As posted in our previous POST, that how and we had to do emergency migration of all our VPS Nodes and Shared Web Hosting, but now once all the data has been migrated, we even need to utilise our Colocated Servers that were there with Dedipath, today we were provided access and were able to pickup our Servers from their Los Angeles, location, though other location is still pending, but to utilise these servers, we have taken a full 42U RACK in Salt Lake City, this is different from our current Salt Lake City Datacentre, this location also has very good network, along with DDOS Protection provided by PATH. This new location has very good network globally including China and Asia.
These servers just landed at the new facility in Salt Lake City, we plan to use these servers for our regular Ryzen VPS nodes as well to offer Virtual Dedicated Server, i.e. with Dedicated CPU Cores and all resource, with these package you will be able to max out your CPU without any restricitons
We will post an update about once its ready for production, hopefully in next 3-4 days
Below is a snippet of our sudden announcement of migrating all our servers to a different datacentre:
We made this announcement on 6th of August, though we started planning for it in July itself, but it was just a hunch hence we could not make it public as we have yet to find a reliable provider, arrange for 11000+ IP, arrange for close 100 Servers, find locations that are suitable for our clients etc…
But what made us take this decision as we have been using DEDIPATH services for over 5 years without any trouble ?
There were few warning signs:
Their CTO Left the company
Support tickets were delayed a lot
Nobody from management was approachable
Then I think in July end two of their facilities went offline for over 3 hours – NJ and LA, this was the biggest warning sign, but then after asking repeatedly they finally sent RFO
This RFO was the final NAIL in the COFFIN and forced us to take this decision of migrating out of Dedipath. This RFO said the reason behind the outage was routing issue, but how can two different locations have routing issue at the same time ? I tried to inquire a lot about it to know the actual reason, but everybody at DP was behind NDA hence could not utter a word, but this made us decide to finally migrate out.
This sudden Emergency Migration was not appreciated by all clients, but we even could not tell the clients that we are doing it on the basis of a hunch that things are not alright at DP hence we had to migrate out, but most of the clients did not complained but still I know it’s a lot of trouble for clients to change their IP in the web server, mail server, DNS Servers, proxy, vpn or for whatever services they were using their VPS.
We appreciate patience shown by all clients during this migration, but whatever we did was in the best interest of our clients, their data and also for survival of Hosteons.
Usually providers physically move servers to another Datacentre as it saves a lot of costs, though it causes downtime but still it’s the most economical way to do migration especially if you own the servers/hardware, but in our case even this was not possible and also we did not wanted to cause hours of downtime and sometimes servers do break during transport that could again cause more problems and data loss.
If we move the servers physically it has many risks:
Server Damage During Transportation
Hours of Downtime as it’s takes lots of time if you have to UNRACK 100 servers, then transport them, then again bring them online in the new datacentre with new IP, new network configuration
Not only this how do we change IP of 9000 VPS all at once ? It could take days before we do this, so this just means downtime of days or even weeks
Moreover there were rumours in Forums that Remote Hands is at HOLD in DP, as the Datacentre “EVOCATIVE” is not doing it, I won’t get in details what exactly is the problem, so we could not expect that we will be actually provided access to our servers
So this option was OFF the TABLE
So how exactly did we migrate 9288 VPS Safely ?
We decided that we will first get the following:
Our own ASN – If we use ASN of our Datacentre it causes lots of problems like if the Datacentre has abusive users it even affects our IP Reputation. So we got our own ASN before migration – AS142036
Our own IP – We have some of our own IP Blocks from APNIC, we used them along with, we directly did contract with IP Vendors and got IP on long term contract, so that we don’t need to change IP every now and then as we had to do when IP are provided by Datacentre, because if Datacentre wants they change or pull back their IP blocks anytime they want, so this time we got IP Directly from IP Vendors and used our own IP
We got new servers, but new server hardware delivery takes time it is not instant, so this took almost 10 days and even in these 10 days we did not got all the servers, even some servers failed hardware diagnostics, we had to get them replaced, rack etc… it was a period of sleepless nights that just finished today earlier with our FINAL Server migration without any DATA LOSS to any client.
It was not easy to apply and get ASN, get new IP, arrange for new servers that too in locations that are similar to what we currently have and above all, all these things require a lot of CASH.
But we have a solid business plan and we keep our business profitable unlike many low end providers who just keep discounting their prices to get sales and ultimately end up shutting down, but due to our SOLID BUSINESS PLAN and over 2 decades of experience in HOSTING INDUSTRY, we were able to pull through this tough phase.
But AGAIN YOU MUST BE THINKING WAS THIS EVEN WORTH IT ?
