rackspace nightmare

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Posted by sotonin, 11-06-2006, 12:13 PM
Does anybody know how to get out of a rackspace contract? Here's a general recap of our situation and the huge headache that rackspace has caused us. We've been under a contract with them for a few months now. We have a dedicated machine running some version of redhat enterprise on it, along with the plesk control panel. Here is the issues we've experienced so far: 1. So far our server has crashed at least 5 times. On a few occasions it took hours to come back up. To be fair on most the occasions it was up in a few minutes. 2. Obviously underpowered server hardware. I can see under my plesk stats screen that our memory usage is always VERY high. it seems the server is constantly stressed, and we don't even have any high traffic sites. 3. Since the beginning we are unable to send email attachments. More often than not it times out before sending the email. We've been back and forth with Rackspace about this issue and they basically said we don't know. They blame it on horde. 4. We went through an incident where we did not receive emails until many many days after they were sent. Apparently there was a backlog on our server for some unknown reason and it was bottlenecking. This put us in quite a tough place as far as orders and artwork approvals. 5. Out-dated software. When we first got the server i went into my plesk updates and downloaded all the updates. there were some major version updates and many many minor security updates. Well this broke the control panel for licensing issues. Apparently the way rackspace operates is on sub-par older versions of software and they do not want you upgrading. I found this amazingly absurd due to the high dollar amount per month we're paying upwards of $500. To be fair they did find a correct license and took care of it, with much complaining. Also now they tend to blame any unknown issue on the fact that it was upgraded. Their way to have an easy scapegoat. 6. People unable to access some of our sites. We receive many complaints a week from people who can not get to our websites, yet they can access all other websites on their end. Rackspace has no answer for this issue. 7. Overall general slowness and unreliability. All our sites very often run sluggishly and scripts take forever to finish. Not the kind of performance you pay $500 a month for in my opinion. As far as the support, sure rackspace will let you talk to somebody on the phone. But all they will say is we're not sure what the problem is or, thats not included in the price itll be XXX billable hours to work on this. We are not satisfied with their services one bit and want out of our contract. They are giving my boss the run around though and say we can not get out of it, despite all the apparent issues. Has anybody managed to successfully terminate a contract with them? thanks in advance
Posted by Jame$, 11-06-2006, 12:53 PM
Maybe they are willing to put it right for you? (Or maybe the relationship has been ruined beyond recovery)
Posted by sotonin, 11-06-2006, 12:58 PM
I don't see how they could possibly put it right? They would have to provide us with a new server with better hardware specs completely eliminate the issues we're having in addition to using the latest version of plesk and all other security updates. They already said their staff isnt trained to support the new version of anything, so that's a little fantasy land where that might happen. The leprechauns would sooner give me their pot of gold. At this point the only way i would be somewhat satisfied with Rackspace is if they sucked it up and let us out of the contract. They're already acknowledged all the problems described themselves in emails (i have saved copies). So they are aware of these issues and yes admit they do not know the cause of them in the emails.
Posted by Jame$, 11-06-2006, 01:20 PM
Yes, I see your frustration but servers in general - even the most respected providers (like rackspace) will have cases and problems like the ones you mentioned, I'm sure the problems you described are things which can be easily fixed. But obvious frustration.. especially for the money being paid.
Posted by keywolf, 11-06-2006, 02:00 PM
issue a chargeback from your CC Company , thatl show em you mean buisness
Posted by Jame$, 11-06-2006, 02:27 PM
That's the worst piece of advice I've ever heard..
Posted by dkitchen, 11-06-2006, 02:36 PM
Have you looked through the contract for a clause that would allow you to get out? There must be something in there for your safety or many people wouldn't sign ... Don't be stupid, commiting fraud isn't exactly going to put you in a good position to cancel your contract. Dan
Posted by sotonin, 11-06-2006, 02:46 PM
if they could have been easily fixed rackspace would of already done so. it's been months now and the only answers i get from them are confusion and throwing the blame elsewhere. They really have no clue what's going on.
Posted by steven-v, 11-06-2006, 04:25 PM
What is your domain name ? I cannot belive that is true. We have few boxes with them and it's top of the line service.
Posted by Tina J, 11-06-2006, 04:39 PM
First, running "idiot updates" (control panel initiated updates) as I like to call them is not always a good idea. Rackspace may have addressed any security issues outside of the control panel. Did you have problems with the server before you ran the updates? Do you have root access and have you been tweaking other things as well as the Plesk updates? Is Rackspace managing your server or are you? --Tina
Posted by pmabraham, 11-06-2006, 05:38 PM
Greetings sotonin: 1. Are these hardware crashes or crashes due to software conflicts? 2. Did rackspace.com provide you with the specifications of the server prior to your ordering the server? If so, how is the server underpowered. Is it not the very server you ordered / approved? 3. This can be frustrating almost everywhere you go. Rackspace.com provides managed services, but it is not "full" (complete; most are not). We've been using Horde for several years without problems; so, as you probably know, the issue goes beyond horde. But tracking down email problems may be outside the scope of a number of data center providers whose manage services are tighter around hardware than software. 4. What does Rackspace.com's managed services say about proactive management? 5. Did you bring this to their attention? 6. It is typically best if the people who cannot access can provide one to several trace routes from their machine / location to your server. Have you gotten those trace routes, and forwarded them to Rackspace.com's support team? 7. See #2. If Rackspace.com provided you with the hardware specifications, and you signed off on them... then you bought into what they sold you. Did you do home work as to whether the specifications they presented would meet your needs? Thank you.
Posted by Dave W, 11-06-2006, 05:59 PM
I have heard a few complaints about rackspace lately. For the price they charge they should be providing him with the type of support that they market. Do Not let them off the hook, Have you talked with your account rep about your issues? If you have and it is not getting you anywhere then you need to talk to management. Start applying a little pressure to this situation and see how they respond. It almost sounds as if you have let them get away with this type of treatment for too long. I would not have let any of the items that you have mentioned go for longer than a couple of days before I became a nightmare for them to deal with. You pay them "good money" to take care of these problems and they need to live up to the contractual obligation that they entered into with you. The problem with server management is that there is usually and out like "it's a bug in the software" or "we dont support 3rd party software". With rackspace this is NO EXCUSE, they pratically force you to conform to a package that they are trained to manage. For this reason you need to hold their feet to the fire, You are paying them to support an environment that they support! Go get some of that fanatical support. It's their job to fix the servers but it's your job to make sure that they do it.
