Rails-friendly, local hosting providers?
Josh on Rails
sell them on Rails. It's a great fit for the project - agreed all
around - but hosting is a sticking point. The client prefers to work
locally and is familiar and comfortable with Korax
(http://www.korax.net/) and Magma (http://magma.ca/); I only know
BlackSun (http://www.blacksun.ca/) - and only thorugh their Google ads
popping up in Gmail.
I know there are Rails hosts elsewhere, but anyone have experience with
local options?
hampton catlin
always setup a rails stack on it. I mean, its not cheap or free to do,
but its not that bad either.
At Unspace, our current in-favor host is Slingshot. They only provide
dedicated Rails servers, but they do a great job with them. The guy
who wrote the article about configuring Apache/Mongrel on Zed's site
is the one who runs it. Fully configured capistrano scripts given to
us and everything.
This is after our bad experiences with some VPS providers (namely
VPSLink). Horrible speeds, and constant crashes.
Ugh.
-hampton.
Ryan McMinn
and .NET days ;) The big challenge I see with rails hosting is that
the best practices for running a stack are always in flux. So by the
time most hosting companies get enough clients to make the service
worthwhile the are already running an outdated stack.
Also finding a host that has people on staff who are rails experts is
pretty hard, and that matters cause who wants to add sys-admin to
their job description, which is my big problem with VPS's.
The big reason we recently switched all our stuff to slingshot (Engine
Yard also does this) is that they run the boxes, the security and make
sure we are always running the best stack configuration at the time.
That way we just get to worry about making great apps.
On Jan 28, 9:41 am, "hampton catlin" <hcat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I mean, it looks like Korax sells dedicated Unix boxes. You could
> always setup a rails stack on it. I mean, its not cheap or free to do,
> but its not that bad either.
>
> At Unspace, our current in-favor host is Slingshot. They only provide
> dedicated Rails servers, but they do a great job with them. The guy
> who wrote the article about configuring Apache/Mongrel on Zed's site
> is the one who runs it. Fully configured capistrano scripts given to
> us and everything.
>
> This is after our bad experiences with some VPS providers (namely
> VPSLink). Horrible speeds, and constant crashes.
>
> Ugh.
>
> -hampton.
>
> On Jan 26, 12:21 am, "Josh on Rails" <joshua.weh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I have a potential client who came in asking for PHP, and I'm trying to
> > sell them on Rails. It's a great fit for the project - agreed all
> > around - but hosting is a sticking point. The client prefers to work
> > locally and is familiar and comfortable with Korax
> > (http://www.korax.net/) and Magma (http://magma.ca/);Ionly know
davidcrow
exceptional inexpensive.
Hampton hits the biggest challenge, which is it would be nice to have
a managed host like SlingShot. I've also looked at using WebFaction -
http://www.webfaction.com/
Cheers,
David
Jordan Christensen
Jordan
Hampton
They are horrific.
Stay away unless you are forced at gunpoint.
-hampton.
Josh on Rails
> always setup a rails stack on it. I mean, its not cheap or free to do,
> but its not that bad either.
In this case, I believe the client was looking at the mid-tier shared
option at Korax (http://www.korax.net/web_hosting/net_image/) - which
retails for $30/month! While that feels high to me for shared hosting,
it seems that there isn't a lot of competition at this price point
with Rails in the offering.
> At Unspace, our current in-favor host is Slingshot...
> This is after our bad experiences with some VPS providers (namely
> VPSLink). Horrible speeds, and constant crashes.
I can reiterate the "ugh" for VPSLink.
I've been very happy with Site5 (site5.com) at the "cheapish shared
hosting", but lately (~6 months?) they seem to be dipping a bit.
Still, of the shared hosts I've tried, they're far and away my
favorite.
Josh on Rails
what kind of load, etc. ?
Ben Vinegar
> I mean, it looks like Korax sells dedicated Unix boxes. You could
> always setup a rails stack on it. I mean, its not cheap or free to do,
> option at Korax (http://www.korax.net/web_hosting/net_image/) - which
> retails for $30/month! While that feels high to me for shared hosting,
> it seems that there isn't a lot of competition at this price point
> with Rails in the offering.
Slicehost.com sells 256mb VPS slices w/ root access for $20/month.
Pretty good deal if you don't mind doing all the dirty work yourself.
Hampton
I've subscribed to at least 3 different VPS companies with similar
price points, and I'm always surprised when they end up being slower
than they promised.
