Hacker News Reader

Comment by corresation | Hacker News Reader

What are you comparing this to? I just got an OVH Canada server (the $79 model to compliment some AWS and Digital Ocean assets) and there is absolutely nothing remotely in the ballpark. Just to compare with AWS, the comparable (but still inferior) m2.2xlarge would run $600 per month, and wouldn't include transfers. OVH just destroys the offerings from GoGrid or Rackspace.

To this actual submission and OVH's dilemma, the solution is clear -- constantly reduce the price of servers as they age. If people end up becoming suckers of sorts by becoming locked into obsolete hardware at its original, shiny and new price, of course they're going to constantly chase the market forward. Of course the flip side of this is that if you can't project the residual payments forward for years, the initial period may be more expensive.

View on HN

Oh they are good value but would be better value @ $20/mo cheaper like they were ;-)

Europe gets the same server hardware for $40/mo

Been meaning to write up an OVH survival guide. Like moving/removing their ssh keys, installing your own kernel, turning off their monitoring ping so they don't reboot your server if you are doing something that blocks the ping for too long, fixing the cpu governor so you get advertised speeds out of it, how to tune the software raid, joining the unlisted mailing lists, etc. etc.

Please do write this, that'd be awesome!

>Like moving/removing their ssh keys

/root/.ssh/authorized_keys

>installing your own kernel

option during installation. You can also configure your own ssh key and set a post-install script under the expert check box.

>turning off their monitoring ping so they don't reboot your server if you are doing something that blocks the ping for too long

option in the control panel

That reminds me of dealing with Fasthosts. They used to reset iptables to their own defaults during the boot sequence...

Why would you compare a budget unmanaged dedicated server provider like OVH to a high end managed server provider like Rackspace or a cloud provider like GoGrid? It's an apples to oranges comparison.

Hetzner and Burst.net would be more appropriate direct competitors in the budget space. They may still not be quite as cheap as OVH, but they're much closer than the other options you mentioned.

Why would you compare a budget unmanaged dedicated server provider like OVH to a high end managed server provider like Rackspace or a cloud provider like GoGrid?

GoGrid offers dedicated servers as well. That RackSpace manages the servers is anathema to most of HN, but it is often brought up in regards to dedicated servers.

Yes, they are competitors to the people who look for servers, and whether one is "high end" while the other is "budget" comes through in the product and the service, not in the price, and these often come up in the same conversations.

Low end and high end is just an extra dimension secondary to them being different products for different markets. Unmanaged dedicated hosting to managed hosting to cloud hosting are as different as a car rental to a limousine to a public transit service.

>Unmanaged dedicated hosting to managed hosting to cloud hosting are as different as a car rental to a limousine to a public transit service.

I've lost track of what you're trying to argue. People do compare car rentals to limousines to public transit to cabs to trains to airplanes. If your goal is "get somewhere" (or "online computing resources"), they are in competition.

Sure, and people will make the argument that taking the bus is much cheaper than taking a limousine, when comparing methods of transportation. However, people aren't generally comparing pricing between limousine company A and city of X public transit, and wondering why one is so much more expensive than the other. They're going to compare limousine company A with limousine company B instead. If all you need is public transit, then by all means use that method of transportation, but there are times when a limousine service may be called for.

Likewise, if all you need is an unmanaged dedicated server, and not a managed server then great. Yes, it's going to be much cheaper than a managed hosting company, as it doesn't include server management. Just as a car rental doesn't include a chauffeur. But if you're honestly shopping around, you should be comparing one unmanaged dedicated server provider to other unmanaged dedicated server providers. And you may not, but I would also make the distinction between budget unmanaged providers and premium unmanaged providers. There's little point in comparing OVH to SoftLayer. Just because OVH is much cheaper doesn't mean SoftLayer offers poor value, not that I'm arguing it doesn't. OVH's network has limited transit options, has frequent congestion issues, and much higher latency transport links. They also use desktop grade hardware, which are much more prone to failure. Anyone heavily involved in the hosting industry is well aware not to host anything mission critical on OVH's service, and those that do are well aware of the risks involved.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com