[wil]

Thanks, I guess I mis-read

It does say an intervention will happen, but it looks like it doesn't actually start one -

The intervention has been scheduled for technicians
in the datacenter. It's about to be started in a few minutes.
You'll receive a message stating the beginning and
the end of the intervention.

Straight after having this, I went out the room and was out for a few hours. When I got back and it was working, I figured that it had just completed. This was the first one I did since disabling monitoring.

[gigabit]

Interventions shouldnt happen if you reboot. If monitoring is off that should be it. Whenever I reboot and it fails it just lets me know, but no intervention is started (it even says this).

[wil]

Sorry, Hope it is ok to keep posting here rather than creating threads for each little issue -

Is there any way to disable the "interventions"?

I have turned off monitoring, however sometimes when I reboot*, I get the message

The server has been rebooted but it isn't responding to ping command.

and then an "intervention" happens, and I cannot reboot, change netboot settings or reimage for about 5 hours.

* whilst I get that from some unattended installs, I think my best luck of installing Windows is through ImageX on Windows PE. I have head of the winresuce from this board and support, however I get that message EVERY time I try... has anyone managed to get it to work?

[wil]

I don't like the fact that the Windows seems to come preinstalled with ssh and different firewall rules e.t.c.

Does anyone know if it is possible to upload your own unattend.xml file as this would solve all my problems!

Also, I like some of the distributions that OVH are offering such as the streaming server and really want to take another look at it - Is it possible to download these iso's so I can install them on a VM on my dedicated server?

I was wondering, if I was to purchase a USB stick option, can the pc boot from this? Is it possible to install ESX on to the USB stick then boot from that?

Lastly, has anyone had any success installing Windows 2008 or Hyper-V in a VM? I had a idea involving booting to vkvm and copying the source files + the unattend.xml file, setting partition to active and then restarting off of hard drive and hoping that it will automate itself.

I have done similar 0 touch deployments locally. I got it working from start to finish on the network. I suppose that this would be possible here - just wondering if I have the time!

I am liking OVH, and using VMWare server is a sacrifice! I have paid for licences for ESX and MSVVM so I would hate not to take advantage of it.

[wil]

Thanks -

I know about futremark but thought it was just for gaming performance - No idea what the graphics card score will be on the server (nor do I care!). I will see if I can just do HD, CPU, Ram.

As for Prime 95, I have personally been doing it for cpu tests - I do a average size test around 5 times and just take the average as a cpu benchmark

[derchris]

Prime is a stress testing tool, no benchmark.
There are several tools out there to test performance, SiSoft Sandra for example has something builtin.

As for patching, your are responsible for patch level of the system, as these are no managed servers.

For the licenses, I don't use Win, but I can remember that at some point they said these need to be SPLA licenses ?

[Myatu]

FutureMark has some good benchmark software (there's a "Basic" free edition). http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/

As for Linux, only the Netboot Kernels and those who have a paid Red Hat Linux license through OVH get patching. The installable versions are obviously also patched to the latest versions / security updates, but once it's installed, that's it really. It falls in the category of "unmanaged services".

OVH uses SPLA from the last messages I've read about their Windows licensing. Not sure why 2K3 didn't work whereas 2K8 did

[wil]

Well, I am sort of out of time on choosing a provider.

I am not happy with the fact I can't run Hyper-V or ESX. But at the end of the day, I just need to run my Windows Server VM's ASAP.

I am messing around at the moment with different configurations and was wondering if anyone knows of any good benchmarking tools for testing VM performance. At the moment I am using Prime 95 in a VM but not sure that this is the best method.

Also, if I choose a Linux installation, is patching automatically taken care of by OVH? I am having a hard time choosing what to use!

Lastly, I am a Microsoft Gold Partner and I have a stack of licence keys. I did not know what to use as I am unsure if OVH use OEM, FPP, VLK, SPLA e.t.c. so I inserted all A's as my serial key. Installing 2003 just timed out and using VkVM I saw that it failed on the auto unattend during the setup of serial key, however Windows 2008 fully installed and activated!