To Josh.... $30/month is NOT a lot when they are paying to have an
application developed. I mean, if you are hosting the site for your
church choir, then sure... that is a lot of money.
If you are trying to build a business and spending several thousand on
development... why skimp on the host?
Just thoughts.
-hampton.
Joshua Wehner
> To Josh.... $30/month is NOT a lot when they are paying to have an
> application developed. I mean, if you are hosting the site for your
> church choir, then sure... that is a lot of money.
>
> If you are trying to build a business and spending several thousand on
> development... why skimp on the host?
Well, I *think* I know what you mean, but... a) I meant that I thought
Korax was overpricing it's offering compared to other, similar
offerings outside Toronto; b) I felt awkward trying to explain this
situation to this particular client, "No, there aren't a lot of Rails
hosts around $30/month, but that's because $30 is either too much or
too little to pay for hosting." c) Whatever, however, this
*particular* client had his expectations established by his experience
with Korax.
-- Joshua
Wesley Moxam
is, I didn't try their 'Accelerator Hosting' solution.
I've been using Rails Machine (http://railsmachine.com/) for the last
couple of months. I've been happy with them.
-- Wes
On 1/28/07, Jordan Christensen <theb...@gmail.com> wrote:
Bob Hutchison
Hi,
On Jan 26, 12:21 am, "Josh on Rails" <joshua.weh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a potential client who came in asking for PHP, and I'm
> trying to
> sell them on Rails. It's a great fit for the project - agreed all
> around - but hosting is a sticking point. The client prefers to work
> locally and is familiar and comfortable with Korax
> (http://www.korax.net/) and Magma (http://magma.ca/);Ionlyknow
> BlackSun (http://www.blacksun.ca/) - and only thorugh their Google ads
> popping up in Gmail.
>
> I know there are Rails hosts elsewhere, but anyone have experience
> with
> local options?
We have several customers who are Canadian institutions who prefer
Canadian hosting and who, as a point of principle, will not accept US
hosting. We've got experience with several Canadian hosting
companies, here are the ones we like:
1) BareMetal in Vancouver/Victoria is the best I've ever used but
only do shared hosting. A little more expensive than most but worth
every penny. They are planning to offer Xen based VPS but not yet.
They use Xen internally on all of their machines but don't feel
comfortable offering it as a package.
2) Canada Web Hosting in Toronto/Vancouver nice VPS packages,
emphasis on re-selling, and that causes some problems for us because
we only want to run one thing on the VPS (their set up assumes at
least five resold hosting packages). Support is reasonable once they
realise you know what you are doing, really frustrating until then.
3) Cirrus in Thornhill has very similar offerings to Canada Web
Hosting but without the re-seller bias and they tend to have 'bigger'
configurations. Support is pretty good, no complaints. Their VPSs are
faster than Canada Web Hosting.
4) Tech.coop in Vancouver I can't really recommend because of their
support (lets say complete lack there of) but they are very in-
expensive and have really nice *small* VPS packages.
I'm curious as to what others on this list have experience with
Canadian VPS providers. I've found they can be *very* difficult to find.
Cheers,
Bob
----
Bob Hutchison -- blogs at <http://www.recursive.ca/
hutch/>
Recursive Design Inc. -- <http://www.recursive.ca/>
Raconteur -- <http://www.raconteur.info/>
xampl for Ruby -- <http://rubyforge.org/projects/xampl/>
davidcrow
memory and 2x500Gb HDD.
Every once and a while, I'd feel like I had a motherboard, some tin
foil and a dog just about to urinate on my server, but generally happy
after the 3rd month of service (i.e., it took a little while to get
everything stable).
It was a dedicated box, so performance was great. We did not need to
host multiple client sites, therefore, the site ran a vanilla install
of FC5. High load, i.e., video encryption + decryption including
custom C and Java code to do some in memory handling.
Rowan Hick
Having come from New Zealand and dealt with the horrid state of
'local' hosting there. I learned to give up and deal with US hosts
directly.
I've used (and still do) PowerVPS (www.powervps.com) for home
projects as well as in a previous employers internal system. For
$45USD/month I get a server that's always up and on the rare occasion
when I need support I get it promptly and from someone who knows what
they're talking about. Been with them for nearly 2 years now.
