Show HN: I started a low cost dedicated server host, Exelion | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I started a low cost dedicated server host, Exelion

exelion.net

32 pointsDiabloD344 comments

Is there any assurance that someone can't just break into whatever facility you're housing these machines in, and walk off with all my data? Do I even know that you're going to be in business in 5 years? What happens if someone DDOSes your infrastructure? There is hardly any information on the landing page, let alone answers to questions like these.

There's really nothing differentiating this service other than metrics, and I wouldn't show this as a hosting option to my clients because of how little information there is about it. I'm not trying to put you down, just giving some real-world perspective on what your potential users are looking for.

> Is there any assurance that someone can't just break into whatever facility you're housing these machines in, and walk off with all my data? Do I even know that you're going to be in business in 5 years? What happens if someone DDOSes your infrastructure?

You receive no such assurances from Rackspace, OVH, Hetzner, Softlayer, etc. They could all go out of business, anybody could walk out with your data, and if you're getting DDOSed, well, as always you're getting your checkbook out to mitigate it unless you have a very large team (in which case, why are you going with a hosting company anyway?).

OP is going for the Digital Ocean of physical machines. Treat it as such. If someone wanted assurances, they're going to pay out the nose and go with an established provider.

If someone wanted assurances, they're going to pay out the nose

This pretty much actively discourages broad categories of potential garage tinkerer apps/startups. I suspect there's an opportunity here.

I am in agreement with you. If you're $ENTERPRISE, you're most likely not going with OP, but there is a large "garage tinkerer apps/startups" market they should be targeting until they're established.

Why use this guy's overpriced service when so many cheaper, well-established hosting businesses exist, like OVH's http://www.soyoustart.com/us/offers.xml

Because OVH's service and support are terrible. Much rather give the new guy a try.

Is there a reason to dismiss the question like this? It's a matter of probability: This site just appeared out of thin air as far as most of us are concerned. Yeah, Rackspace could go out of business tomorrow. But that's a hell of a lot less likely -- and more likely to happen with some sort of warning -- than a brand new provider going under (since we all know what the odds are for new businesses).

If the OP is "going for the Digital Ocean of physical machines," perhaps he should be clearer about his intentions. I personally don't think that's a reasonable assumption based on the information he's provided.

> Is there a reason to dismiss the question like this?

I'm not dismissing your questions. I'm arguing that listing information on your website doesn't mean you're any more or less capable at handling the issues you're described.

I've seen <10 people startups succeed against destructive technical challenges, and I've seen +$500 million companies completely fail on the most simple problems. QA/FAQs aren't the deciding factor (although they provide signaling to clients, both current and potential).

I have to agree with you here as you make an excellent point about QA/FAQs. It's entirely possible that the people behind this know exactly what they're doing, but from a client perspective it is a bit sketchy that there is no information other than server specs.

The SSAE 16 SOC 2 attestation would address physical access controls. At my last job with a hosting company, as an Engineer with substantial infrastructure in my local DC, I was not allowed entry without signing in and being issued a temporary DC badge. The whole industry probably isn't there yet, but auditors are cracking down on who is allowed unrestricted physical access and without that certification you cannot get big business customers.

Signing in with a badge does't prevent you from smuggling data out on a USB stick.

I've been in call centers that attempted to screen for storage devices via metal detectors and x-ray machines, but that's certainly not the norm for data centers. I know of customers of my former employer who would not provide system passwords and utilized disk encryption, but I have my doubts that their key management practices completely protected against someone with physical access. Ultimately if you're hosting somewhere that you don't control your primary defense is reputational risk and lawsuits.

What happens if someone DDOSes your infrastructure?

Dealing with DDOS would be, for me, a killer differentiator. Most hosting providers will "just nullroute you" and fairly quickly kick you off their sites when people decide to consistently DDOS you. This makes life very hard for multiplayer game startups, as games are a part of the online world where DDOS is very common and doesn't even need a profit motive. A game implementer either ponies up $$$ for enterprise level DDOS, or ends up trusting providence and luck. This is especially true if a startup is trying to do something that confounds expectations in an existing genre in a major way.

Actually, dealing with DDOS combined with low latency to everywhere would be the killer combination of features that differentiates such a site. (You'd have to do this with an MMO app framework that actually maintained different instances in different geographic locations, and transparently switched most of your users between them.)

Not to be critical right out of the gate, but the site doesn't suggest any differentiation... rather than asking people to shop around just to figure out what your value proposition is, it seems to me it'd make sense to actually state that somewhere.

Why or in what circumstances people should choose you over, for example, Rackspace or cloud vendors like EC2 might be a good place to start.

