Beautiful PR or how disappointed we are in VDS on Hyper-V from parking.ru
I would like to tell the public how the year of our cooperation with Parking.ru has passed.
Unfortunately, the result - we changed the provider and generally abandoned the virtual hosting by setting our server in one of the data centers of our city.
Further in the text there will be a lot of constructive negative, for each item is ready to answer.
So, I will tell you how it all began.
In March 2009, our young company faced the question of choosing a hosting provider for the first web-project. It so happens that we are developing on ASP.NET MVC + MS-SQL 2008, respectively, hosting is needed on the Windows platform. The search began, of course, first of all, providers were considered, recommended, or having at least some kind of partnership with Microsoft. And then the Parking.ru company appeared on the horizon, and since it has so many articles on the site, they decided to try.
')
For a start, we connected to a simple tariff, we didn’t need much. While they didn’t contact Hyper-V, we stopped at the usual “Hosting on Windows Server 2008”. Everything worked quickly, our site rose beautifully in a new place. I was pleased with the opportunity to manage the DNS without restrictions.
So we lived for a while. But, the project was developing, I wanted to fully manage the server, and began to face blocking access to the site when the permissible load was exceeded (oh, it would be better to change the hoster at this place ...).
We look at the “Services” section and see a wonderful choice of “Dedicated Server on the Hyper-V Platform”. Resolved! We take! For a start, of course, we stopped at a junior tariff plan. Here, it should be noted, I was pleased that there was already an action for free connection, as well as no need to pay for the license for Microsoft Windows Web Server 2008 (thanks to the Parking.ru partnership with Microsoft).
Our new virtual server earned fast. Set up, moved the site, launched. Hooray!
It seems to be all, the server is working, remote access to the console - without problems and payment. But, happiness did not last long. As it turned out later, towards the end of the year, Parking.ru began to change something in the structure of Hyper-V clusters, and this led to very funny results.
A small digression. The site that we hosted at Parking.ru provides access to services for other companies with which we have contractual relations, and interruptions in its work - primarily hit us and our customer relations.
So we got to the main, namely to the problems. Complaints from customers began to come in that sometimes the site stopped responding. We go to the server - he swears that he was turned off by turning off the power. Hmm ... well, it happens. We write in support, they answer that yes, there were small technical problems, everything has been decided and will not happen again. Ok, drove by.
Further more. Complaints from customers began to appear more often. Sometimes they complained of a sudden noticeable slowdown of the site, sometimes of a complete failure in the connection. Understand ... again power off. Again, we write in support, again the standard answers, saying that suddenly something is broken, sorry, it will not happen again.
As time went on ... indignation grew. And then, suddenly, a new problem! We even with all our small team smiled, nervously twitching our eyebrows ... after seeing such a letter from our beloved Parking.ru:
Uh ... we certainly understand everything, it happens. It is a pity that the tariff plans were actually blocked, and we found out about it from our customers, of course, early in the morning, while we were still sleeping, and they were already working. As it turned out, it was a failure of the billing system. Well at least the server lived at the same time, it was simply unavailable. Corrected, the money returned, earned.
Now I would like another small lyrical digression. What is necessary first of all to the client from the provider? In our opinion, besides of course reliability and other obvious things - an accessible support service. And available in the literal sense, by phone. Parking.ru does not have such a service at all, all support is carried out only by e-mail. And for any problems, you just have to write a letter to the support service and wait for someone to answer. In the meantime, we are waiting - you can always communicate with your favorite customers, start inventing various excuses and leave, on the topic “why the site does not work?”. In general, of course, you can occupy yourself with what, but ... our clients, so far, people understand, and want to get an answer just for one logical question: “when will it all work?”. And what is the answer to them? As soon as possible. There is nothing more to answer, because we are sitting and waiting for a response from the mail support service.
In such a happy mood we got to the most pleasant month of the year - until December. On the one hand, you can already prepare for the New Year meeting, summing up, collecting debts with the client, and on the other hand, the favorite company Parking.ru decided once again to “fix” the work of Hyper-V, so that everyone did not see it. As a result of this work - 5 server restarts in the daytime. Every time he spent 20-30 minutes, he didn’t answer at all, after which he climbed, the bases were checked for errors, then everything started working. Sometimes this work began in a very inhibited mode, it seemed that at the same time our server was looking for new planets in the universe. Of course, every time we were forced to write a letter to the support service, wait for an answer, after which we read it and rejoice that we have now repaired everything:
There were unexpected technical problems on the server. We apologize for the inconvenience.