Posted by sotonin, 11-06-2006, 06:11 PM
Dynamicnet 1. Are these hardware crashes or crashes due to software conflicts? -Not really sure, they didn't go into detail. 2. Did rackspace.com provide you with the specifications of the server prior to your ordering the server? If so, how is the server underpowered. Is it not the very server you ordered / approved? -I personally didnt order the machine. But from what i'm told rackspace assured them it would do perfect to meet our needs as a business. This is not true thus far. 3. This can be frustrating almost everywhere you go. Rackspace.com provides managed services, but it is not "full" (complete; most are not). We've been using Horde for several years without problems; so, as you probably know, the issue goes beyond horde. -Tell that to rackspace. They insist it's hordes fault. Of course they also admit they are clueless. But tracking down email problems may be outside the scope of a number of data center providers whose manage services are tighter around hardware than software. 4. What does Rackspace.com's managed services say about proactive management? -Im not sure what you mean on this? 5. Did you bring this to their attention? -Yes. they say they have to stay with older stuff because that's what their people are trained on. 6. It is typically best if the people who cannot access can provide one to several trace routes from their machine / location to your server. Have you gotten those trace routes, and forwarded them to Rackspace.com's support team? -No. The people who have called in are what you could call computer dummies. They are lucky to be able and find the start menu on their computers. We are an advertising company and we deal with a number of different types of people, including computer "challenged". 7. See #2. If Rackspace.com provided you with the hardware specifications, and you signed off on them... then you bought into what they sold you. Did you do home work as to whether the specifications they presented would meet your needs? -As answered above. The salesman sold it to the owner of the company assuring us it would meet our needs. Last edited by sotonin; 11-06-2006 at 06:15 PM.
Posted by RyanD, 11-06-2006, 06:48 PM
As for point #7 unfortuneatly that often the downside of being an "uneducated" buyer and relying on the sales person to sell you the solution rather than requesting pre-defined specifications. I would have your contract reviewed by your company's lawyer and look for a clause / loophole allowing you to gracefully exit the contract without financial penalties.
Posted by dysontech, 11-08-2006, 04:02 PM
I have a box with Rackspace and have never had an issue with them. I thought their contracts went month to month unless you chose to pay for the year in advance. They also have something in their marketing pieces that say something along the lines of 'we gurantee XX% uptime or we pay you'. Not sure where I saw that but it was one of the reasons I chose to give them a try.
Posted by marak, 11-09-2006, 01:28 PM
Hello, unfortunately, Rackspace has a reputation for stubborness in updated or different software/configs, and the only way to either get them to fix this, or let you out is to apply presure like Keepr said. Nobody from RS has responded yet, but I know that they get pretty embarrased when they see these posts, so public humiliation might help. Also, you might want to file a Better Business Bureau complaint to further that effort. Unfortunately, knowing RS, it will be hard if not impssible to find a loophole in the regular service contract, but you may able to use their SLA to say they made false claims about the level of service (uptime etc.). I'm terribly sorry that you are having this problem. (sigh). It seems that it's not Fanatical Support anymore, but Fanatical Sales....
Posted by ddosguru, 11-09-2006, 01:36 PM
If the hardware is to blame then you need to purchase a better server. It isn't Rackspace's fault that you choose not to purchase the necessary equipment to run your site with desired results.
Posted by HostTitan, 11-09-2006, 06:01 PM
Some of the problems seem to indicate you didn't order a powerful enough box. I'm sure Rackspace would let you upgrade for a fee to a more powerful one. That being said, some things may just be the effect of coming onboard initially. More often than not, when you first signup, it is the period of time when a lot of the troubleshooting is needed to get the box running exactly to your needs.
Posted by [XMS] Mike, 11-09-2006, 08:18 PM
Just like someone said, Rankspace is pretty reliable - if the hardware is what's causing the issues, it's time to upgrade.
Posted by OnlineRack, 11-10-2006, 12:10 AM
I have been using RackSpace as one of the two datacenters I have... I have to say, I rarely needed to call support, the few times I did (once was 4:00am) they were there to help me with stuff they did not even had to support. They actually called in two of their senior admins onsite and addressed the issue professionally. the next day I received a follow up call. RS really Rocks. I can tell you, I go to bed not worried about my servers hosted with RS.
Posted by wacko_cracko, 11-10-2006, 10:56 PM
I was browsing the forums and came across this post, I work at rackspace, albeit not in the linux team, however I felt I had to answer to this post, the views are totally mine and not of rackspace's! I am going to answer your questions as you asked them and if you wish I can give you a call on monday to see if we can get to the bottom of your problems. however I am a tech and so dont really know about how you would be able to get out of contract,in my honest opnion if what you are saying is true and the server is down due to a fault of rackspace,then due to the SLA being bound to your servers you should be getting quite a bit of credit for the downtime you have been experiencing,have a chatwith your AM regarding this. 1. The servers are usually monitored for ping and a few others webservices such as http, was theere a specific reason it took hours for the server to come back up? 2. With memory and im not a linux tech but i believe linux grabs all of the memory on the servers the best way to check how much free memory you actually have is to type free -m within the shell and whatever is being shown with buffers/cache free and used is the right figure. 3. Have you made any changes? Horde usually works quite well with attachments and if it is not being solved properly let me know of the ticket number and I will see what I can do. 4. Issues such as email being backlogged on your server, was this due to a service not running? or it was running and email was just backlogged, I am sure there are plenty of scripts out there which could monitor your queue to see if there are any emails waiting to be sent,the reason it would not be supported is because we would not be able to monitor and maintain it, its basically the difference between fully managed and colo, we do the middle part, we take care of the OS and will help/point you in the right direction for scripts such as the above monitoring. 5. The server is installed with the OS and all the related security patches applied with a subscription to rhn for any future updates via redhat,plesk is installed on top of this and obviously comes with a range of applications which have updates of their own, this is updates of plesk and applications and not of the base OS, These need to be maintained by the sysadmins who run the servers, obviously we will help with issues but there is no way for us to monitor and maintain every single update by plesk, as for the base plesk application we undergo our own compatibility testing before we release them, customers can upgrade but at their own risk. Most of the times you need to check if you actually need the extra functionality needed by the latest version if not I would advise waiting until we officially release and support it. 6. If its a few people unable to access the site I believe it would be an issue with their connection and there would be no way for us to fix this for them, I would ask the users who cannot access the site to submit a traceroute and a ping reply, and we can check where in the network the latency lies so you may contact the provider where the issue is. There is no way we would be able to control this since it lies outside of our network, however if there is a problem with our network, absolutely we will do everything we can to fix it. 7. Again if the site is running slowly, is the load on the server high? cpu stressing out? or is it due to the db? If it is due to any of these we can help you fix the issue however if it is more to do with your application you know this better than we do and you would need to have your developers take a look to see if there is a bug causing this. All of the issues you mentioned above, I do not believe would be fixed by just moving to another provider, if there are issues with the application they would remain, personally I would suggest speaking to your AM and getting either an upgrade or a new server built, leave the plesk version we support as long as you apply only those updates you should be fine and not try to install plesk 8. Updating other applications with plesk is also fine, just not the base plesk install. If you get a new server built you could migrate all of your data across,once you are happy the new server works as you want you can point the domains at the new server and we would remove the old server. as mentioned above if you do wish to leave I would get the contract checked and see any out clauses and take it from there. If you want to take this offline send me a PM with your account number and I can start chasing up some of your queries!!