YES ABSOLUTELY, JUST READ THIS ANNOUNCEMENT BY DEDIPATH:
This is just a partial announcement but they did shutdown with less then 24 hours notice, and if we had not migrated out in time, then we would have lost data of almost all clients by now as it was not possible to arrange for 100 Servers in such a short period and also migrate data of 9000+ VPS within 24 hours, as I know it take us over 20 days to migrate out data of 9000 VPS
The best part is our clients had close to ZERO DOWNTIME, the reason being we did a live migration of VPS, just the IP was changed, so it all depends how quickly they start using the new IP
So this is how we DODGED the DEATH BALL just on the basis of a hunch and over 2 decades of experience in HOSTING INDUSTRY
By default our OpenVZ VPS Packages comes with unmetered 100 Mbps Port but if you need Gigabit Port, need not worry now we even offer Gigabit Port, not only this we have even updated our VPS Packages to include more bandwidth or tranfers
OVZ256, OVZ512 and OVZ1 Comes with 2 TB Transfer @ 1Gbps Port Speed
OVZ 2 Comes with 3TB @ 1Gbps Port Speed
OVZ 3 Comes with 4TB @ 1Gbps Port Speed
OVZ 4 Comes with 5TB @ 1Gbps Port Speed
OVZ 5 Comes with 6TB @ 1Gbps Port Speed
OVZ 6 Comes with 7TB @ 1Gbps Port Speed
OVZ 7 Comes with 8TB @ 1Gbps Port Speed
Earlier all packages had only two options either 100 Mbps Unmetered or 2TB Transfer, but now have updated packages to give more bandwidth and not only this 100 Mbps unmetered is still available as default option.
Also existing customers can also request an upgrade to 1Gbps Port Speed
Not only this, you can even get more bandwidth @ 1Gbps, for new orders you get option to opt for it in the order form and existing customer can request upgrade via support ticket
We are constantly trying to improve quality of services and as a part of this process we have now started offer Backup Service for our Premium Ryzem KVM VPS, Budget Gigabit KVM VPS As well as OpenVZ VPS across all our locations
You can order Backup Service while placing order for your VPS and existing customers can submit a ticket for the same if you need backup service.
We are currently offering two options:
1) Monthly Backups : $2 Per month
2) Weekly Backups: $5 Per month
Our backup service will keep rotating your backups and keep two copies of backups.
Also you even get an option for manual backup, you can use this option to manually backup your VPS which is very useful when you need to make some changes in your VPS or just want to try out something which may cause trouble later on, so you can take manual backups in this way and restore from your backups anytime directly from your VPS Control Panel.
If you have any doubts feel free submit a support ticket
In this video you will learn how to setup your own private L2TP to IPSEC VPN Server using a KVM VPS or a Dedicated Server. I’ve used a Ubuntu 20 based installation but this same script or command even works on Debian, this is a fully automated setup for a VPN Server. I’ve used a Budget KVM VPS from https://hosteons.com/kvm_vps.php for this tutorial but this same script should work with any other providers’s VPS as long as it’s a KVM VPS and the OS is Debian or Ubuntu. This is a one click or one command setup to have your VPN Server ready almost instantly.
Command to install your L2TP VPN server is:
wget https://git.io/vpnsetup -O vpnsetup.sh && sudo sh vpnsetup.sh
NOTE: Please make sure to backup your data before running this script as hosteons will not be responsible for any data loss.
All our Budget Gigabit KVM VPS Nodes have following or similar specs:
Dual Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2690 v2 (Or Similar minimum, 2.5 Ghz)
128 GB RAM
RAID 10 SSD
10 Gbps Network Port (Some of our VPS Nodes are still on 1 Gbps Port, but they are in process of being upgraded to 10Gbps Port for more info Click Here)
Free IPv6 /64
IPv4 as per your package and option to add upto 16 additional IPv4 IP
Free Windows 2019 License with annual payment
VPS Control Panel
Custom ISO Support
Full RDNS control
Reboot and Reinstall Support
Free DDOS Protection
Moreover our VPS services are activated instantly upon payment and we have 24×7 Real Human Support
Also if you want to check our Dallas Network check out our Network Looking Glass at https://lg.dal.hosteons.com
We have been constantly trying to improve and upgrade quality of our services and now we are doing one more major upgrade to our Budget Gigabit KVM VPS, after this upgrade even our Budget KVM VPS will performa like Premium VPS:
1) Retiring all our AMD Opteron VPS Nodes and upgrading to Intel E5 based Nodes with same RAID 10 SSD Drives (these nodes will be hosting almost half the number of VPS on them compared to our old VPS Nodes)
2) Upgrade VPS Node Port from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps, this will improve network performance a lot.
Moreover we would like to inform all our Legacy 100 Mbps unmetered VPS clients that since we are now upgrading server port to 10Gbps, we will be strictly enforcing our Acceptable Usage Policy to avoid any bandwidth abuse, because it affects performance of all other VPS on the same node. We have found a lot of Unmetered VPS users using upto 50 TB per month on 100 Mbps Port, which clearly means that these VPS were using more then 100 Mbps 24×7 (yes it happens sometimes, traffic shaping does not work 100% accurately on VPS Nodes), we are rate limiting such VPS to 10 Mbps to avoid further abuse and to avoid of quality of service going down for our other clients, though if such user wants to switch to our Gigabit KVM VPS packages, just submit a support ticket we will do it. Moreover if you are on 100 Mbps Legacy package and if you are not abuser and following our Acceptable Usage Policy you can continue to use your VPS without issues and won’t find any kind of cap on your network. Most of these Bandwidth abusers appear to be commercial VPN/Proxy providers which is already against our Terms of Service, so if we find good proof that you are using it for commercial VPN/Proxy your services will be terminated (it does not matter if you are on unmetered or metered plan, but we don’t allow commercial vpn/proxy providers on our network)
We have lots of VPS nodes so this whole process will take almost 1 month or may be even more, but we are planning to start this process within next 3-4 days. This is how we have planned:
1) We will add new VPS nodes to same network as our current VPS Nodes (on 1 Gbps Port) then we will migrate all VPS from old VPS nodes to new VPS nodes, there will be no data loss or IP change, but you will experience downtime of few minutes usually less than 10 minutes.