I asked OVH about this and they did not really give back a efinitive answer. Does anyone know why this worked?

[derchris]

That shouldn't be a problem with VMWare.

[gigabit]

The CPUs in the SP minis dont support VT just for your info.

[tim2718281]

I always like to start with a *cheap* way to satisfy the requirement, and see how well that works.

With seven VMs, you presumably need 7 IPs.

So, you could get two SP Mini systems at £35 a month each, providing 8 IPs between them for a total of £70 a month. You can also choose the unlimited bandwidth option.

You end up with about 512K of RAM per VM, 25mbps bandwidth per VM at 100mbps, 100GB of disk space per VM, half a disk I/O per VM, and half a processor per VM, for a monthly cost of £10 per VM.

Alternatively you could get two SP Bestof systems for a total of £100 a month, increasing the RAM to about 800K per VM for a monthly cost of about £15 per VM.

Or you could get an EG Best of with additional IP addresses for a total of £75 a month. This will give about 1GB of RAM per VM, 100GB of disk, half a processor core per VM, but only a quarter of a disk I/O per VM, and bandwidth is lower at 4mbps of bandwidth per VM at 1gbps speed, for a monthly cost of about £11 per VM.

But maybe bandwidth is not the best way to look at EG systems; you get 10TB traffic per month, so that's 1.5TB per VM.

An additional 1.5TB per VM will cost an additional £8 per VM. taking the cost to £19 per VM. Notice that doubling the traffic costs almost as much as getting a second server!

So if you need more than 1.5TB traffic per VM, and more than 1GB RAM per VM, you could get two EG systems. Now you do not need the extra IPs. For £120 a month, you get about 2GB of RAM per VM, half a disk I/O per VM, and 3TB traffic per VM, 200GB of disk per VM, and one processor core per VM, for a monthly cost of £17 per VM.

Going beyond that you might start to look at two VMs per server.

[wil]

Well, still waiting.

My deadline is the end of the month and I really wanted to have a play around and make sure OVH would work for me

I have been waiting over a month for my confirmation letter + server, I sent the confirmation details in and thought that would be it.

They said no stock and I asked if I could change to one of the new servers but was just told that is not possible because I made a order for a different one.

I understand if I had paid, but this is just a trial.

Anyway, unless this is sorted in the next day or so, I think I am going to have to give OVH a miss

[wil]

Thanks so much.

Again, I hope I can use OVH, £15 is not the end of the world! I plan on buying additional servers so as long as I can split it, I am happy.

Still waiting for the server around 24 hours on :S I see that some are out of stock now and I need to get things moving

May ring up and try to get it changed to a different one for my trial - My server is now half the price so even with spending the additional £15, it is cheaper (thanks for pointing that out to me)...

[Myatu]

No, £15 per month for the IPs + one-time fee (for RIPE). As for bridged/routed, the bottom line is that you can only use one method (routed) but the end result is that you will be able to assign an external IP to an internal VM

[wil]

Still waiting for the server to be setup!

Anyway, are you saying that if I spend £100 for 64IP's, I don't have to spend anything per month on top of that?

I am getting really confused about routed, bridged e.t.c. My only experience is with colocation and it was straight forward!

As long as I can assign a external IP to the internal VM, I will be happy.

The thing is though, I have people paying me for 100% uptime, I own licences for ESX full and I want the ability to use Vmotion e.t.c. in case something goes wrong (e.g. a hard drive fail)

I have until the end of the month to get things sorted, hopefully I will be a happy customer of OVH, but if I have problems, I may go back to colocation as I have been getting some good quotes in.

[Myatu]

Well, the main thing with VMWare - as with any virtualisation SW on OVH - appears to be the bridging option and the non-modular kernels that are installed by default.

As for the non-modular kernels, this can be changed in a few steps described elswhere on the forum.

Regarding bridging, this is a security feature. By limiting a server to only the assigned MAC addresses (read: the MAC addresses of the network card(s) ), one cannot spoof another server at OVH and thus limits the ability to gain unlawful access. There have been some mentions here and there that OVH is working on a better solution.

