Re: KickAssVps.com Experiences
I've been using them for about 2 months now; I was looking for more control over my environment, wanted to replace several shared hosting accounts with a single account, and wanted to be able to run multiple sites off of a single codebase. I initially went with the default 1GB RAM/10GB storage Windows Server 2008 account. My goal was to run CF9, SQL Server, and mail servers off of that. No go, it's just not enough memory. My final configuration, with everything up and running the way I want, has an additional 1GB RAM (2GB total) with the 10GB storage account, running CF9 with memory usage set at 512MB, SQL Server Express 2008 with memory usage set at 512MB, and I ditched the idea of running a full mail server and instead went with Google Apps for email, but I am running MailEnable on the server for SMTP. Performance with this configuration and 5 fairly modest web sites is significantly better than the shared hosting I had been using. If you haven't used a VPS host before, as I hadn't, you probably have the same questions I did. You access your VPS via remote desktop. You have full control over the server, and can install anything you want, so long as you're within your disk space and RAM limitations. You need to be pretty self-sufficient; if you aren't reasonably knowledgeable about windows server admin, IIS, etc., you'll want to get yourself up to speed. My only real beef has been support; I am a high school teacher, so virtually all of my development time is nights and wekeends. Submitting a non-911 priority support request during the week usually doesn't get resolved until NBD, and on the weekend, it might take 24 hours or more. In the end, for under $40/mo (with the extra RAM), I can certainly live with the limitations. However, if I was running a mission-critical app that needed 5 9's, I'd look at higher-end hosts. Pete On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Peter Donahue pdonah...@satx.rr.comwrote: Hello again everyone, I'd be curious to hear about your experiences with www.KickAssVPS.comif any of you have a Virtual Private Server with them. I checked them out several times and like the fact that they offer ColdFusion 9 and use Paralells Helm Control Panel for site management and the Virtuozzo Control Panel for managing the server. Both products work very well with screen reading software. Being a screen reader user this is of importance to me. I have had the opportunity to use several Parallels products and found that they all work well with Jaws For Windows Version 12.0. Beyond this they seem to be a good company although I'm a little squeemish about there not being telephone tech support available. That's the impression I get from viewing their Web Site. Any feedback will be very much appreciated. Peter Donahue ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:342790 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
Re: KickAssVps.com Experiences
Beyond this they seem to be a good company although I'm a little squeemish about there not being telephone tech support available. That's the impression I get from viewing their Web Site. Any feedback will be very much appreciated. Peter Donahue My experience with them sucked. My hosting setup was a bit rocky. The support was ok, but aremysitesup.com reported site down messages to me almost every day, multiple times a day. I don't know how Rick is doing well with them, he must've gotten the magical kickassvps account. I use viviotech now. No, it isn't a discount host, but they're rock solid from top to bottom. It's been a pleasure dealing with them for over a year now. Oh, and my aremysitesup has been extremely quiet the entire time. my .02 Will ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:342764 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
Re: KickAssVps.com Experiences
I've had a VPS with them for about 2 years and it has been awesome for the most part. A couple of small outages and DDOS attacks but nothing that they weren't able to address in a couple of hours. Every now and then the CF service wouldn't start back up after an update or something so I just wrote a batch file to start the CF service. It fires every couple of minutes just in case. John Blayter Land line: 303.731.3009 Mobile: 303.325.1979 http://www.blayter.com/john/ Denver ColdFusion User Group Manager http://denvercfug.org/ On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 10:56 AM, Peter Donahue pdonah...@satx.rr.com wrote: Hello again everyone, I'd be curious to hear about your experiences with www.KickAssVPS.com if any of you have a Virtual Private Server with them. I checked them out several times and like the fact that they offer ColdFusion 9 and use Paralells Helm Control Panel for site management and the Virtuozzo Control Panel for managing the server. Both products work very well with screen reading software. Being a screen reader user this is of importance to me. I have had the opportunity to use several Parallels products and found that they all work well with Jaws For Windows Version 12.0. Beyond this they seem to be a good company although I'm a little squeemish about there not being telephone tech support available. That's the impression I get from viewing their Web Site. Any feedback will be very much appreciated. Peter Donahue ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:342765 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
