Few Questions prior to signup

[krish]

We are a US-based company primarily and plan to launch a web platform soon. We might not receive too much traffic upon launch of the website but expect traffic to increase exponentially soon after.

I am pondering between choosing an on-demand computing (flexiscale) or setting up a private 4-node grid-computing setup or a typical load-balancing/failover cluster of 3-4 servers initially. To help me choose - I have a few general and specific technical questions about flexiscale...

- What kind of tech support will I get since I am from the US - due to time diff (is it 24/7)?
- What about speed of my website? Most of my customers/visitors will be located in the US - would that be slowing down the website since servers are located in UK?
- What is your guaranteed uptime? (can you post the URL to the SLA details)
- Your servers are located in the UK - should I be worried about storing data outside the US (we are still not sure if we are going to store users credit card info for billing)

technical questions:
- our platform is written in PHP/Zend and Python. We have PostgreSQL as our database. would this configuration work for me?
- would we have root access to the servers for installation/configuration of new services
- would the control panel you provide us support configuration of emails, websites, databases, etc...
- can we have a Debian OS?

thanks! I am sincerely interested in your service. your response is greatly appreciated.

thanks!

[tonylucas]

We are a US-based company primarily and plan to launch a web platform soon. We might not receive too much traffic upon launch of the website but expect traffic to increase exponentially soon after.

I am pondering between choosing an on-demand computing (flexiscale) or setting up a private 4-node grid-computing setup or a typical load-balancing/failover cluster of 3-4 servers initially. To help me choose - I have a few general and specific technical questions about flexiscale...

- What kind of tech support will I get since I am from the US - due to time diff (is it 24/7)?



Tech Support for platform scale failures is 24x7, the rest of the system is automated so there is no real need for any tech support unless it's for a managed solution.


- What about speed of my website? Most of my customers/visitors will be located in the US - would that be slowing down the website since servers are located in UK?


There will of course be a larger latency overhead compared to hosting in the USA, but we have a number of US customers using it and we've had positive feedback in this regard.


- What is your guaranteed uptime? (can you post the URL to the SLA details)


The formal SLA is yet to be published (it will happen in the next few weeks, however it will be based on a guarantee of 99.99% with money back credits for any time below that).



- Your servers are located in the UK - should I be worried about storing data outside the US (we are still not sure if we are going to store users credit card info for billing)


Unfortunately I can't comment on the data protection laws of the US vs UK, so I would suggest you consult a lawyer (or your credit card merchant) in that respect.



technical questions:
- our platform is written in PHP/Zend and Python. We have PostgreSQL as our database. would this configuration work for me?



This would work absolutely fine, each FlexiScale server acts just like a dedicated server from a technology point of view.


- would we have root access to the servers for installation/configuration of new services
- would the control panel you provide us support configuration of emails, websites, databases, etc...



Depending on whether you have a managed service or not, alternates both answers to this question. If you have an unmanaged service, you will have root access, but you will not have a control panel for e-mail, databases etc.
If you have a managed server you will have a control panel, but no root access (and we currently only support MySQL, not PostgreSQL).

We are planning on a version of the control panel system which will still allow root access which will be released in a few months time.


- can we have a Debian OS?


We are currently beta testing Debian, so I would imagine we will roll this out in March at the latest with a number of other updates we have planned, again, this will probably only be for unmanaged servers to begin with.



thanks! I am sincerely interested in your service. your response is greatly appreciated.

thanks!

Thanks for the interest, and apologies for the delay in replying to you.

Regards,

Tony.

[gegard]

...We are currently beta testing Debian, so I would imagine we will roll this out in March at the latest with a number of other updates we have planned, again, this will probably only be for unmanaged servers to begin with....
Does 'March at the latest' mean a few days' time or a few weeks' time?

Thanks,
Geoff

[tonylucas]

Apologies, it slipped my mind how close to March we are :)

I suspect it'll be nearer the end of March, although we do have it working internally, so it's just testing to go through now.

Regards,

Tony.

[gegard]

... I suspect it'll be nearer the end of March, although we do have it working internally, so it's just testing to go through now. ...
Hello again. Now it's April, do you have a firmer date for Debian - which I think includes the same Control Panel that you have for CentOS?

Thanks, Geoff

[tonylucas]

Hello again. Now it's April, do you have a firmer date for Debian - which I think includes the same Control Panel that you have for CentOS?

Thanks, Geoff

Geoff,

Debian is still in testing, however if you see the thread Phil has just posted @ http://www.flexiscale.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43 it explains the progress we've been making of late.

Regards,

Tony.

[tonylucas]

Ok, now the guy's make me look silly (should have waited another 12 hours before speaking!)

32-bit Debian 4.0 (etch) is now available for any customers requiring it.

Regards,

Tony.