Reserving Disk Space you Purchased from the Oversold VPS providers

[MannDude]

I don't see why this is such a big deal.

You're attracted to an offer due to it's advertised resources. You may not need all of these resources today, but you may in the future. Either way, it is assumed that these resources exist and are yours to utilize so long as your usage falls within the TOS/AUP of the provider (not pounding on CPU, basically). Afterall, it was advertised that you'd receive access to X amount of resources for Y amount of money per month (or year, or whatever lured you in).

Different providers have different costs of operation yet they continue to compete on price. Those who own their hardware or make special deals with colocation providers are often much better suited to provide you what you actually pay for with reduced overselling and reduced costs. Those who are stuck renting servers and continue to compete based on price with those other companies who have a lower operating cost are doing it wrong. But they do it anyways and oversell to break even and then oversell more to make the venture worthwhile for them.

And what most of you fail to realize is the simple fact there are a ton of people who will not touch the lowend market. They see a $7/mo 1, 2, 3GB VPS and laugh. They understand value, and they're not strapped for cash. They feel that they'll get better service and quality paying $30/mo for a service some of you complain about if it is $8/mo. Whether the service is actually 'better' or not, that's debatable, but it gives businesses and other professionals peace of mind with the thoughts that they're spending decent money for a decent service from a provider they feel to be professional. It's like comparing a $25 pair of sneakers from Wal-Mart and a $100 pair of sneakers from anywhere else. Both keep your feet covered, both are comfortable, but some people would prefer the higher-end one due to thinking it's better quality.

In all honesty, if I were to start a new company I would stay far from the low end market as possible. I'd not cater to this market. I'd have prices deemed 'expensive' by most of you here and I'd much rather have half as many clients paying twice as much for their services as compared to the next guy. Easier to manage, easier to provide support for, resources that always exist for them and idle resources available in the event someone wants to upgrade so I don't have to shuffle them node to node to 'fit them in' somewhere.

 

[Pete M.]

honestly, i can't understand why it is an issue using and maximizing the disk and ram you bought

@jcaleb you are right, and that is why it is usually a good idea to purchase a Xen or KVM server or if you want OpenVZ then get it from a reputable provider. Actually you should use a good provider period :lol: . 

 

[drmike]

They see a $7/mo 1, 2, 3GB VPS and laugh. They understand value, and they're not strapped for cash.

So true.

There are plenty of virtualized offers at higher price points masking themselves as clouds.  

Those cloud solutions differ greatly.   Needless to say, there is plenty of oversold and underperforming there.

Frankly, shared resources aren't something I am willing to pay much for.  When a shared resource creeps up to $25 and above that gets into dedicated server land.  Sure, minus fancy RAID and certainly on a slower processor.  But the resources are dedicated and there aren't unknowns and random performance issues.  The only real remaining concern there in dedicated land is the quality of bandwidth/throughput (an issue that is even larger in virtual lands).

Cloud vs. VPS provider (low end especially) = no clear winner. 

 

[MannDude]

So true.

There are plenty of virtualized offers at higher price points masking themselves as clouds.  

Those cloud solutions differ greatly.   Needless to say, there is plenty of oversold and underperforming there.

Frankly, shared resources aren't something I am willing to pay much for.  When a shared resource creeps up to $25 and above that gets into dedicated server land.  Sure, minus fancy RAID and certainly on a slower processor.  But the resources are dedicated and there aren't unknowns and random performance issues.  The only real remaining concern there in dedicated land is the quality of bandwidth/throughput (an issue that is even larger in virtual lands).

Cloud vs. VPS provider (low end especially) = no clear winner. 

But, even then you do get what you pay for.

A <$50/mo less dedicated server, I don't expect much other than some dated processor and dated recycled hardware in a location that may not be ideal for my visitor base or a network not really ideal for what I want. Perfect for development, testing, learning, etc but not always perfect for the user's needs.

You may be ordering a dedicated server that is this:



located in a facility that looks like this:



Staffed by people who resemble this:

 

[Pete M.]

@MannDude your post made me laugh pretty hard. Fact is that the best humor has some truth at its core. When you get a dedicated server you are not only paying for specifications, but also for the facility, staff, fast response time, fast hardware replacement, a good SLA and so on. If you insist on being cheap then be prepared to get what you pay for and don't complain about it. If something sounds too good to be true then it usually is. B)  

 

[drmike]

^ all that said @MannDude  nothing stopped a VPS/cloud operation from being equally as, umm, disturbing.