So instead of bridging, you will have to use a routed mode instead -- the end result will be nearly the same, with the exception of certain features such as DHCP which requires broadcasting.

With OVH, my prefererred virtualisation SW is Proxmox, which is a combination of both OpenVZ and QEMU/KVM. QEMU can run Windows quite well, and an included utility called 'qemu-img' is able to convert VMWare 3 and 4 vmdk disk images to QEMU's qcow format. Perhaps this is something to look into, as OVH provides Proxmox "out-of-the-box".

As for the IP addresses, this is quite reasonable actually given the shortage of IPv4 addresses and an included IPv6/64 block. If you purchase at least 16 IPs, then with the exception of the initial fee, your per-month fee, per IP, would be the same as with OVH's previous plans. You (supposedly) have the ability to split your IP block, so basically you should be able to purchase a block of 16 and assign them to the corresponding servers as fail-overs.

[wil]

Well, I just entered the code and will be starting when it is set up.

As all the prices and setups have changed, I have no idea what I will be on when it is up... The new hardware is at least double the power for the same price, but then the ip situation seems bad and way overpriced!

To be honest, I am glad there is a trial. I need to virtualise and everything I have read seems, well, bad!

I want to use ESX (I like many of the features, and I own several licences), but it is not allowed... Hyper-V looks like it only works with some hacks... Xen or workstation, I will look at, but I would rather use one of the others.

I have seen other hosts out there that actually have ESX as a option, give many IPs (if you can justify them) and all the other bells and whistles, but a lot less traffic and only cost more!

Does anyone know if ESX will be supported any time soon or if it is possible to make a request for it?

Sorry if I am ranting a little when I am not even on the service! I waited over a month for my trial code and, who knows, maybe everything will be ok! I just need a server by the end of the month and have no idea yet on who I am going to use!

[Myatu]

No problem. Did you look at the new message regarding VMWare: http://forum.ovh.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2318 ?

I was just about to mention the 30-day business trial, but you've already seen that option. It's certainly worth a try, to see if the server matches your needs. While OVH's servers are self-managed, they do go to quite extraordinairy lengths to make their customers happy, so it wouldn't hurt to ask if there's something specific you need (perhaps e-mail would be easier )

[wil]

Thanks.

I did try to ring support but I could not understand their accents and I did not want to appear rude or racist by saying "what" or "can you repeat" every 20 seconds :S

Thank you very much for the responses.

I really want to switch before the end of the month to a new provider and I love what I have seen with OVH but I think the bandwidth is a bit worrying, I look forward to the changes, but I cannot wait.

The raid thing is a bit annoying, but I have full licences for ESX, maybe if I can get this working, I can use vmotion when there is down time so there shouldn't be a problem.

I see that there is a free business trial. I just signed up for this and will try.

If I do not have much luck with ESX or Hyper-V, I may go with Colocation again (france is a bit of a trek, but I am impressed with OVH speeds, Just support / site is confusing!)

[Myatu]

Would I actually be better off purchasing 2x SP Best of instead of 1x EG (max or AMD)

Well, think about a worst case scenario: Would you rather have all 7 Windows VMs go down because one server has an issue? Or 3-4 VMs because one of the two has failed?

Plus, having fewer VMs per machine would certainly benefit the I/O - *especially* with Windows.

Downside is that it has a 100 Mbps NIC. If you need higher burst speeds...

I am considering this, but also, I am worried about the bandwidth. I know a lot of people here are very happy, but as a noob and just reading, it sounds very bad and confusing to me that the more servers I buy, the less bandwidth I receive! - Am I correct in thinking this?

It is very confusing, but Oles (the big honcho at OVH) has noted there are some changes in the air to make this a bit easier... You may wish to wait for this first.

But as far the bandwidth goes, you're right that it goes down if you're on the "Premium" plan. If the server is on the "Traffic Series" plan, this won't go down but you are limited by the amount of traffic you can use before you have to pay extra (starts at 10 Terabytes per month). Same goes for the "Burstable Series" plan, but your speed will be reduced if you go over your 95th percentile. Now if you don't want any of these restrictions, except for peer/server bandwidth, then you need to look at the "Unmetered" plans - these are per server, not your infrastrucure.

