Im covering OpenVZ node cost and only thing i lack sometimes is HDD speed (I/O), so i think (as other people above) Raid10 and 4 drives or more. In my case i will be exhausting HDD space with almost 600Gb used currently. So quite need 900Gb+ raid space... so quite alot of disk space.., good might be SAS 900Gb or 1Tb 7200rpm drives in HW raid. Im scared to use SW raid, my server HDDs died 2 times in SW raid 1, OpenVZ.

 

[MartinD]

swraid is perfectly fine. If you're having a lot of failures look at the drives, not driver.

 

[HN-Matt]

If you want to open a European location I'd rent one of Online.net's  E7 monsters (4 x E7-4870, 1TB RAM, 8 x 900GB SAS, 4 x 1GBps connection) because nobody is selling OpenVZ on E7's yet and as the old saying goes, the early bird catches the worm (customer).

Good luck getting more than one IP with that.