2) Once VPS are migrated to new nodes, we will have to shutdown the VPS nodes and physically move them to the RACK with 10 Gbps network/switch, this migration can take 1-2 hour, as it involves shutting down vps nodes, physically UNRACK the VPS Node from old RACK and move it to the new RACK and plugin all cables, then route the IP ranges to the new switch/RACK and booting all the VPS nodes back online.
But once this done you will experience much better network performance as well as CPU performance, overall quality of VPS will improve a lot.
We will be doing this across all our locations – Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, Jacksonville.
We will be even starting Budget Gigabit VPS Service in Dallas soon, since this will be a new node, we will start it with 10Gbps Port
We will email all clients about it before we start this migration.
2020 has been a crazy year for everybody all over the globe, but we at Hosteons have been working behind the scenes to bring new services, service upgrades, server upgrades, and what not.
Here is what’s new with Hosteons:
Premium Ryzen VPS:
We have launched a Premium Range of Ryzen based KVM VPS in two locations – Los Angeles and Dallas (More locations coming soon). Ryzen CPU along with NVME Drives takes your VPS experience to a different level as these are very very fast CPU along with super fast NVME Drives it just makes you feel like as if you are using a Super Fast Dedicated Server with ease of singing a VPS. Our Ryzen VPS Nodes are connected to 10Gbps network instead of our regular 1 Gbps Network to even make your network lightning fast.
Direct Admin Switch:
Due to constant price increase by cPanel we decided to even switch to Direct Admin for our shared web hosting and reseller web hosting and we even took the opportunity to even switch our web server from Apache to Lite Speed along with Kernel Care for reboot less updates, Cloud Linux for stable hosting experience and even more secure with CageFS implementation. We even added Imunify to it to make sure all sites on the server malware free. Not only this now we are using RAID 10 SSD instead of normal HDD for even faster websites. We are now even taking offsite backups every alternate day.
KernelCare for Rebootless updates hence basically services with no downtime
RAID 10 SSD Based Storage for ultra fast disk access and very fast websites
Regular backups just in case if you ever want to restore your data.
24×7 Support – We understand how important your website is for you hence we have 24×7 support
These are so many features and benefits not possible to mention all of them in a single article.
Discontinued 100 Mbps KVM VPS:
We have discontinued 100 Mbps Unmetered KVM VPS and instead of started offering Gigabit VPS as we noticed now when 100 Mbps connectivity is very common even in a typical household broadband, so 100 Mbps on a server is not enough, moreover we had more reasons to make this decision like when we were offering 100 Mbps Unmetered VPS even a few abusive or even compromised 100 Mbps VPS could make the network experience bad for other VPS users on the VPS node and since we did not wanted to compromise on quality of our services, we made this tough decision. Though we are not terminating existing 100 Mbps VPS users, they can continue to use their 100 Mbps VPS as long as they keep renewing and even option to upgrade to Gigabit VPS is open for them.
Also new nodes that we are adding for Gigabit VPS are now on 10 Gbps Port, very soon we will upgrade, all our VPS nodes (those nodes will only have Gigabit VPS not 100 Mbps unmetered VPS)
Migration from SolusVM to Virtualizor:
SolusVM is a good VPS control panel but it’s been lacking lots of features that were available in Virtualizor or where were very much needed, hence we even switch from SolusVM to Virtualizor, it wasn’t issue to switch but we still did it with help of very helpful team of Virtualizor.
Some of the new features which were not available until in our VPS control panel will be available now, like:
Custom ISO upload – Now if you need to install an OS that’s not already available in our VPS templates you need not worry, just login to your VPS control panel and you can upload your own ISO and install your own OS, no need to even submit a ticket to do so.
Until now we had to shutdown or suspend VPS of CPU abusive users, but now we can simply cap or limit their CPU usage to make sure experience of other VPS users is not affected and it even avoids downtime for VPS users whose CPU usage goes out of control (usually it’s due to some buggy software)
Complete Integration with our billing system, so now you even don’t need to login to VPS control panel separately, you can mange most of the things directly from Client Porta/Billing/Helpdesk
Support for Block Storage (We plan to provide block storage soon, but lack of support in SolusVM was our biggest hurdle, but now we have this option available)
There are many more features to list in a single article.
Very soon even daily backups will be available with our Premium Ryzen VPS, we will send out an email once it’s available.
