Slicehost

Heads up – emails coming out shortly that will completely cover everyone who has been waiting patiently for a Slice. Sorry for the delay, we had a couple of hardware failures in the new batch and had to do extensive testing to make sure the others were OK. Happy holidays and thanks for your support.

MORE

I wrote this in a hurry, but wanted to share a little more. The servers are installed and running, as is some new network equipment. We’ve made a few backend changes are putting these modifications through their paces. If all goes well, we should be crossing off several customer requests such as extra storage, backup goodies and more in the next few weeks.

It sucks to be sold out. But rest assured, the servers keep coming and we’re working our way through the back order list. The good news: we have our largest server order to date on the books. So if you signed up, it shouldn’t be more than 10 days before you can get your hands on a Slice. Until then – thanks so much for your patience and support.

Ok, so Etch isn’t quite officially final yet, but due to the number of requests for a current 64-bit debian we’ve decided to go ahead and put out the latest version available. Happy Hacking!

We hope to address 2 customer requests with our most recent distribution. First, Debian Sarge – an old and familiar friend. Reliable, trustworthy – ready now for your Slicehosting needs. Second, some people occasionally have trouble with 64-bit compatibility issues, so Sarge is 32-bit. We’ll likely follow this with a 64-bit Etch build after its scheduled release next month. Enjoy!

When we launched Slicehost a few months ago, we knew the weakest part of our plans, when compared to similar products, was bandwidth. Since then, we’ve been working hard to remedy this and today are proud to announce increased limits across the board. The new limits are 100, 200 and 400GB for 256, 512 and 1024 slices respectively. And prices stay the same! A big thank you to our current customers for staying patient while we expanded. Enjoy ;)

Odd problem – some people are locked out of the chatroom while others are able to get in. We’ve confirmed the problem w/ 37signals and they are looking into it. Will update here when it is back up.

UPDATE – chatroom back up.

We sold out over the weekend due to a shipping snafu. New servers are now in place and we’re taking Slices and upgrades once again.

Apologies to anyone looking to buy a 512 or 1024 slice at the moment. We had an order of new servers coming in Friday, all scheduled for deployment this weekend. The shipping got delayed, so sadly you’ll have to wait until Monday afternoon. Email if you’d like to reserve space on the new boxes.

UPDATE: sold out of everything at the moment, we’re building the new servers as we speak and they’ll be at the NOC later today. Sorry for the delay.

UPDATE 2: open for business, servers installed and more on the way.

Data Center Knowledge links to a couple of interesting articles on rising NOC costs. Increased power requirements for equipment and cooling are driving space costs through the roof. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly bigger companies explore virtual computing alternatives. If you’re interested in discussing Slice clusters for your company, please let us know.

Scott from hosting-fu compares a VPS to a dedicated server. Several excellent points, our 1024slice was pitted against an entry level dedicated box. A must read for anyone weighing the pros and cons of a VPS or dedicated machine.

Say what you will about Dave Winer, but the man has jump started mobile content. It’s not as if he invented the concept, but the industry was just… stagnant. He released his tools, which I find useful, and suddenly – mobile versions of every feed in my list are popping up.

That being said, one of the ideas we had on our to-do list, was a mobile version of SliceManager. Something you could access comfortably via your blackberry/treo/cell, possibly w/ some SMS features. Would such a thing be useful? Perhaps the ability to see uptime, stats and maybe even reboot? Let us know.

A great looking tool for performance monitoring, the Mysql Query Analyzer plugin can help you find bottlenecks. Very handy for troubleshooting DB performance on your Slice.

script/plugin install http://svn.nfectio.us/plugins/query_analyzer

Guys, we’re flattered (see here and here) – Slices galore. But you forgot to copy one thing – the prices.

;)

We’ve had a few customers inquire about bulk Slice purchases for various reasons including: classroom use, virtual infrastructure, load balancing and more. These are all great ideas. For businesses, considering a cluster of Slices for server consolidation makes even more sense. Check out this stat:

We estimate conservatively that for every workload moved from a physical to virtual environment, customers can save about $290 in electricity costs, and about $360 a year in cooling costs. The more important thing is that these savings accrue year after year.

Wow! Let us know if you’re interested in a bulk purchase and we can put something together for you. With skyrocketing cooling and data center costs, there’s never been a better time to consider virtual server consolidation.

Celebrate good times. You speak, we listen, cool stuff happens. A major customer request was console access. Now why would you need console access when you have SSH?

Several reasons:

• you might accidentally lock yourself out via firewall (never happens right?)
• SSH can fail
• you misconfigure a server and it can’t boot propoerly

Previously, you had to open a support issue to get this resolved. No longer! Just login to SliceManger, click the [console] link next to your Slice name and let the magic happen.

Pretty wicked eh? This shouldn’t replace SSH as your remote access method, even though it is encrypted over HTTPS. The console is mainly for emergency use or a quick check in when you only have browser access. But we’re certain it will make your life easier someday and that’s what we like to do.

Now who can you thank for such coolness? Jason of course. He forced Ruby, Rails and Python (ajaxterm) into the same room, then convinced them to play nicely. Too smart for his own good that guy. Pop into the chatroom and let us know what you think. As always thanks for your input – it’s how we make things better around here.