Posted by sprintserve, 11-13-2006, 12:01 AM
If you have negotiated a term contract for lower pricing (rackspace is known to drop their costs in return for a 12 / 24 months contract), chances are you are stuck there for the term. No datacenter, Rackspace included, will guarantee that a particular site will work on a particular specification unless consultancy services is included in that.
Posted by NameSniper, 11-15-2006, 04:55 PM
For that money they could provide a better service
Posted by ~kev~, 11-15-2006, 06:50 PM
If the amount is less then $5,000 sue them in small claims court. It will cost you a whole 20 - 30 bucks and it will get their attention real quick. The expense of sending someone to your state to appear in front of a Justice of the Peace might be more then your hosting plan is worth to them. Whether you win or lose in small claims - it will still cost them a lot of money just to appear. If they do not appear, you win by default.
Posted by VPSHelp, 11-15-2006, 10:28 PM
Sorry, have to chime in on this one.. The complainer has to travel and file the claim in the city and state of the complaintee
Posted by thetimehascome, 11-16-2006, 09:43 PM
And it's also a great example of why you should not accept legal advice from a forum.
Posted by ~kev~, 11-16-2006, 09:57 PM
Call the justice of the peace in your county and ask them - laws do vary from state to state. If the JP says you can sue them, then so be it.
Posted by thetimehascome, 11-16-2006, 10:06 PM
A business offering services intra-state that has no business presence in another state, and which clearly outlines the venue in which legal relief should be sought has to have action brought in the state where they do have a business presence and provide the actual service except under very special, very exclusive conditions. So, better yet, if you are considering legal action, go read the terms of service the provider is operating under and to which you agreed, and then go contact A REAL ATTORNEY and do not rely on armchair lawyering from the peanut gallery on a forum like this.
Posted by Mitra, 11-20-2006, 05:45 PM
I'm sorry, but the customer that is complaining doesn't have a technical bone in his body. How can he tell if the problem is due to Rackspace, H-Sphere, or the fact that they decided to perform an automatic update on their own without consulting Rackspace? WHY would a non-technical company be performing software updates? Were the problems there BEFORE the updates were done? I've been around a while.. .it sounds like the customer hosed up the box, didn't involve Rackspace, and is now mad because Rackspace can't fix what they broke. Furthermore, HORDE is not something that Rackspace supports! ! ! ! The customer added it to the server, the server broke, and they are mad at Rackspace? Give me a friggin break! This customer is not providing an example of Rackspaces service. I've been with them for two years now and they are definitely the best out there. I too have a Plesk box and it runs great. This guy needs stop being so cheap and hire a technical person to handle this stuff for him.
Posted by mripguru, 11-20-2006, 09:30 PM
Horde is part of Plesk, so by that definition - they should "fanatically" support it.
Posted by Biju, 11-21-2006, 06:30 AM
indeed he is correct.
Posted by John Stevens, 11-25-2006, 02:34 PM
Can you find out why? You could have the fastest box in the world but if you do a multitable undexed join with millions of colums, the server, no matter how big is will crash. Is your code sh*t? There is a php memory limit. Has that been up'ed for large attachments? This would only occur if you send out lots of emails or you recieve a lot of spam. Maybe your hostname isnt resolvable in DNS? Say rackspace proactivally do updates. An example -you have a billlion dollar site and your server gets patched but php released changes and intern it took down your site? How are they meant to know what server applications your code depend on? Maybe if you tell em some decent information, they'll be able to help? Sounds like you cocked up your DNS? See point 2. I'm sure if you yell loud enough, they'll churn you. I hope they do - sounds like you just wasting their time and given that I host with them, I dont want them working on issues on your server as you clearly need your own IT support.
Posted by Dave W, 11-25-2006, 04:49 PM
John Quit being a troll, The problem is that Rackspace offers solutions for customer like the OP who are not "Server Administrators". This means it is their responsibility to make sure that everything will be ok within reason.
Posted by John Stevens, 11-25-2006, 09:35 PM
Sorry mate, I disagree with you. I totally agree that the attachment email issue is their fault. I'd really push this with the account rep. Regarding points 2,3,5 and 7 of the first point. Hey you can buy a brand new car but if you over rev the car as you dont know how to change gears correctly and blow the motor, is it the manufactures fault? Clearly the support hasnt been extremely fanatical as I would expect that they would have identified performance issues (as they have for me in the past) but the initial poster needs to take responsibility for code issues and clearly they do not want to.
Posted by sunray69, 12-01-2006, 05:54 PM
Did you ever get a written copy of your contract signed by rackspace ? We are clients since 2 months and we never got this copy... We just got threatened from them after a phone conversation with my AM. Strong phone conversation but still polite. Another manager (I presume) wrote us an email that if this kind of phone conversation happens again they will simply terminate our account ! They even propose us to terminate the contract by ourselves if we want... I am just very surprised of this way of doing... If any Rackspace (other than AM or Customer Manager, I mean someone at a upper level) wants to PM me, I have all written proves of that.
Posted by Mitra, 12-01-2006, 06:21 PM
I must have missed something. What was the threat about? Are you paying your bill? Was was the point of contention?
Posted by sunray69, 12-01-2006, 06:34 PM
The threat is rackspace nightmare and it s not about unpaid bill...
Posted by sunray69, 12-01-2006, 06:37 PM
The point was about Plesk 8 they promised they would fully support upon sign up but after sign up the scenario is quite different. Some sales rep would do / promise anything for you to sign a contract... This is why we got angry...
Posted by Mitra, 12-02-2006, 06:51 PM
Interesting... what won't they support? I have a Plesk box 7.5.3 with them (have for 2+ years) and it works fine. Did you ask for Linux or Windows? Plesk on Windows is a dog... What specifically won't they do for you?
Posted by John Stevens, 12-03-2006, 07:34 AM
I've heard once that Rackspace cancelled a customer who swore and threatened physical abuse to their support staff and the accounts staff. Maybe thats why they said that they will terminate you? I think they also record phone conversations at rackspace. Why dont you just leave them if they are such a nightmare. Also, you have to sign a written contact before you join and post or fax it to them so I cannot see how it is possible that you do not have contact. Last edited by John Stevens; 12-03-2006 at 07:42 AM.