The only major downside as I've found out recently is if you run out
of memory you don't get much warning about it without looking at
something like mrtg I guess. I had some Cpanel update scripts that
were using up a little too much of the burstable ram and therefore
killing processes randomly on the box - unfortunately this wasn't
showing up in Virtuozzos management interface. However PowerVPS were
great in diagnosing my issue and helping out there, so always 10/10
for service. They are always approachable, so if you want something
custom drop them an email.
The other minor downside, and I agree with Hampton here, VPS's don't
seem to be super quick regardless of the advertised performance -
Ultimately there is nothing like a dedicated box for performance. For
the past year I've had the joy of having two solely dedicated xserve's
for a couple of Rails and PHP sites, ahh bliss.. redudancy and
performance.
I've heard good things about RimuHosting.com and would be giving them
a try on the next project that warrants it and they've got experience
with setting up ROR VPS's/Dedicated boxes. Very approachable. (a NZ
company with boxes in the states)
As an aside - Mediatemple's new grid service, I was looking at, but
very mixed results on a test app I've been working with - some weeks
have been blinding fast speed wise, others absolutely appalling, but
that does hold promise if they get things nice, stable and quick, as
you don't have to deal with nitty gritty server management.
Regards,
Rowan
--
On Jan 28, 10:09 pm, Hampton <hcat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I still say. You *always* get what you pay for.
>
> I've subscribed to at least 3 different VPS companies with similar
> price points, and I'm always surprised when they end up being slower
> than they promised.
>
> To Josh.... $30/month is NOT a lot when they are paying to have an
> application developed. I mean, if you are hosting the site for your
> church choir, then sure... that is a lot of money.
>
> If you are trying to build a business and spending several thousand on
> development... why skimp on the host?
>
> Just thoughts.
>
> -hampton.
>
Pete Forde
1. Hampton is right; you get what you pay for. Woe to the consulting
expert that lets a client pay $20/m and expect dedicated performance.
You have to find a way to explain that Rails is an application stack,
not a cgi script.
2. VPS hosting is always over-sold. Repeat until you have this
memorized. They are all lying.
3. Never under-estimate the value of having Rails expertise on hand at
the ISP. Slingshot and EngineYard both have impressive talent on hand.
4. The Canadian ISP thing has always struck me as strange; bandwidth
is more expensive in Canada. Let's not beat around the bush - Canadian
ISPs are likely a little too Corner Gas to really be contenders for
hosting serious client Rails deployments. [Prepared to eat crow.]
5. Use Amazon S3 for all of your static, user uploaded assets. Reap a
long list of benefits, including less server load. Check out
Technoweenie's new attachment_fu!
Pete
Nate
I think some clients are looking for Canadian hosting to mitigate some
of the concerns regarding privacy. I haven't used them personally,
but Fusepoint (http://www.fusepoint.com/index.html) is supposedly good
all round hosting. With a dedicated server you could setup your own
Rails stack, however that may not be in the budget. I know Netfirms
(www.netfirms.ca) has rails hosting, however I believe it is only CGI.
Regards,
Nathan
Jay B. Hancock
a Canadian company vs a US company mitigate the concerns of privacy for
a Canadian client?
I'm from the US and may be a bit naive in terms of viewpoints up here,
so I'm interested in learning!
Jay
--
Jay B. Hancock
Kibbles Software . com
CDN: 647-261-4703
USA: 617-216-4703
What would you attempt to do
if you knew that you would not fail?
Hampton
What's so wrong with an American host?
-hampton.
dombort
We had a VPS setup at Mediatemple for about a year and finally left.
a. It was expensive for a VPS (at that time, $150 USD/month for
minimum specs)
b. It wasn't as fast at all.
c. Customer service was horrendous.
Our experience was very bad, and I promosed to blog about it, but have
not yet had the time.
We currently use railsmachine for our RoR hosting. Cameron (he deals
with server admins more than I) is really happy with their reliability
and cusomter service (you can chat with their techs on IM pretty much
all day).
Also, I stumbled across this metrics website from somewhere (maybe
this is old news).. not sure if its reliability/integrity, but it
seems legit:
http://www.realmetrics.com/
Bob Hutchison
On 15-Feb-07, at 11:06 PM, Jay B. Hancock wrote:
>
> I'm curious about the Canadian perspective on privacy: why would using
> a Canadian company vs a US company mitigate the concerns of privacy
> for
> a Canadian client?
>
> I'm from the US and may be a bit naive in terms of viewpoints up here,
> so I'm interested in learning!
There are a few reasons...