I don't buy just one of anything and am particular somewhat (i.e. I've already tried FDC servers and won't be there any time soon for any reason -- that covers at least one of your pics ).

< $50 dedicated servers?   They exist.  Quickpacket has them, WSI,  other common discount places. 

I buy them here and there since  the cost and trouble of shipping colo units and retrieving them in the future gets annoying.

$25 and under dedicated.  Yeah, certainly older CPUs, 2-4GB of RAM + whatever on drive.   They still probably will be competitive with that slice on a VPS.

I'm waiting for $10 dedicated servers.   ARM chips are fine by me.

I don't need performance, I need predictability - baselines that don't move too much.  VPS landers. well, they are all over the place.  I feel like I am in constant check/setup/burn in for sanity sake.

 

[jarland]

honestly, i can't understand why it is an issue using and maximizing the disk and ram you bought

It's not, but consider this.

1. People want low prices.

2. People don't use what they buy.

This enables an option in which a host can do three things:

1. Cause less unnecessary usage of real resources like power.

2. Provide low prices.

3. Get better use out of existing equipment.

This has proven to be effective in providing wonderful performance for low cost from many providers. People want low prices and they want quality performance. By utilizing a truth that remains constant we can achieve both of these things through the overcommitting of resources.

That truth? A painfully simplistic one that goes even farther than "no one uses everything they buy." These are linux admins purchasing server slices to use for hosting some type of service or content. They should almost always be purchasing more than they plan to use. The most common uses, from my angle, are web servers and game servers. If you want these to scale up based on usage then you'd better have idle resources or you won't scale. Now, when we're talking about massive servers with more RAM than the average single user will ever need in a server and we're looking at something like a 2:1 ratio of sales, what is the statistical probability of every user needing to burst their full allotment at the exact same time? For that matter, what is the statistical probability of 50% of the users needing to burst their full allotment at the same time?

Quite simply it is a dice roll, but all four of your dice need to land on the same corner of the available 8 corners and all line up in a 100% perfect symmetrical row. We're talking about fractional percentage chances here. I'm not going to sit here and unload every number I've ever calculated because that is the kind of thing I call equivalent to a trade secret (mostly in reference to average usage patterns obtained not only from Catalyst), but it's more likely that your entire family will die in a plane crash when every one of them is on a plane from a different location than it is that more than 50% of users on my nodes with a 2:1 oversell ratio (generally I aim for 1.5:1) will require a burst of 100% of their allotted resources in the same time frame.

What people need to realize is that overselling is not a summer host idea. It is an idea exploited by summer hosts. That's fine and all, but what I want to stress here is that people should not be attempting to punish their host. If you're looking at a massively overselling summer host, you don't need to make things harder on them, they will bring themselves down.

Are you really trying to justify a broken business model?  You see: selling things that aren't real is called dishonesty or perhaps, legally, fraud.

It's not broken if it works. The only issue with overcommitting on OpenVZ is theory and conversation. In practice, when done responsibly, I challenge anyone to show me solid proof of a single issue caused by overcommitting disk space on a 2:1 or less ratio under OpenVZ. Give me one solid example in which it actually occurred from client allotment and not personal allotment with intent to create an example. Just one.

 

[jcaleb]

I'm waiting for $10 dedicated servers.   ARM chips are fine by me.

this would be nice

 

[jcaleb]

this would be nice

I don't disagree with overselling. I just disagree when someone say I cant use the resources in the plan bought.

 

[Marc M.]

^ all that said @MannDude nothing stopped a VPS/cloud operation from being equally as, umm, disturbing.

@ it depends allot on the provider, facility, hardware, virtualization technology and so on. Xen is awesome for balanced performance, and the results are very predictable. We set up all our Xen packages to progresively double the resources for the previous package and we have also switched to the CPU priority model, where everyone gets the same number of cores but different priority. This means that customers get very good CPU performane, in sync with the rest of the resources. When I read the term "burst" ocassionaly on an offer or hosting web site I think about what it means in Cisco terminology: "discard eligible". It's like everyone is driving on the highway at the speed limit (65MPH) and then one car bursts to 120MPH. That vehicle is discard eligible and it won't be long before there is a packet sniffer behind it with the blue lights on, pulling it over. If I would apply an analogy to RAM overcommiting with OpenVZ then it's like a bunch of people climbing up a mountain, and each one of them is carying a 20 pund backpack, but then here comes one with a 100 pound back pack. Sure enough he's dead tired and wants to kill that process... err drop 80 punds from the back pack, which is discard eligible as you know.... but this being OpenVZ he might need to drop the entire back pack in order to avoid a herniated disc.