At some point we wondered - is it just that we have no luck? Search forums gave the answer - no, not only to us. We are even more lucky, because every server crash was without consequences (thanks to MS-SQL, it still works as expected). Other "affected" he strange problems in Parking.ru, still losing data. Found an e-mail of one of the heads of the technical service, wrote off. We finally admitted that yes, we are working with the cluster, hence some difficulties. But forgive me, why all these problems occur during working hours? Why does all this lead to the fall of Hyper-V machines?
The year is over. We are tired. It was decided to forget about the virtual hosting, buy a normal entry-level rack server and put it in one of the data centers of our city. What was done. Naturally, all performance problems immediately disappeared. The chances that the data center employees, who have been working for more than a year, will play with powered machines - not enough. So now everything depends on us. And the most pleasant thing - the cost of hosting the server, taking into account the payment for traffic - is almost equal to the cost of comparable services when choosing a virtual hosting (of course, excluding the cost of the server itself).
And the final touch. While we were setting up a new server, we were transferring the DNS, and so on, as early as January, our Hyper-V server in Parking.ru was again “killed”. Not for long, about 40 minutes in total, have become accustomed. But there was an indicative case that scored the last nail ... the speed of the support service:
Enviable reaction rate. Only 17 hours. Thanks that the server itself came to life much faster, otherwise I would have to have a very unpleasant conversation with customers.
In short, colleagues who do not have significant funds to purchase a normal hosting for their projects - be more careful. Check the support service. What happens when support is carried out only by e-mail - I outlined above.
I just want to reply to those who say “what do you want for such pennies?”: Even if we took the most expensive hosting option from Parking.ru, do you think we would be given a help desk phone number or would have saved the server from periodic drops for carrying out some work? I think no.
I have nothing against Hyper-V technology, quite the contrary. But such a trial use for a long time discouraged us from experimenting. Perhaps we will come back to it, in less important projects, and of course to Parking.ru no longer with a foot.
PS .: The post has been gained by one of my good friends who is looking for an invite to Habr :)
UPD: Author of the topic - xpg934 , thanks for the invite XaocCPS !
Unfortunately, the result - we changed the provider and generally abandoned the virtual hosting by setting our server in one of the data centers of our city.
Further in the text there will be a lot of constructive negative, for each item is ready to answer.
So, I will tell you how it all began.
In March 2009, our young company faced the question of choosing a hosting provider for the first web-project. It so happens that we are developing on ASP.NET MVC + MS-SQL 2008, respectively, hosting is needed on the Windows platform. The search began, of course, first of all, providers were considered, recommended, or having at least some kind of partnership with Microsoft. And then the Parking.ru company appeared on the horizon, and since it has so many articles on the site, they decided to try.
')
For a start, we connected to a simple tariff, we didn’t need much. While they didn’t contact Hyper-V, we stopped at the usual “Hosting on Windows Server 2008”. Everything worked quickly, our site rose beautifully in a new place. I was pleased with the opportunity to manage the DNS without restrictions.
So we lived for a while. But, the project was developing, I wanted to fully manage the server, and began to face blocking access to the site when the permissible load was exceeded (oh, it would be better to change the hoster at this place ...).
We look at the “Services” section and see a wonderful choice of “Dedicated Server on the Hyper-V Platform”. Resolved! We take! For a start, of course, we stopped at a junior tariff plan. Here, it should be noted, I was pleased that there was already an action for free connection, as well as no need to pay for the license for Microsoft Windows Web Server 2008 (thanks to the Parking.ru partnership with Microsoft).
Our new virtual server earned fast. Set up, moved the site, launched. Hooray!
It seems to be all, the server is working, remote access to the console - without problems and payment. But, happiness did not last long. As it turned out later, towards the end of the year, Parking.ru began to change something in the structure of Hyper-V clusters, and this led to very funny results.
A small digression. The site that we hosted at Parking.ru provides access to services for other companies with which we have contractual relations, and interruptions in its work - primarily hit us and our customer relations.
So we got to the main, namely to the problems. Complaints from customers began to come in that sometimes the site stopped responding. We go to the server - he swears that he was turned off by turning off the power. Hmm ... well, it happens. We write in support, they answer that yes, there were small technical problems, everything has been decided and will not happen again. Ok, drove by.
Further more. Complaints from customers began to appear more often. Sometimes they complained of a sudden noticeable slowdown of the site, sometimes of a complete failure in the connection. Understand ... again power off. Again, we write in support, again the standard answers, saying that suddenly something is broken, sorry, it will not happen again.