Posted by whmcsguru, 12-03-2006, 12:58 PM
When it comes down to it, Rackspace is ONLY responsible for the hardware and Linux OS. If there's a problem THERE, then yes, they must fix it. If the problem, however is that you need a bigger/beefier box, they are not responsible for providing you with that for no charge. Common sense there, come on. Did you contact THEM to find out why it was down, or did you just sit there waiting for them to do their jobs? This is an incorrect assessment of your server being "underpowered". Linux has a different method of freeing memory than Windows does. It's NOT uncommon to see linux claiming 90-100% memory usage within a few days of bootup. Why? Because it cache's it out differently, and doesn't really free up memory when it's not needed. yes, it's a bit different, but there is nothing that throwing more memory at it will do. Rackspace, again is NOT responsible for 3rd party services such as horde, imp, bluetooth, whateverapplicationisontheserveritself. You are. You're responsible for updating them, and making sure they work. Now, if you had a problem sending attachments OUTSIDE of webmail (ie: through a real mail client), then it would be different, and they should have had that fixed. Horde, though, isn't their fault. You should be contacting either horde, or plesk itself. Here, I agree, because I've seen this one many times. Unfortunately they will not operate on updated or up to date software. Once you've got your server it's required to remain at whatever version it is and never be updated, period, or they won't work on it. This is YOUR fault/responsibility, not theirs. Something inside of your code is causing things to run slow and sluggish, NOT the server. This could be anything from massive query counts to trying to load images off of slow servers. In general though, this is not something that rackspace is responsible for handling. All in all, it's not surprising that people are coming up with these reports. Rackspace says "we'll do this", but in fact doesn't. The only way out of a contact like that is to get them to NOT provide the service they say they're going to. If they don't, then they're failing on their end. However, even that is tricky to do. Chargebacks are an illegal way of doing things and will, in fact get your server shut off quicker than anything.
Posted by tservecouk, 12-03-2006, 04:18 PM
I think it would be possible to get out of this legally as you have not paid for this, Im not sure how it would work for you but i would go to my local citizens advice borough. good luck bud
Posted by lxserverdirect, 12-03-2006, 04:40 PM
i would take action and go along the lines for failing to meet the contract due to support and advertisement requirements.
Posted by John Stevens, 12-03-2006, 05:17 PM
But thats kinda like saying, hey, I want the stability of RHEL (because software versions within RHEL does not change) but I want to be on the bleeding edge with the latest best whatchamacallit. I used to be a sysadd for a university that ran slackware with no package management. It was a nightmware to debug because its so hard to know what packages are linking with what libraries - its so symbiotic. You have to draw the line somewhere and I guess that is why they highly advise sticking with the RHEL packages that come with the version of RHEL on your server.
Posted by TieuDieuTu, 12-03-2006, 06:41 PM
Yeah I can see both sides of the issue. You should be able to upgrade to the latest versions to patch up any security holes/bugs you may have. But the latest versions does not always mean the most stable version.
Posted by leckley, 12-03-2006, 06:56 PM
I'm very sorry that you are having trouble with rackspace and your server, but I know from my work with my own business that it is next to impossible to support all updated versions of everything a customer could ever possibly want. One reason why we no longer offer full managed servers. No matter how big our support team got, we were never able to keep up with it all. I know that charge backs have been suggested as a way to get out of the contract, and that I do feel would be completely foolish. Yes, it will probably get you out of the contract, but if they feel they would have made allot more money than the cost to sue, then you might be in for a much bigger nightmare. So very bad option. I know from working with my customers, many of them want out of contracts early, do to limitations on their end, going out of business, or just feel they don’t want the server anymore. I would suggest contacting your account manager and being very polite and professional and ask for to be released from the contract. I know if I get a client that needs out, speaking to us polite and professional will do the trick. You may also ask if you can pay a percentage of total money they would earn to be let out of the contract, sounds absurd, but may be your best bet. Lastly if none of that makes any headway then I would begin to file a complaint with the better business borough and even call them and ask for advice. Secondly, call the attorney general of your state and speak with him about everything that has happened, it is his job to help straighten things out in times like this. And if they are doing something that violates you or the contract he is then responsible to investigate and fight on your behalf. You may scoff at my suggestions, but after being in the business I can only speak from experience. I have had my share of nightmares with datacenters. I never worked with rackspace, but all the ones I have worked with, work the same. I hope you are able to find a solution to this awful mess. Good Luck, Lane
Posted by benoitb, 12-03-2006, 08:49 PM
This is a first, interesting story.
Posted by Mitra, 12-04-2006, 12:33 AM
I think we can see from the messages in this thread that the customer did not make an educated purchase when shopping for hosting. This has nothing to do with Rackspace... I would say the same thing if you were talking about EV1, hostmysite, godaddy or whomever else. I'm sorry that you've had problems with your server but it sounds like you don't have the staff needed to deploy or support your own content. This is NOT the fault of Rackspace. Sadly, you signed a contract. Legally you have to honor that contract. Based on what I've read Rackspace has done what they are supposed to do and any help trying to troubleshoot your email/horde issue is something above and beyond the service they provide. Plain and simple, Rackspace has industry awards for both customer service AND technical competence. If I were Judge Judy I'd be ruling in favor on Rackspace based on the evidence provided here. Best of luck.
Posted by Mitra, 12-04-2006, 12:39 AM
One more thing... I've read several posts where somone said that Rackspace won't let you upgrade or that they sell old software. Two words for anyone that says that: Bull Poop. My server with them was initally on RH3. A few months after I started I upgraded to RH4 when it came out. It required a new server, but I was fine with that and knew how to plan for such a migration. No problems at all. One of the reasons I went to RH4 is that at that time Rackspace already had a ton of RH4 certified techs on staff. So quit hatin' on false information.
Posted by Mitra, 12-04-2006, 12:41 AM
After reading this it doesn't sound as I intended. I didn't need new hardware, I just had to go through a server rebuild. Same hardware, new clean o/s install.
Posted by layer0, 12-04-2006, 01:46 AM
thats a safe way to do it but not necessarily the easiest...upgrades from 3 to 4 are not that complex, many admins can do it
Posted by Mitra, 12-04-2006, 04:06 PM
Agreed. I was given the choice of upgrading or reinstalling from scratch. I went with the re-install to ensure that I had a nice clean system. :-)
Posted by transcend, 12-07-2006, 07:25 AM
I don't want to sound like I'm bashing the OP, but I have to agree here. The OP is complaining that there server is not functioning to their desires, yet does not seem particularly technically competent, and does not seem to have a competent sysadmin working on his system. Is it reasonable to expect ANY web hosting provider to be able to read the minds of a tech-unsavvy client, proactively configure the server to meet all of the needs of whatever they decide to install, be ready for their customer to upgrade software to unsupported versions then complain when it's not working, etc. etc.? There's no provider on earth who can meet those expectations, and even if he were released from his contract today, I'm sure he'd be just as unhappy at his new provider. To the OP: Hire a competent sysadmin. If anyone at Rackspace claimed that they will perform all systems administration functions for you at no cost, and replace the need for a competent sysadmin, then they lied to you, and you need to bring this up to your Account Manager... something tells me that that is not the case, however. Do you honestly think that a hosting provider can provide you with a server, bandwidth, hardware and OS support, AND provide full-time, 24/7 (competent) sysadmin services for $500/month? I understand that you may have had some bad experiences, and are frustrated, but don't you think that perhaps at least a LITTLE of the responsibility for running your server lies with you, rather than with your web host?