Re: KickAssVps.com Experiences
+1 for KA VPS I had a VPS with them for a couple of years with just a couple of relatively minor hiccups. Someone DDoS'ed their network one time and took them off line along with my VPS. Support was good (excellent for the price) and prompt. Based entirely on my experience I would definitely recommend them. But of course YMMV. IIRC others on this list have had less than stellar experience with KAVPS and would disagree with me, as is expected. I will also recommend VivioTech without a nanosecond of hesitation. I cannot say enough good things about them. http://www.viviotech.net/hosting/vps_hosting.cfm http://www.viviotech.net/services/coldfusion.cfm HTH G! On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Peter Donahue pdonah...@satx.rr.comwrote: Hello again everyone, I'd be curious to hear about your experiences with www.KickAssVPS.comif any of you have a Virtual Private Server with them. I checked them out several times and like the fact that they offer ColdFusion 9 and use Paralells Helm Control Panel for site management and the Virtuozzo Control Panel for managing the server. Both products work very well with screen reading software. Being a screen reader user this is of importance to me. I have had the opportunity to use several Parallels products and found that they all work well with Jaws For Windows Version 12.0. Beyond this they seem to be a good company although I'm a little squeemish about there not being telephone tech support available. That's the impression I get from viewing their Web Site. Any feedback will be very much appreciated. Peter Donahue ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:342767 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
Re: KickAssVps.com Experiences
I'd have to agree with John and Gerald: overall, my experience with KAVPS has been generally quite good. There have been occasional minor outages, and a few other quirks - things that will tend to happen with a small hosting service. But they're very flexible, Brian Emerson is very helpful, and they have some great tools included with their accounts that they should (but don't) make enough of a noise about. They do have phone support. It's just not the sort of 24/7, lots of support reps thing you'll get with a larger service. The tools I refer to are things like: - a web interface to handle your own DNS settings. You can create a full set of DNS listings of all types, without the necessity of asking them to make DNS changes for you. Add a new site/domain on your VPS, you can create a new set of DNS listings for it. - Set up your own monitors for your sites - ping, HTML, etc. I doubt that the monitoring comes from outside their network, so if their network has problems, the monitoring probably would, too. But it certainly gives you the ability to monitor issues on your own VPS. - Database backup/restore tool. A web-based interface to any SQL Server database you have with them. While they do their own nightly backups, you can create a backup at any time and download it. You can also upload a backup file and force a restore on their system. I use the first function fairly frequently to refresh the databases on my development server from the live, production databases. That said, you should check VivioTech, too. There is a difference in orientation, in my opinion: KAVPS is more Windows-oriented, VivioTech more Linux. That's oversimplified, of course, but mostly true. It may or may not make a difference in your choice. -- Thanks, Tom Tom McNeer MediumCool http://www.mediumcool.com 1735 Johnson Road NE Atlanta, GA 30306 404.589.0560 ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:342769 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
Re: KickAssVps.com Experiences
I 2nd the recommendation for viviotech.net! On 3/4/2011 2:42 PM, Gerald Guido wrote: +1 for KA VPS I had a VPS with them for a couple of years with just a couple of relatively minor hiccups. Someone DDoS'ed their network one time and took them off line along with my VPS. Support was good (excellent for the price) and prompt. Based entirely on my experience I would definitely recommend them. But of course YMMV. IIRC others on this list have had less than stellar experience with KAVPS and would disagree with me, as is expected. I will also recommend VivioTech without a nanosecond of hesitation. I cannot say enough good things about them. http://www.viviotech.net/hosting/vps_hosting.cfm http://www.viviotech.net/services/coldfusion.cfm HTH G! On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Peter Donahuepdonah...@satx.rr.comwrote: Hello again everyone, I'd be curious to hear about your experiences with www.KickAssVPS.comif any of you have a Virtual Private Server with them. I checked them out several times and like the fact that they offer ColdFusion 9 and use Paralells Helm Control Panel for site management and the Virtuozzo Control Panel for managing the server. Both products work very well with screen reading software. Being a screen reader user this is of importance to me. I have had the opportunity to use several Parallels products and found that they all work well with Jaws For Windows Version 12.0. Beyond this they seem to be a good company although I'm a little squeemish about there not being telephone tech support available. That's the impression I get from viewing their Web Site. Any feedback will be very much appreciated. Peter Donahue ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:342770 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
