I'm interested in who your cloud provider is, and more of those details that keep this site one of the best forums out there.
I am currently using a dedicated server with Rackspace. But I'm not really endorsing them, just answering your question. I haven't been extremely satisfied with the service I've received for the price. If they were a mid-priced host I'd be very happy with what I get from them. But Rackspace is a premium priced host with the idea that they provide exceptional up-time and their company motto is that they provide "fanatical" customer service. Yet my actual experience over the course of about 5 years now is that I've had multiple significant service outages and customer service on the whole has been pretty average, with the occasional bright spot.
So why am I still with them? Well, it's a whole lot of work to move servers and the reality is I could probably save money but I've been through some absolute nightmares with web hosting companies in the past so I'm hesitant to try a new one. People joke about car dealers being shady... I never knew what shady was until I started dealing with web hosting companies. I'm a pretty laid back guy, so I have to feel really wronged by a company to get upset. But if I were to make a list of the top 5 companies that have ever seriously pissed me off, web hosting companies would occupy 3 of the 5 spots... #4 would be a local business that was owned by someone who I later learned suffered from severe mental illness.. unfortunately I guess he never got the help he needed because he eventually killed himself, leaving a wife and kids behind. So while he angered me at the time, I felt sorry for him later, and I felt terrible for his family after his suicide. I'm not even sure who #5 would be.
Some of my past web hosting experiences, in order from oldest to newest:
- Dinix - They were OK until they simply vanished with no notice and all their customers just got shut off. This was pretty upsetting to say the least. Then we found out they were bought out by...<br>
- WebHostPlus bought Dinix, then with absolutely no notice to customers they came in and shut down all of Dinix's equipment and loaded it into trucks to move to their data center. Which would be bad enough, but apparently even once they got it to their data they couldn't get everything set up right. Sites were down for days and days with no communication and no way to find out what was going on or an ETA of when things would be back. Google their name and you find tons of horror stories. I really have no idea how they are still in business. As soon as I could get to my data again I immediately moved to a new host named....<br>
- ResellerWorkz was some small outfit out of Australia as I recall. Great guys, good hosting at a good price, good technical support. Unfortunately they were apparently then acquired or merged into....<br>
- Servstra had ongoing technical problems, but the real nightmare was their "customer service." After being a good paying customer for a long time, but frustrated with the ongoing technical glitches, I gave 14-day notice of my intent to move per the Terms of Service (ToS) in place when I had originally signed up. Their response was that I hadn't provided adequate notice under their ToS, which they directed me to. Well their new ToS was completely rewritten from the one in place when I joined and required a full month of notice. I managed to dig the original up and noted that it had no clause that it could be subsequently modified. Not only that, but even if it was legal to do so, they had provided no notice of any ToS modification, which seems like the absolute least you could do for your customers from a business perspective.
After I said that I really felt the ToS in place when I joined should be the one I was held to and that I had gone out of my way to make sure I abided by it, they became extremely hostile. They told me I had to immediately pay for the full final month, and that until I paid they would not process my termination request (so they would keep charging me for service) and that they would also come after me personally for the money... even though my account wasn't even past due at this point and at no point had I said I was not going to pay, I was just stating that I felt the original ToS under which I signed up should apply.
Keep in mind that all of this was over something like $150 or $175 - the cost for service during the gap between the two notification periods (the one specified by the ToS in place when I signed up and the one in their new ToS about which they had provided no notice to customers). This is after I had paid them many thousands of dollars as a customer for something like 20 months.
Then literally within minutes of me sending an email saying I didn't really feel this was right and I was seeking outside advice and would get back to them soon I was told my account was being sent to a collections agency. Even if you accept that I did owe this money, it was for the current month's billing cycle which had literally just started a couple days prior. My account was completely paid through the previous month's billing cycle. And again I had never even said I wouldn't pay it, just asking why they were not willing to honor the ToS I had agreed to when I signed up. So obviously they were pulling out the bully tactics.
Of course from a practical standpoint they were unlikely to do much other than send it to collections and might not have really even bothered with that because the amount was so small. Anyway, I said screw it, I don't need to continue dealing with people like this in my life over chump change, so I just paid it. They immediately processed my termination and removed my server without even giving me the last month of hosting they had just made me pay for.
So after treating me like a criminal for simply asking why they wouldn't honor the ToS under which I signed up, Servstra did not provide the last month of service they had coerced me to pay for. Is that legally considered theft? Regardless, I have never felt more extorted in my life. Between that and their absurd bullying it was really clear what kind of people I had been dealing with and the small $ loss was well worth it to be done with them. In retrospect I kind of wish I had told them to bite me because I had a backup of all my data and my credit record would have survived just fine, but it was probably best to just move on.
So after my nightmare with Servstra, my primary goal was to find a web hosting company that wasn't likely to mug me in an alley. I did some research and found RackSpace was one of the most highly rated (and highly priced) out there. I've been with RackSpace a long time now and it's nice dealing with a professionally operated hosting business run by friendly people who really seem to care about their customers. True they don't necessarily live up to the level of service they claim.. but when you are starving to death, a trip to the Wendy's drive-through is like a royal banquet.
So the cloud server I'm moving to is another Rackspace offering. It is frankly over priced to get a managed cloud server from them, but they are reputable, I can always reach somebody, and they seem to at least want to do a good job even when they fall short. I may move again in the future, but as you can imagine I'm not terribly anxious to stick my foot in the water to see if it is still full of sharks.
Is this the type of $$$ you're looking to outlay to provide Prime a new home? Who helps you defer that cost? Or - is my math way off base?