Posted by Nature-Talk, 12-08-2006, 04:10 PM
I have no opinion on this certain case, but it raises questions perhaps some would be willing to address. What is the appropriate professional way to get truly fully managed hosting? Everybody tosses those words around with so many different meanings that the kind of person who needs a fully managed server is soon quite confused. Your grandma needs a dedicated server for her popular quilting site. How can she get a service that won't someday be telling her she needs to install the latest version of Patch 8.34 of the kernel upgrade control panel module on node 7.2, unless the A record indicates a system failure in which case it would be better to run the cronxttpb protocol thingy? :-)
Posted by albertahosting, 12-08-2006, 04:51 PM
Our opinion of Fully Managed means the client can focus on their core business and not worry about hardware and OS management issues. We also assist them with choosing software that will work with the set up they have chosen. We do not take responsibility for the software if it is bad, but we do make the effort to assist the client so that that they have peace of mind about their server. This level of service is possible when you are focused on the clients you have now, and are not advertising to every bozo with a website trying to grab every client on the internet like RackSpace is doing. And please note that we provide this level of service, PROFITABLY, at one HALF the price of RackSpace. So what is RackSpace doing wrongg???
Posted by Nature-Talk, 12-08-2006, 05:39 PM
Thanks Alberta. Would you, or perhaps others here, like to share the wording you use to explain "fully managed" on your sites? A link to the descriptions, or put the quotes here, whatever works for you would be great. It seems like the challenge is defining the dividing line between the responsibilities of both host and client. One way hosts do this is by listing what they will do as part of management. Ok, cool. Except that the kind of folks who need managed servers probably have no idea at all what the list means. Thus, list is often worthless, imho. Personally, I would prefer the opposite. That is, tell me you will do *everything*, except the following items, 1, 2, 3 etc. As the client, I need to know just what it is I have to do, have or learn in order to have my own server.
Posted by BillyT, 12-08-2006, 06:42 PM
I'm highly skeptical of the authenticity of this original post, it seems carefully manufactured to slime rackspace. I've been with rackspace for a good while and find it hard to believe you are talking about the same company I do business with. I've never done business with a company like rackspace (hosting or otherwise), I find the level of service and support from them to be nothing short of astonishing. Forgive me but some guy with 4 posts sliming rackspace when I know dozens of people enjoying top notch services from rackspace.. well.. I just don't buy it.. Even if this is true sounds like this guy keeps shooting himself in the foot and screwing up his server.. it's known rackspace is on plesk 7.5 and they advise against auto updating to plesk8 etc. Sounds like Rackspace will want to be the one who breaks this supposed contract with you, who needs clueless users screwing up servers and laying blame on someone else?
Posted by whmcsguru, 12-08-2006, 07:39 PM
You can be as "skeptical" as you want. When it comes down to it, I've seen rackspace pull the VERY stunts that have been described here. From saying "Oh, you've modified the system" to saying "We don't support xxx thirdparty app" to not updating their own systems. This is not a surprise, and is incredibly poor management on their behalf. With true "fully managed" hosting, there is no line, thusly no challenge. Anything that stipulates "you must manage anything (and I mean anything) server related" is NOT fully managed, it is partially managed. The glass is either full or empty, there is no halfway-fully managed, there is no 3/4-fully managed, it is full or empty in this case. Unfortunately most providers falsely advertise "fully managed" hosting, and don't provide "fully managed". Now this doesn't mean the "management company" has to support the end user's users, that's pushing it. In that case, yes, the problem must be resolved by the individual being paid to do so. Because terms forbid posting links to my own websites, outside of advertisements or signaturesI can't post the link to my website, stating what "fully managed" is, but if you take a look in my signature, you can see it's one click away . Rackspace is simply charging people for a name, that's ALL their charging for. Fools buy it on a daily basis, thinking it's better than other things out there. In fact, it's not. For management, these guys are the worst. I've seen WHT down for HOURS for "hardware problems" when RS is supposed to resolve these things immediately. I've seen them complain because someone was denying pings to the server, and refuse to do any work on the server because of this. I've seen them pull a LOT of silly, nasty tricks, and in the end they still charge an arm and a leg for what they do.
Posted by BillyT, 12-08-2006, 07:54 PM
Rackspace is simply charging people for a name, that's ALL their charging for." Well I'll be damned, all that uptime and stellar service has been a figment of my imagination all this time. wow. As for fully managed no host in their right mind would 'fully manage'. a line must be drawn and rackspace draws it clear as day, it's in the freaking contract if anyone is too stupid to ignore that then oh well. Oh and next time you want to bash another host try doing it with no sig full of your hosting products,, you are a joke.
Posted by Jame$, 12-08-2006, 08:27 PM
Yea, sides to their services which seem not as convincing as they make out to be, but they still maintain a very high level of service and support. If rackspace is incredibly poor, what about the rest of us? You are out of line. Frankly, after reading your post, I'd never want to buy hosting from you.
Posted by whmcsguru, 12-08-2006, 08:37 PM
You are correct Uptime: ANY provider can provide that, and there are quite honestly those that provide it at MUCH lower rates. In the past 6 months, I've had a total of (maybe) an hour of downtime with provider A. This is fine and acceptable, most of which was network maintainance In the past 2 months, I have had ZERO downtime with provider B, none at all. I'd love to say longer, but I can't, because I haven't been with them longer than that. The total cost for provider A+B? Less than 1/2 the cost of one of those overpriced, overhyped rackspace servers. Service: How is "You upgraded your OS for security reasons, so we refuse to work on your server" in the remote bit "Service" ??? Please tell, and before you start going on and on about "It's a lie", keep in mind that I myself have seen this, others have posted in other threads the SAME thing. So, it's clearly NOT a lie, they just refuse to support servers that they manage. Better yet: How is hours of downtime for hardware problems great "service"? Again, please, tell. WHT has been kept down for hours on end by RS "service" people who have no clue what they're doing, or the very same clue that an ev1 , softlayer, theplanet tech has. The difference? Of course, they're CHARGING you for downtime now. Even better: Rackspace claims to "fully manage" their own servers, yet refuses to update said servers for years on end. True story: Last summer I went into a server cluster of rackspace which had servers from redhat 8 to redhat 9 to RHEL2, NONE of which had been updated in years. We're talking kernel issues, security fixes, all had flat out been ignored. Of course there was no reason for this, other than lazyness. The RH servers (not rhel) should have (and could have) been upgraded to CentOS 3.x at minimum, which could have been done by countless competent admins without a second of downtime (sans reboots), but they chose NOT to. Why? Is this the "service" you speak of? No, it's ignorance, and it's piss poor "server management" on their end, nothing more. Again, on the same servers, the "server managers" had BOTh binary AND rpm versions of many things, and init scripts pointing to both. Good "server management" ? No, it wasn't, and in the end it just led to chaos and confusion, hardly decent "service" there. I could go on and on about the horror stories at RS, but won't. Incorrect.. To draw a line is to lie about services. Take a look at the two words here, by dictionary terms. There are multiple definitions for managed, but the one that suits best is here: Do these defiinitions indicate anything stating FULLY is less than 100%? No, they don't. So, if an individual is not taking care of servers 100%, they are not "fully managing" their servers, end of statement. Terms be damned, if they claim something they're NOT doing, it's called fraud, plain and simple. According to the ENGLISH DICTIONARY , fully managed means just that, 100% supervised/watched over/managed/taken care of. You can claim "Oh, you're bashing someone", but it's not the fact. I'm stating truths, plain and simple. The only one bashing anyone here would be you in your cheap attempts to accuse me of advertising. Actually, it's just the opposite. I'm very much IN line. I don't go around accusing people blindly of things, I don't say "hey, this is great service" when it's in fact absolute and total crap, I don't cover things up. If honesty makes you not want to by hosting from someone, then you need to re-think your gameplan. I'm not "trashing" anyone here, I'm simply stating a VERY technical and real experience with rackspace, as opposed to the all too typical " I'm highly skeptical of the authenticity of this original post". Just because YOU haven't seen it personally does NOT mean it hasn't happened, or it WON'T happen. In the end, Rackspace may be a decent bandwidth provider, but they are NOT 100% connectable, nor do they provide 100% management. If they did, then this issue wouldn't have come up in the first place, now would it have? You don't have to take it from just ME, there are others in this (and many other rackspace threads) who have said the very same thing. So, is everyone else wrong, or is it the handful of fanboys who can't stand the truth to be spread about their favorite company?