As time went on ... indignation grew. And then, suddenly, a new problem! We even with all our small team smiled, nervously twitching our eyebrows ... after seeing such a letter from our beloved Parking.ru:
You have not replenished your personal account in a timely manner. All tariff plans of your account will be blocked until payment is received. Contract Number: xxxxx Login: yyyy Account Status: -56,852.55 rubles.
Uh ... we certainly understand everything, it happens. It is a pity that the tariff plans were actually blocked, and we found out about it from our customers, of course, early in the morning, while we were still sleeping, and they were already working. As it turned out, it was a failure of the billing system. Well at least the server lived at the same time, it was simply unavailable. Corrected, the money returned, earned.
Now I would like another small lyrical digression. What is necessary first of all to the client from the provider? In our opinion, besides of course reliability and other obvious things - an accessible support service. And available in the literal sense, by phone. Parking.ru does not have such a service at all, all support is carried out only by e-mail. And for any problems, you just have to write a letter to the support service and wait for someone to answer. In the meantime, we are waiting - you can always communicate with your favorite customers, start inventing various excuses and leave, on the topic “why the site does not work?”. In general, of course, you can occupy yourself with what, but ... our clients, so far, people understand, and want to get an answer just for one logical question: “when will it all work?”. And what is the answer to them? As soon as possible. There is nothing more to answer, because we are sitting and waiting for a response from the mail support service.
In such a happy mood we got to the most pleasant month of the year - until December. On the one hand, you can already prepare for the New Year meeting, summing up, collecting debts with the client, and on the other hand, the favorite company Parking.ru decided once again to “fix” the work of Hyper-V, so that everyone did not see it. As a result of this work - 5 server restarts in the daytime. Every time he spent 20-30 minutes, he didn’t answer at all, after which he climbed, the bases were checked for errors, then everything started working. Sometimes this work began in a very inhibited mode, it seemed that at the same time our server was looking for new planets in the universe. Of course, every time we were forced to write a letter to the support service, wait for an answer, after which we read it and rejoice that we have now repaired everything:
There were unexpected technical problems on the server. We apologize for the inconvenience.
At some point we wondered - is it just that we have no luck? Search forums gave the answer - no, not only to us. We are even more lucky, because every server crash was without consequences (thanks to MS-SQL, it still works as expected). Other "affected" he strange problems in Parking.ru, still losing data. Found an e-mail of one of the heads of the technical service, wrote off. We finally admitted that yes, we are working with the cluster, hence some difficulties. But forgive me, why all these problems occur during working hours? Why does all this lead to the fall of Hyper-V machines?
The year is over. We are tired. It was decided to forget about the virtual hosting, buy a normal entry-level rack server and put it in one of the data centers of our city. What was done. Naturally, all performance problems immediately disappeared. The chances that the data center employees, who have been working for more than a year, will play with powered machines - not enough. So now everything depends on us. And the most pleasant thing - the cost of hosting the server, taking into account the payment for traffic - is almost equal to the cost of comparable services when choosing a virtual hosting (of course, excluding the cost of the server itself).
And the final touch. While we were setting up a new server, we were transferring the DNS, and so on, as early as January, our Hyper-V server in Parking.ru was again “killed”. Not for long, about 40 minutes in total, have become accustomed. But there was an indicative case that scored the last nail ... the speed of the support service:
01/18/2010 17:18 Appeal to support@parking.ru 01/19/2010 10:26 AM Response from support service: “Verify that the server is working at the moment.”
Enviable reaction rate. Only 17 hours. Thanks that the server itself came to life much faster, otherwise I would have to have a very unpleasant conversation with customers.
In short, colleagues who do not have significant funds to purchase a normal hosting for their projects - be more careful. Check the support service. What happens when support is carried out only by e-mail - I outlined above.
I just want to reply to those who say “what do you want for such pennies?”: Even if we took the most expensive hosting option from Parking.ru, do you think we would be given a help desk phone number or would have saved the server from periodic drops for carrying out some work? I think no.
I have nothing against Hyper-V technology, quite the contrary. But such a trial use for a long time discouraged us from experimenting. Perhaps we will come back to it, in less important projects, and of course to Parking.ru no longer with a foot.
PS .: The post has been gained by one of my good friends who is looking for an invite to Habr :)
UPD: Author of the topic - xpg934 , thanks for the invite XaocCPS !
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/82529/
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