At my current provider, I pay a lot more per server, but I get a 100Mb port on each. My application that I host has seen rapid growth recently and before the year end, I may need to purchase even more servers, and worried that my current clients will get angry as the speed slows down.

The plus side is that you can change your networking plan through the OVH manager (I think there's a limit of 1x per month or so... inquire...). So you could for example use the "Burstable Series" for those applications that only occasionally need extra speed but generally "putter along".

Not sure what kind of applications you're serving, but how about passing the extra costs on in the form of bandwidth overages? Ie., on the traffic series, EG Max = 20 Terabytes. Let's assume 4 VMs per server, so 5 TB per month per VM. Any VM (customer) going over, will have to pay for the overage... Just an idea...

The servers will not need to communicate with each other, so it is possible to get a separate infrastructure for each server?

It's per customer (you are, in a sense, the infrastructure).

Lastly, I see that I have the option of Raid 0/1, I was wondering if this is hardware raid and does this mean that if I choose option 1 and a hard drive crashes, you can replace the faulty one and it will rebuild without any down time?

On the SP-series, it's software raid. I'm not sure if they can do this without downtime (having looked at OVH's pictures, the servers don't seem to have hot-swap drive bays). It does mean that unless both drives failed at the same time, your data isn't lost. I think that a customer would rather have some downtime vs. lost data.

Now, I'm not sure how you contacted OVH, but I'd give them a ring to chat this over.

[DedicatedPros]

FYI, VMWare ESX/ESXi is not yet compatible with OVH's network. Not sure about Hyper-V, though...

The more servers you buy the less bandwidth you receive per server, to a minimum of 25mbps. Bandwidth is oversold and OVH cannot offer unmetered 100mbps for every server you buy. I doubt OVH will let you have multiple 'infrastructures'.

A. That is only true if he gets all his servers on the standard bandwith plan
B. Of course bandwith is oversold, they'd go broke if it wasn't so don't scare the guy
C. The best solution now is to get the servers with the traffic series plan, or wait until OVH introduce their new bandwith lineup

[unclebob]

FYI, VMWare ESX/ESXi is not yet compatible with OVH's network. Not sure about Hyper-V, though...

The more servers you buy the less bandwidth you receive per server, to a minimum of 25mbps. Bandwidth is oversold and OVH cannot offer unmetered 100mbps for every server you buy. I doubt OVH will let you have multiple 'infrastructures'.

[wil]

Hi

I am having a very hard time trying to figure out what to buy and was wondering if anyone can help - I did contact support, but I had a hard time understanding them.

I need to host about 7 Windows VM's either on ESX or Hyper-V.

Each of the servers will not be that busy 95% of the time but need to be isolated as they run hosted applications... and very fast download speeds.

I like the dedicated servers but am really unsure -
What is the difference in the CPU power of the EG AMD and EG Max, they do not state what actual CPU they are so it is hard to know generation and look up performance. You are talking about £240 a year extra for MAX and I have no idea if it is worth it.

With that being said, I know there would be enough memory and space for running my vms, but I am worried about actual hard drive IO.

Would I actually be better off purchasing 2x SP Best of instead of 1x EG (max or AMD)

I am considering this, but also, I am worried about the bandwidth. I know a lot of people here are very happy, but as a noob and just reading, it sounds very bad and confusing to me that the more servers I buy, the less bandwidth I receive! - Am I correct in thinking this?

At my current provider, I pay a lot more per server, but I get a 100Mb port on each. My application that I host has seen rapid growth recently and before the year end, I may need to purchase even more servers, and worried that my current clients will get angry as the speed slows down.

The servers will not need to communicate with each other, so it is possible to get a separate infrastructure for each server?

Lastly, I see that I have the option of Raid 0/1, I was wondering if this is hardware raid and does this mean that if I choose option 1 and a hard drive crashes, you can replace the faulty one and it will rebuild without any down time?

Thanks

William