Posted by BillyT, 12-08-2006, 08:51 PM
lol "stating truths" yes, everything on the web is true, especially on WHT where 100's of hosting companies are vying for power, recognition and sales. Back in a few mins I have to go feed my pet Chupacabra -yes I know many think I could not possibly have a pet chupacabra but they are misinformed and all they need to do is ask the other 100's of folks on the net who have pet Chupacabras.
Posted by Nature-Talk, 12-08-2006, 08:56 PM
As example, let's imagine I have a website about widgets in a shared hosting account. Let's say I know how to make my web pages, and upload them via FTP. And I can check my mail. :-) And that's it! To continue the fantasy, my widget website just got the cover story review in Time Magazine, and the widget craze is taking off. My traffic is exploding. They've kicked me off the shared hosting account, and told me I need a dedicated server. I am waaaay to busy filling orders for widgets to learn anything more about the Web than what I already know. Who wants to sell me a fully managed server, in terms I can actually understand?
Posted by whmcsguru, 12-08-2006, 08:56 PM
Before you accuse someone of LYING, you'd better actually make sure they are. ALL of what I said here can be verified, and has been said by many other people, both in this thread and others. Again, stop trashing posts simply to get your post count up. To answer that would be to break WHT rules. You're not allowed to ask for servers, and we're not allowed to advertise them outside of forums. As far as terms that are understood, it's very simple: FULLY managed means just that, 100% managed and cared for. Now this doesn't mean your website should be debugged by the admin, as THAT is not server side, that is programming side, there is a difference. Neither, does this mean that your customers should be able to come to the "manager" for support, that's USER management. Of course, if either of the last two involve compiling something into php, apache, etc, then yes, this falls into server management. There are no lines, a fully managed server means that anything server related is managed by the admin. Anyone saying differently is simply trying to sell you "partially managed" services under a false pretense. Last edited by whmcsguru; 12-08-2006 at 09:01 PM.
Posted by Nature-Talk, 12-08-2006, 09:03 PM
Linux-tech, I'm with you on this part. Fully should mean fully. Period. If a server's not FULLY managed, then Ok no problem, hosts should just call it something else. Too many clever little games with language result in nobody believing anybody about anything, and then all communication grinds to a halt.
Posted by narcis010, 12-09-2006, 07:42 AM
Here it is my experience with rackspace, I've been with them for 1 year and a half: The sales person said "yes" to anything in order I signed the contract. I finally signed for a MONTH-TO-MONTH contract once server covered my need at a reasonable price. I started moving the sites, and to ensure they offered a managed service I stopped apache. Guess it... Nobody restarted it (they did not even login to that server). I opened a ticket complaining about the issue. They said the monitoring service was not set up on the server and they started it. They even sent me some presents (T-Shirts, USB memory, etc.). In two months they offered me an annual contract offering me more features for the same price. Three months later I signed for an annual contract. Four months ago I renewed that contract again for a lower fee (It is very fair from ther side as server was getting older). I was quite happy with them, the majority of the issues were solved properly (with some exceptions). BUTTTT.... Since June-July '06 I've noticed support is not as good as it used to be. Our sites had grown (but our server should be able to handle traffic). Problems we are having now are more complex and Rackspace IS NOT ABLE TO SOLVE THEM. The only advice they tell me is to upgrade to a larger and more expensive server. What I've done is moving largest sites to a smaller managed hosting provider. I have the same server specifications than in rackspace, but they have optimized servers and load is much lower. They don't even give us root access. Now I feel that I really have a fully managed server (at least by now). I'll move from rackspace in the next few months. SO, HERE THEY ARE SOME OF MY CONCLUSIONS ABOUT RACKSPACE: 1- They are a good hosting provider if you have managed requirements. But not if you need a fully managed service. You can get a very similar rackspace service getting an EV1 server with plesk and installing 4PSA Server Assistant, really. Hire someone to patch server evey X months. 2- They do not act in a proactive way. In last months apache hangs and qmail stops processing mails. But as pings to that services still respond they do nothing. Fortunatelly 4PSA Server Assistant advises us! 3- Support is not bad. Forget about Fanatical. If a service doesn't work properly, most of the times they just restart it. Most of the times they just try to close ticket as soon as possible. Fortunately, sometimes I've also found really good technicians THAT REALLY SOLVE PROBLEMS (but there are a few!). 4- In my oppinion, assessment is not good as it should be. The solution for the is ALWAYS upgrade to something larger or faster: larger ram, larger cpu, faster hdd, etc. Don't they know optimization also exists? 5- If you have Plesk, they do not have any real solution to fight spam (except you pay more). We've finally ended installing some thirth antivirus and antispam software even it is not supported. They do not support greylisting, it's thirth party software, you know... That's one of the main reasons we want to move. 6- I think something has changed into rackspace. In last months service level has dropped significantly. It is just a sensation. It is like they are too big. So, Rackspace is a good provider. But, definitly, I do not get enough for what I pay every month. My advice, search a little and you'll find better providers for a fraction of the cost.