Re: KickAssVps.com Experiences
+1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 x 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 for http://viviotech.net/. You will *never* find a better company. And it starts at the very top! ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:342771 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
RE: KickAssVps.com Experiences
Yes, my experience, since July 2008 has been very good. Perhaps 3 outages in over 2.5 years. Twice it was very short periods, one from an outside attack and another upgrades they were doing that affected the VPS. A third time, my server was just using too much memory and needed to be refreshed. And, while I typically use their trouble ticket system for problems, I have talked to them over the phone and the number is listed right on the top of the pages. The phone number is part of the header graphic, so that may be why you're not aware of it. I see they've also added live chat to the support options, which I will make use of from now on as my first option. Always had good response and good performance! I manage my server over remote desktop connection, however, and don't use any of the management tools. Rick -Original Message- From: Will Tomlinson [mailto:w...@wtomlinson.com] Sent: Friday, March 04, 2011 1:58 PM To: cf-talk Subject: Re: KickAssVps.com Experiences Beyond this they seem to be a good company although I'm a little squeemish about there not being telephone tech support available. That's the impression I get from viewing their Web Site. Any feedback will be very much appreciated. Peter Donahue My experience with them sucked. My hosting setup was a bit rocky. The support was ok, but aremysitesup.com reported site down messages to me almost every day, multiple times a day. I don't know how Rick is doing well with them, he must've gotten the magical kickassvps account. I use viviotech now. No, it isn't a discount host, but they're rock solid from top to bottom. It's been a pleasure dealing with them for over a year now. Oh, and my aremysitesup has been extremely quiet the entire time. my .02 Will ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:342772 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
Re: KickAssVps.com Experiences
I've been with them for a year or so now. Wonderful. MUCH better then hostingatoz.com and worth the money. The staff are knowledgeable and the few times I actually did call the office, they didn't have any attitude at all that I was calling them. Heck, as far as support goes, I emailed them at their 911 email and at 3am their time (20 mins. after I sent the email), the issue got fixed. I should point out.. I don't have a full VPS with them. I just have their web hosting plan. But if I had the extra money, I would upgrade to VPS in a heartbeat. On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 9:56 AM, Peter Donahue pdonah...@satx.rr.com wrote: Hello again everyone, I'd be curious to hear about your experiences with www.KickAssVPS.com if any of you have a Virtual Private Server with them. I checked them out several times and like the fact that they offer ColdFusion 9 and use Paralells Helm Control Panel for site management and the Virtuozzo Control Panel for managing the server. Both products work very well with screen reading software. Being a screen reader user this is of importance to me. I have had the opportunity to use several Parallels products and found that they all work well with Jaws For Windows Version 12.0. Beyond this they seem to be a good company although I'm a little squeemish about there not being telephone tech support available. That's the impression I get from viewing their Web Site. Any feedback will be very much appreciated. Peter Donahue ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:342774 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
Re: KickAssVps.com Experiences
I have had great service from KickAssVps As a newbie to vps it has been a challenge setting up/managing the vps but the support has been good Rob Robert J. Voyle, Psy.D. Director, Clergy Leadership Institute For Coaching and Training in Appreciative Inquiry Author: Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment http://www.appreciativeway.com/ 503-647-2378 or 503-647-2382 On 4 Mar 2011 at 11:56, Peter Donahue wrote: Hello again everyone, I'd be curious to hear about your experiences with www.KickAssVPS.com if ~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:342775 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