 

[jarland]

I don't disagree with overselling. I just disagree when someone say I cant use the resources in the plan bought.

See the key there is the word "use." To me, artificially ramping up to 100% of your allotment with intent to remain there purely to impact my system administration is not actual use.

 

[drmike]

2:1 oversell ratio (generally I aim for 1.5:1)

 

You Catalyst folks are insane.  2:1 ratio?   32GB physical RAM = sell 64GB.  2TB usable = sell 4TB.

You guys are clinging to the very lowest side, barely touching "overselling".  It is overselling, but your customer use pattern dictates the resources aren't being used.

If I were betting, I'd put the low end average OpenVZ shop at a 4-5 to 1 ratio.   One popular punching bag provider has been proven to be 9-10 to 1 ratio on RAM (who knows about their disk abuse).

 

[Pete M.]

You Catalyst folks are insane.  2:1 ratio?   32GB physical RAM = sell 64GB.  2TB usable = sell 4TB.   You guys are clinging to the very lowest side, barely touching "overselling".  It is overselling, but your customer use pattern dictates the resources aren't being used.   If I were betting, I'd put the low end average OpenVZ shop at a 4-5 to 1 ratio.   One popular punching bag provider has been proven to be 9-10 to 1 ratio on RAM (who knows about their disk abuse).

Wow   

 

[jcaleb]

See the key there is the word "use." To me, artificially ramping up to 100% of your allotment with intent to remain there purely to impact my system administration is not actual use.

so if i do that, ramp up my disk and ram. what did i violate?

 

[drmike]

See the key there is the word "use." To me, artificially ramping up to 100% of your allotment with intent to remain there purely to impact my system administration is not actual use.

FYI:  I proposed an initial file reservation of 80% of account disk allocation.  You know, typical headroom reasons

 

[jarland]

so if i do that, ramp up my disk and ram. what did i violate?

Nothing until you tell me you did. If you tell me that you have reserved 100% of your resources with zero intent to use them I would stand by this policy:

"Server Abuse

Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server or customer of Catalyst Host is strictly prohibited. As our customer you are responsible for all your accounts. This includes abuse of the server's CPU and RAM resources to a degree that effects the performance of other customers on your node. Should you violate the Terms of Services outlined within, your account will be cancelled without chance of refund. If you abuse system resources, you will be contacted and offered options for accomodating or reducing usage prior to having your service terminated. Abusive processes, however, will be shut down prior to our attempts to contact you."

 

Now of course I'm not talking about you directly, as I know you wouldn't do that in the first place. We're just talking theory here.

 

[jcaleb]

Nothing until you tell me you did. If you tell me that you have reserved 100% of your resources with zero intent to use them I would stand by this policy:

"Server Abuse

Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server or customer of Catalyst Host is strictly prohibited. As our customer you are responsible for all your accounts. This includes abuse of the server's CPU and RAM resources to a degree that effects the performance of other customers on your node. Should you violate the Terms of Services outlined within, your account will be cancelled without chance of refund. If you abuse system resources, you will be contacted and offered options for accomodating or reducing usage prior to having your service terminated. Abusive processes, however, will be shut down prior to our attempts to contact you."

Now of course I'm not talking about you directly, as I know you wouldn't do that in the first place. We're just talking theory here.

okay that's a catch all phrase. I wonder what @Francisco 's stand on this matter

edit: how do you tag a user here?

 

[Marc M.]

@ [ member = ' jcaleb ' ]

^ Like that

@jcaleb but remove the spaces.

 

[jcaleb]

Server Abuse

For me, abuse should be something objective.

boss @Francisco what is your stand?

 

[drmike]

This includes abuse of the server's CPU and RAM resources to a degree that effects the performance of other customers on your node.

Don't mind me and my legal beagle nose

Please append that policy to include disk... CPU, disk and RAM resources.  Guess I created the appending of disk

Bit perplexed though how using services constitutes abuse!?!  All of those items are quarantined and boxed in by default.  No user can exceed their disk allocation in any way.  RAM is limited to account settings.  CPU is limited too.

 " to a degree that effects the performance of other customers on your node."

One could say that any use constitutes effects on the performance.

All theory and nitpicking.  Friendly chat.