Posted by BillyT, 12-11-2006, 03:32 PM
My experience with Rackspace. Going on a year now. At first everything was super, but yes lately it has become a quagmire. My server is constantly down and eventhough I have their top monitoring plan they never know when it's down! I am on the phone to their techs day after day and they have no idea what's wrong! They just reboot and things run ok but then grind to a halt and crash, I am livid at this stage because I pay 700 a month for this! I'm currently investigating other hosts so I can move sites. I will never be fooled by marketing ploys again or any host boasting about their uptime. Lesson learned ugh. *The above is total bollox, just wanted to show how easy it is for any anonymous joker to come in here and slam rackspace. I'v actually been with them for almost a year and have never had better. Some here say that my 100% uptime and amazing support are all a figment of my imagination.. puuulheeeez... If I see yet another 1st time poster bashing rackspace I think I'll puke. What a joke..
Posted by whmcsguru, 12-11-2006, 04:01 PM
Just because YOU haven't seen it doesn't mean it's not true. Again, STOP trying to accuse people of lying when you don't know the full details about what is going on.
Posted by pakua, 12-11-2006, 04:49 PM
I hosted with Rackspace a few years ago and I thought it was really good. Have they went downhill or something?
Posted by Jame$, 12-11-2006, 05:00 PM
It's not going downhill because of a few cases...
Posted by pakua, 12-11-2006, 05:03 PM
There will always be some complainers, but I was surprised to see the number of complaints out there against them. Do you think it's because they have a ton of customers and its just a normal percentage of complaints or are they really starting to suck?
Posted by Jame$, 12-11-2006, 05:25 PM
Some clients I'm sure did have bad service, but that is expected with any company. Some people just whine for absolute no reason because RackSpace has a good name and status in the industry Sure, if I had the money I'd love to host with them.
Posted by Nature-Talk, 12-11-2006, 07:39 PM
You know what might be interesting? A completely independent review panel these reports could be submitted to. Not just for Rackspace, but for any prominent host. At least one of the reasons service is not always what we might hope at any of the hosts is that just as it's easy to complain, it's easy to dismiss the complainers as nuts. Suppose it wasn't so easy to complain? Suppose nobody would take your complaint seriously unless you paid some fee and submitted your complaint to the independent review board? Suppose it wasn't so easy to blow off complainers? How might that impact your hosting experience if a review board was in place to verify some of these claims? Most of these incidents are documented in tickets. No review would ever be perfect, but some points of fact could indeed be established. Personally, I'm coming to the conclusion that the search for the perfect host is largely illusion, and the trick is to be nibble on one's feet, and prepared to move as the need arises.
Posted by narcis010, 12-12-2006, 11:09 AM
I haven't said Rackspace is not a good provider, in fact I say the oposite. However, if you have some minimal hosting management skills you can get a similar service for a lower price with other hosts. False? Well... It's your choice to belive it or not. But I think this information is worth for many future customers.
Posted by borghunn, 12-12-2006, 12:03 PM
Since when you are Rackspace lawyer and the judge of WHT members? If you are happy with their services, you are welcome to tell us your point of view, to share your experince. We don't argue that you recive a good service from Rackspace, and generaly people said that Rackspace is a decent company, but they are making mistackes, and they aren.t the answer for every hosting needs. By presenting all the good and bad reviews about Rackspace, the potential coustomers of Rackspace will be beter informed and will be able to negotiate better. We don't say don't go to Rackspace, we say read the contract and make shore you don't make the same mistackes we did. Hope you'll see the diference.
Posted by VPSHelp, 12-12-2006, 12:45 PM
Yup! One important rule of thumb to remember is: Just because the "Said Company" is good for you, doesn't mean the "Said Company" is good for everyone.
Posted by John Stevens, 12-14-2006, 12:49 AM
The level of optimization that you can do with a Plesk box is negligible. Wow, you renice processes, remove unsued apache modules, tweek apache 2 and buffers in mysql. Its not gona help if you have poor code that uses a database that with a really bad design. Plesk's qmail doesnt come with greylisting. You can use a perl script and chattr the xinetd files to achive this however it doesnt scale too well. You can alternatively recompile qmail however I havent been able to get this to work reliably. If you stick with Plesk, your best bet is to add one or two rbl zones to your MAPS setup within Plesk and the use as many as you can in your SA configuration. This will provide you with great spam protection whilst keeping your SMTP server responsive. Also, you know you can train spam assasin within Plesk? I always here people complaining about spam in Plesk and they're just too lazy to tell Plesk what is spam and what isnt. Its not too hard you know? Also, who are you moving to?
Posted by John Stevens, 12-14-2006, 12:53 AM
Mate, you shared your opinion, now why dont you let other people share theirs?
Posted by John Stevens, 12-14-2006, 01:16 AM
If I was working at Rackspace I reckon while working on issues, it would involve spending half the time figuring out what the hell the customer was running on his box, how it was integrated with one another. It would be like picking up a rubix cube, solving it, before even getting to the issue at hand. And this would be someone that is RHCE, SCSA just to name a few with a lot of hosting experience. If I was working there, I reckon I would get a few calls from irate customers saying that their website was down and after figuring out that they were running lighthttp and not apache I would probably say to them, hey I'm trying to help but I have no idea how this works, you havent told me you had this on your box so I'm gona have to go away and try and figure this out. You were talking about the "stunts" that rackspace pulled. You ever tell them what you were running? How it worked? Services? Ports? I guess I know the answer to that one. You know you can actually document stuff running on your box at Rackspace? Why doesnt anyone use that? I mean like if I was working there and someone with supa ober crazy config called in and even documented the most basic details... I mean gezzs, I'd google, RTFM and fix it. I wouldnt have to spend a half an hour figuring out what the hell was running thats for sure. I did have a look at your site and your definition of "fully managed". All I can say is goodluck.
Posted by narcis010, 12-14-2006, 08:17 AM
I agree, you've got to be very careful not breaking Plesk. However, I did myself some optimization (finally I also found a great Rackspace technician that optimized som other settings). Having applied some simple optimization settings I've saved a good deal of money moving to a new server. John I've tried everything to fight spam: Spamassassin modules in Plesk (absolutely horrible), MAPS, 4PSA Spamguardian, Spam learning. But we recieve so much spam that Spamassassin is taking lots of resources, and there are too many emails that pass it. There is a great how to in sw-soft forum about adding greylisting (read comments as there is something that must be changed in order it works properly). However, Rackspace does not support it in Plesk. Although they recognize it works really fine (everybody does). Not sure at all... maybe ev1 or softlayer. But I'm a litlle afraid of ev1 server disconnections of over 24 hour telling people their server is under investigation. Anyway I have a server with them for over 2 years and I'm happy with it. Regarding softlayer I've heard they've had a network outage some months ago. Last edited by narcis010; 12-14-2006 at 08:22 AM.
