by Flemming Funch
This server here is due for a change, and it looks like today's the day. Well, as soon as I've worked out a few annoying details, that is.
The old server is hosted in the data center of a company I used to work for, more than a year ago. They're nice people, but they might easily forget about it, and need to take it down some day with a moment's notice. Actually I'm sure the people who let me have a server there have forgotten all about it, even though I've made very sure the sysadmin hasn't. And, you know, it is a big operation with hundreds of servers, and a number of them are just standing around, forgotten, because they were replaced with something better at some point, and nobody bothered to dismantle the old one.
But I can't keep leaching on their bandwidth forever, and, more importantly, the server has started to run slower the last couple of months, and most likely one of the disks is on the verge of giving up. So, it seems to be time to move on.
I have two other servers, but it would get a little too crowded to combine them, so I went looking for a new hosting deal.
A dedicated root server goes for around $100 per month nowadays. However, the pricing plans vary enormously between different companies, and they frequently leave out something important in the cheaper deals, and suddenly you need to pay a couple hundred dollars more to have the one with more memory or with any meaningful bandwidth quota.
My two other servers are with 1and1 and 1-800-hosting. I got the 800 hosting server first, and at the time the only server I'd be able to pay for would be with 512MB of RAM. Now, that's more or less a mistake, but I needed the server at the time. But 512MB is way too little for any serious server. Oh, it is fine for static web pages and images, but very skimpy when it needs to do mainly dynamic pages with lots of database access. But they provide lots of bandwidth, 1800GB per month, and they have excellent service.
1-and-1 says they're the biggest hosting company in the world, and they certainly know their stuff too. A 2GB server from them, with 1000GB of bandwidth, and that's more useful for some serious activity. They're rather cumbersome to deal with, however. Their U.S. company only wants to provide servers to people who're in the U.S., so one had to give a U.S. address and phone number and they will actually call back that phone number right away, to check that one really is there. OK, I can manage that, but it is a bit annoying. And, half of the time, if I call them or send them an e-mail from outside the U.S., they'll complain about it. And they had various other bureaucratic obstacles to put in one's way. But nothing wrong with the server.
Now, when I looked for the next server, I was surprised to find that the best deals are in Germany. Like, 1and1 has their mother company in Germany, with fantastic deals. Mirrorred RAID drives, unlimited bandwidth, 2GB RAM, etc. But their signup forms make it equally difficult to sign up unless one is in Germany and pays with a German bank transfer.
I don't know what is going on in Germany for them to compete so much on server prices. I'd expect to find good deals in the U.K. but I found nothing I could use. There are some cheap servers, but that would be with 512MB RAM and 50GB traffic per month, and if you want more it adds hundreds of dollars, or pounds, rather. 1-and-1 is in the U.K. too, but they charge more there. And nothing useful in France, or the Netherlands, or Denmark, or other places I'd consider.
So, I ended up with Server4you in Düsseldorf, Germany. A branch of a U.S. company. I don't know what it is with the cheesy company names (Server4you, 1-800-hosting), but as long as they know what they're doing, I'm fine.
The server I got has an AMD Opteron 148 processor, 3GB of RAM, 2x200GB mirrored SCSI drives, 6000GB monthly traffic, for 79 euro per month. And after two years they'll send me the server in the mail. Can't beat that.
The only thing is that they speak German. My German is getting very old, and stuttering myself through a support call with them isn't overly easy. Luckily there isn't too much I should need them for.
Anyway, I'm speeding up the moving schedule, as the old server is getting a lot of traffic, and it is acting up a little too frequently, particularly when I sleep.
I have the content all replicated, so mainly what is in my way right now is that I decided to change mail server programs at the same time. From Sendmail to Postfix. Incoming mail traffic had started to consume a sizable percentage of the CPU, and I need something more efficient. But a whole bunch of things have to change at the same time. The server has many mail accounts and many mailing lists, and mail will be stored in different format (Maildir rather than Mailbox format), so a lot of things have to be converted.
Anyway, I'll get back to work. If all goes well, nobody should notice anything. But a bit of downtime wouldn't be completely unlikely.
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