The privacy problems are caused by the Patriot Act and similar laws
passed in the US since 9/11. Basically when you host in the US you
cannot prevent disclosure of your client's personal information (and
you might not even know disclosure has occured). Canadian companies
are subject to some pretty strict privacy laws, and do business with
Europeans with similarly strict laws, that they cannot guarantee
compliance with if hosted in the US.
See, for a small sampling:
<http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/06/20/privacy-report.html> (CBC
news report)
<http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/984/> (lots more on Geist's
site)
<http://www.prnewsnow.com/PR%20News%20Releases/Legal%20And%20Law/
Cytiva%20Responds%20to%20Canadian%20Privacy%20Concerns%20with%20New%
20Canadian%20Data%20Centre> (impact on job recruitment software)
<http://www.canadawebhosting.com/about_canada_web_hosting/
canadian_web_hosting.asp> what one (big) webhosting company says.
If you have a .ca domain it is just easier.
There are also companies and organisations with a 'buy local' policy,
in which case they will prefer suppliers from the community from
which they operate (it isn't a 'Canadian' requirement, it is a
community or city requirement).
Cheers,
Bob
----
Bob Hutchison
On 17-Feb-07, at 10:48 AM, Bob Hutchison wrote:
>
>
> On 15-Feb-07, at 11:06 PM, Jay B. Hancock wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm curious about the Canadian perspective on privacy: why would
>> using
>> a Canadian company vs a US company mitigate the concerns of privacy
>> for
>> a Canadian client?
>>
>> I'm from the US and may be a bit naive in terms of viewpoints up
>> here,
>> so I'm interested in learning!
>
> There are a few reasons...
>
> The privacy problems are caused by the Patriot Act and similar laws
> passed in the US since 9/11. Basically when you host in the US you
> cannot prevent disclosure of your client's personal information (and
> you might not even know disclosure has occured). Canadian companies
> are subject to some pretty strict privacy laws, and do business with
> Europeans with similarly strict laws, that they cannot guarantee
> compliance with if hosted in the US.
There is some stuff happening in Europe now (last Friday) too:
"With a show of hands, the European Parliament voted in favor of a
resolution Wednesday that could make it more difficult for European
firms to store crucial data in the US. Legislators are upset over
revelations about a US Treasury Department program that subpoenaed
the US arm of a Belgian company in order to get access to European
bank records, and "suggested" that the company "stop its current
practice of mirroring all data concerning EU citizens and enterprises
in its US site."
<http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070216-8864.html>
Cheers,
Bob
Nate
I wasn't certain of the details, and felt somewhat negligent in
posting my original statement without them.
Regards,
Nathan
Jay B. Hancock
By consciously putting the data in a place unreachable to the US, I
think that would raise suspicions and attract more attention from the
US. Especially if the person believes they may be part of a group that
is discriminated against in the US, because they are more likely to
attract the attention.
I'm sure businesses will weight both risks and take appropriate action,
and the above may be a minor concern if the individuals don't do
business in the US.
It's an interesting discussion, especially weighing the tradeoffs.
Thanks for the info though! We don't talk about this much in the US
because it's a fact of life there.
--
Jay B. Hancock
Kibbles Software . com
CDN: 647-261-4703
USA: 617-216-4703
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk about.
Oscar Wilde
vall...@gmail.com
Nate
I can't speak for the Rails hosting, but as a shared host it seems to
be ok. Last I checked (Aug 2006) with their support staff they were
just running CGI, so I don't think it's viable unless that's changed.
Regards,
Nathan
Bob Hutchison
Here's a delayed response... and an additional interesting site (for
more than one reason).
Have a look at <http://www.rsync.net/resources/index.html> and their
privacy policy and warrant canary <http://www.rsync.net/resources/
notices/canary.txt>
On 20-Feb-07, at 10:28 AM, Jay B. Hancock wrote:
> Have we thought about the flip side -
>
> By consciously putting the data in a place unreachable to the US, I
> think that would raise suspicions and attract more attention from the
> US. Especially if the person believes they may be part of a group
> that
> is discriminated against in the US, because they are more likely to
> attract the attention.
Not unreachable to the US, just not *in* the US. Wouldn't attract a
lot of attention for a non-US based company I think.
>
> I'm sure businesses will weight both risks and take appropriate
> action,
> and the above may be a minor concern if the individuals don't do
> business in the US.
>
> It's an interesting discussion, especially weighing the tradeoffs.
> Thanks for the info though! We don't talk about this much in the US
> because it's a fact of life there.
Hmm.
Cheers,
Bob