And the physical location...

I'll add that to the website in a bit. The machines are located in Dallas, and we're looking into multiple future locations.

Anyone who has evaluated Rackspace for pricing would instantly see that Exelion is a tiny fraction of the price for high-end hardware.

Exelion's Basic model includes an incredibly fast Xeon processor, 16 GB of RAM, RAID 1 storage and a gigabit port for $99 per month ($66 per month with 5 year commitment).

Compare that to Rackspace which I'm guessing would charge about $1 billion per month for the same thing although I haven't checked their prices lately. In all seriousness - Rackspace can't come close to their pricing.

Other than that, there are still some open questions - where are they located, how can we be sure they'll still be in business a year from now, or hey, what operating systems they support, etc.

His business model is, he has a bunch of cabinets colocated in a datacenter I operate in Dallas.

And he financed it with his bitcoin winnings, I guess.

http://i.imgur.com/3fpmImY.png -- Rackspace for a 15GB RAM server is actually around $500 a month. And to be quite honest the service there is fantastic. If you are going to run a production server you need assurances. Assurances that the linked vendor does not provide.

I think you're showing VPS pricing (not dedicated servers).

We have a rackspace 32GB dedicated machine which costs $750/mo. Just for a firm datapoint.

I'm not suggesting you're wrong. I have a client that uses Rackspace, and while I know they're expensive, they also have extremely good (in my experience) technical support and customer service. Whether you think that justifies the price or not, it's a difference, and if the OP wants to compete or compare -- which he may or may not; it's not clear, and I brought up Rackspace, not him -- then there should probably be some discussion of that.

Anyway, my point is exactly that you say "anyone who has evaluated Rackspace." The OP doesn't make claims one way or the other, and if I don't have my own claims I'm willing to evaluate using his service, there's no call to action (I can't believe I just used that phrase).

Rackspace managed hardware starts at $499 a month and goes up from there.

I couldn't find a contact form or phone number anywhere on the site, so there's no way to ask about the service before signing up. (All I could find was a support e-mail address buried in the copyright section of the TOS.) This doesn't inspire confidence. If someone's business depends on one of these servers, they're going to want to know that the hosting company is reachable, and that impression starts with the initial contact with the company.

Also, who is going to commit to a five year contract with a company that has no track record? Maybe there should be a one-year discount instead of a 5-year discount?

whois exelion.net is your friend.

That's perfectly reasonable. I do that all of the time when I have a hosting issue.

I whois the website to get the contact info for the owner. Because whois info is always correct. /s

We don't have a 1-800 number setup yet. AT&T's business division (the only phone company that has working cell phone towers locally that has business cell plans; Verizon, Sprint don't) seems to not want to do businesses with single owner LLCs.

I'm going to have to look at other ways of dealing with this.

Also, there are already discounts at one year.

Why not use something like http://grasshopper.com/ ?

Yeah, or Twilio and set it up yourself?

I'm unconvinced by the low cost aspect. Low cost is the listing at http://www.soyoustart.com/us/offers.xml. You're cheaper than a lot of the premium hosters, but not the budget and low cost ones.

Any others that are like this? I like this price!

Hetzner has good prices on Haswell servers (1 € == 1.4 USD):

http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver-pr...

As well as lots of inexpensive older models:

http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produkte_rootserver/serverb...

I've been using Hetzner for my development machine for a while now and they have been fantastic. Great support, great price. It sucks a little to SSH from here to Germany but it's definitely something I can tolerate for the price.

Try using Mosh. It makes ssh much less painful for high latency connections.

It seems a bit disingenuous to advertise "RAID 1" on the main page, when it's only software RAID. If I want software RAID, I'll install it myself. Advertising RAID implies (to me, at least), that there's a hardware RAID card in the box.

Also, you claim to have "a state of the art Denial of Service (DoS) mitigation system", but don't provide any details as to what it is. Is it Arbor TMS or something along those lines?

It'd also be good to detail what, if any, remote management options are available (IPMI?).

> It seems a bit disingenuous to advertise "RAID 1" on the main page, when it's only software RAID.

Is hardware RAID for RAID 1 really worth it? Because in my experience the performance advantage is not really there.

I don't understand the graphic. How are you a predator?

This looks good from a tech perspective. Could you talk somewhat about who you are, the company, previous projects, or whatever else will build confidence in the service?

This looks interesting to me, but your website leaves many unanswered questions such as: can I get remote console access? how does the ddos protection work?

Interesting offer, initial landing page could use some work.

5 years? Craziness.

Believe it or not, it was requested.

No SSD option?

Yes, we offer SSD as well.

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