Posted by John Stevens, 12-14-2006, 11:49 PM
Another idea is to get Rackspace to upgrade your Plesk to 8.1 as I think that they have just released it. Plesk 8 has support for SPF filtering. There are two types of greylisting with Plesk / qmail. One is a perl script that is placed within the xinetd smtp service (however you loose the ability to change MAPS / SFP if you use it as the files need to be chattred. It also doesnt scale with high volumes of incoming email). The second is to recompile and patch qmail however the patch is only available for the version of qmail within Plesk 8. What I'd suggest is first asking to upgrade to Plesk 8.1 and turn on SPF with MAPS / SA with rules de jour, and cf files from all RBL sites. Then ask them to use the qmail perl script. Im sure they'll charge to recompile qmail however while its not in their policy, if you are nice enough and dont mind waiting a bit, I'm sure they'll set up the perl script based greylisting for you. Let me know how you go
Posted by Scott.Mc, 12-15-2006, 08:11 AM
I am sorry but I have to disagree with this. Any good SA should know after a few minutes what's running within a few seconds, if lighttpd/apache is being used you should be able to tell immediately. Having a RHCE doesn't qualify you for hosting as it's an entirely different world. I understand the point you were trying to make however the way you said it is totally wrong, any competant SA should be able to diagnose and resolve problems extremely quickly. There are obviously separate one off occasions when it may take a tad longer but those are special cases only. From experience with rackspace they throw the line that they do not support X+Y or it was the customers fault all to often and many of the times they are simply incorrect because the "tech" was simply to lazy or busy. For upgrades they take a long time before they are applied, take the 2.6 kernel prctl() local user to root, a PoC was published on July 6th, Rackspace didn't apply a patch for this until September 20th(which was to schedule a reboot on September 25th), the patch applied was a redhat kernel released in August. There were many quick fixes available which could have been applied, none were. In my book this is a critical vulnerability and 3 months simply doesn't cut it. Don't get me wrong rackspace are obviously good at what they do but in terms of do you get what you pay for, anyone who is fairly confident in operating their own systems will quite quickly realize that is not the case at rackspace. People batter on about the network(many of them have never even used rackspace), the network is great in terms of uptime (regardless of a London outage or not, it's still great), but for the price you can run in 2 entirely separate networks and have better fail overs than what rackspace can ever provide you. Many of the posts about rackspace are from other hosts and people who have never used rackspace, both good and bad. The ones which actually have used Rackspace should be able to tell you both sides, you will either love rackspace as they are exactly what you need or you will not. Myself is included in this statement, I am obviously biased because I am an SA, as always I find when reading rackspaces response to customers(before they have a SA look) most of them make you wonder what the response would be if they showed alittle knowledge of what was going on and not relying entirely on the host. Sorry to bore you The point is, Rackspace is great for some people and just simply isn't worth it for others. -Scott
Posted by narcis010, 12-16-2006, 12:37 PM
Here it is the problem. Rackspace still doesn't support Plesk 8.x upgrades.... So rackspace customers are stick to Plesk 7.5.4... Regarding greylisting, I talked about it to them but the only answer was that greylisting is great but they do not recommend it for servers using plesk. They haven't seen any greylisting installation working fine on Plesk(?!?!?!?!?!). That simple. I told if I could install myself, but they told me they would not support it and if something went wrong they cannot grant they can solve it. That is why we're considering to move. Rackspace support is not as good as it used to be (I opened an emergency ticket and it took 45 minutes to respond!, it was something really simple to solve) and they do not provide solutions to common problems... something which I believe if they were as good as they claim to be they sould.
Posted by Mitra, 12-18-2006, 06:43 PM
45 minutes? What was the issue? Were you down? If so, did you only post a ticket or did you call after 15 minutes? Emergency response should only be 15 minutes of waiting...
Posted by Mitra, 12-18-2006, 06:48 PM
This simply isn't realistic. No single company, Rackspace or other, can support every application out there on the Linux platform, nevermind Windows or any other platform. There are thousands of applications that users can choose from. There isn't a single company that will Fully Manage everything. That's like looking for a restaurant that will cook anything. Wait a minute.. you are contradicting yourself. I thought you said "FULLY managed means just that, 100% managed and cared for." Code is not management? Make up your mind... I'm confused.
Posted by narcis010, 12-19-2006, 05:51 AM
Hi sn1per, I prefer not to disclose details. However I can say you it was something really easy, other times it took me 30 seconds to solve.
Posted by narcis010, 12-19-2006, 07:08 AM
jeje onthenet... Then why paying for managed hosting if I have to search for even another admin company to check the server? I agree, rackspace is a good company. The problem is value of money.
Posted by Mitra, 12-19-2006, 11:04 AM
Hi narcis, Not knowing if you were down is somewhat important to me personally since it justifies the severity of your issue. It may have been an easy fix for you since you know the app, but if you weren't down hard (site unavailably, db connections failing) I can see why your request may have been passed over for more urgent customer issues. After all, Rackspace has more than 10,000 customers now so techs surely need to prioritize which tickets they handle first. Was the quick fix o/s related, app related, or code related? The answer really makes a difference as to whether or not Rackspace is dropping the ball or not. Just my $0.02.
Posted by John Stevens, 12-30-2006, 11:55 AM
why not? what are you afriad of by sharing this information?
Posted by clarason, 01-03-2007, 07:28 AM
Uhm...I realize noone wants to believe that Rackspace could be as bad as the original poster wants to believe, but I've got to say I totally believe him because I have had a very similar experience recently with them. We've been leasing a dedicated server from Rackspace since 1999. In 2004 we had a crash at which time they restored our data because we had Raid. In 2004 apparently they took out the Raid card and didn't tell us. Now over the holiday we've had another crash. They are saying that our tech authorized them to take out the Raid card and that it was a verbal request over the phone and they didn't put it into a ticket. They told me nonchalantly on the 1st - "you've lost all your data, you don't have Raid". What the hell is managed hosting I would like to know. If they can't even take care of the hardware what the **** am I paying for? Since the crash I've put in a few tickets about helping me put back all the domains. I've gotten some of the most inane responses. "This domain must be hosted somewhere else, there are dns issues with it" and "to restore your data from 2004 I have to charge you $75 a half hour". Really ridiculous responses to a very simple request. I guess Rackspace is going down the tubes. So then after the crash from the 1st to the 3rd our "account administrator" didn't even bother to call us. Finally one tech got her on the phone and she 1. didn't even know about the crash and lack of Raid in the server. 2. knew nothing about any of it basically. The data that could be restored from 2004 couldn't even be found by one tech at Rackspace because someone at Rackspace restored it into a "non-standard place". After being a Rackspace customer since 1999 I have to say this is complete bullsh*t. And I have NO DOUBT that the original post was completely accurate. Lease a server there if you want but you better make your own backup.
Posted by Exxtreme, 01-04-2007, 09:22 PM
Not sure what you mean by this. Rackspace's solutions come with managed backup whether you have RAID or not. I don't really understand this one either. Rackspace's managed backup comes with a standard 2 week retention. I'm not sure if they would even have the data from 2004, but even if they did it would be a billable service since it isn't within your retention period.