On November 23rd, 2009 at approximately 18:40 Pacific Daylight Savings Time our Seattle datacenter experienced a failure in our upstream power supply. Another customer in the same facility as ours plugged in a defective 208v 3phase 60amp PDU – this caused a short in their circuit which tripped the breaker and created a voltage surge which reached our UPS.
Power was lost for approximately 55 milliseconds, however, all of our gear was powered down. We have redundant UPS systems, however, we are now aware that they are wired in parallel and therefore vulnerable to power surges originating within our datacenter (we must concede that we had not anticipated this type of failure).
The majority of our systems were up within minutes of the power failure, though others took significantly longer to complete file system integrity checks.
New circuits are being deployed to our racks to ensure that we are on fully independent UPS systems wherever possible. Our provider will be adding additional independent UPS systems to connect to the racks shortly.
We may require some maintenance windows over the coming weeks to a very small subset of our customer base – all maintenance notifications will be sent with 48 hours’ notice per our policy.
Often when an outage of this magnitude occurs we find flaws in other systems and procedures: our primary sites were unavailable over the course of the outage as our failover sites had not been implemented, however, our Twitter stream remained active and in use to supply status updates.
We strive to learn from our mistakes and improve our platform – we will take this incident’s lessons and ensure that our Seattle power infrastructure is no longer vulnerable to neighboring networks’ activities.
We are approaching a holiday weekend with reduced staffing, however, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this incident (or if you would like to claim a Service Level Agreement credit) please let us know – we look forward to hearing from you and we will make every effort to address your concerns in a timely fashion.
We welcome discussion on the Spry Forums and, if you are not already subscribed, please take this opportunity to subscribe to the Spry Hosting Twitter Feed.
AJAXTerm
The AJAXTerm application provides a web-based interface to SSH and, all in all, we believe it will be a welcome alternative to the Java applet at the My.Spry.com Control Center.
You are welcome to continue using the legacy Java applet if you prefer it, however, we will be transitioning web-based console support to the new interface once AJAXTerm moves from its beta status.
Spry VPS Hosting Coupons: Use Before 10/1/2009
Sep 02
Posted by danl as Contests & Specials, Virtual Private Servers
Looking for the best deal on VPS Hosting?
Look no further – we have two 50% coupons good for your first month at Spry when you sign up for one of our new Dedicated-Disk VPS and Dedicated-Node VPS plans or opt for any new virtual private server at our New York City datacenter.
We’ve re-engineered our top-tier plans with increased memory allocations, brand-new Dell hardware, and dedicated resources which remove the potential for disk contention from busy virtual private servers on the same hardware node.
Coupon Code: PREMIUM50
Our 4096 Dedicated-Disk VPS provides you with your own RAID-1 disk array for reliable performance and redundant stability while our 8192 Dedicated-Node VPS consists of a virtual server running on its own dedicated hardware node (think “dedicated server” without the potential for a botched configuration locking you out for good).
Coupon Code: NYC50
Our New York City datacenter has been up and running for several weeks’ worth of testing and we’re convinced that it will meet the high expectations you’d have for any Spry service. We’re offering 50% off your first month on any of our standard plans – we’re limited to the space on-hand out in NYC (we’ll do everything we can to keep ahead of demand with new hardware in the racks) so find the VPS Hosting plan that suits your budget and save 50% when you sign up before 10/1/2009.
We’ve been working around the clock to get everything polished up and ready for you to use and the next time you log in you’ll be sure to notice that My.Spry.com has some new controls – and a new look – to make managing your domains, shared hosting, and dedicated or virtual private server more convenient.
Among some of the new features:
- VPS Power Controls – Start, stop, and reboot
- VPS Password Management – Easily change your password
- Web SSH Applet – Securely access your VPS from your browser
- Advanced Bandwidth Reporting – Track bandwidth usage by package or IP
Ready to check it out? Log in at https://my.spry.com/ and take a look at the My.Spry.com Documentation to get the most out of your service at Spry!
VPSLink Sale: Save Up To 25% On Unmanaged VPS Hosting
Feb 04
Posted by danl as VPSLink, Virtual Private Servers
VPSLink Winter Forecast Calls For Sale
The winter forecast is often glumly predictable: clouds, rain, snow, sleet, and – inevitably – plenty of time spent to indoors to avoid the weather. We decided (perhaps in response to the gloomy weather or being cooped up indoors for too long) that it was time to brighten things up with a winter sale.
We’ve reduced the pricing on our most popular VPS hosting plans, with savings of up to 25% on the Link-3.
What does this mean for you?
- You can host your next LAMP or Ruby on Rails project on your own virtual private server for less than $20 per month with a Link-3
- WHM / cPanel VPS hosting for resellers on the Link-4 plan just became even more affordable at VPSLink at less than $30 per month before licensing fees on the Link-4 when you prepay for one year
- Our sale pricing (cumulative with any existing – *ahem* referral program *ahem* – discounts) offers the best pricing you’ll find at any reputable VPS hosting provider
If nothing else, we are hoping that this sale will brighten your day and give you something to stave off winter boredom and cabin fever (it may already be too late for us) when you sign up for a new virtual private server or upgrade your existing service’s plan or billing cycle to take advantage of our winning prices.
Compare VPS plans to find the hosting bargain that’s right for you, but don’t sweat it if you would like to take your time deciding – like most forecasts ours isn’t set in stone, but you can count on these sale prices through March 31st April!
Use coupon code 25OFFVPS08 to save 25% on VPS Hosting for life at Spry
If this coupon’s awesome savings does not speak for itself, consider some of advantages built-in to every Spry VPS Hosting plan:
- Top Quality Hosting – We use purpose-built server hardware and our commercial datacenter is backed by 24/7 support
- No Setup Fees – Your VPS is up and running in a matter of minutes and, whether you’re starting up a new hosting project or upgrading from a basic reseller setup you will save money at Spry from day one
- Control Panel Included – Get cPanel or Plesk to simplify the hosting experience for yourself and your hosting clients
- Latest Versions – We are proud to offer cPanel 11.23 and Plesk 8.6, the latest editions of the tried-and-tested control panels which have served web hosting resellers for years
Visit our cPanel VPS Hosting and Plesk VPS Hosting pages to find out more.
Need some time to decide? Our 25OFFVPS08 25% Off coupon is active until January 1st, 2009 – and remember: our service is backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
New Ecommerce and Advanced cPanel Shared Hosting Plans at Spry.com
Oct 03
Posted by danl as Announcements
Keeping with the latest developments in cPanel shared hosting, we have put together a new selection of plans designed to meet the needs (and budgets) of webmasters, application developers, and eCommerce merchants at Spry Hosting.
Our Starter, Intermediate, Advanced, and eCommerce hosting plans have a wide range of capabilities – there’s a plan for your next project, whether you are just starting out or looking to upgrade from your present cPanel hosting:
 |
1 E-mail Account |  |
1 Hosted Domain |
| Disk: | 1000 MB | Bandwidth: | 5000 MB | Cost: | $25 / year |
Made for parking a domain or serving a small site, the Starter plan offers everything you need to grow an idea into a successful website with the convenience of the cPanel hosting control panel.
|
Unlimited | |
Unlimited |  |
1 MySQL DB |
| Disk: | 5000 MB | Bandwidth: | 5 GB | Cost: | $3.95 / mo |
Starting up a blog, wiki, or forum? This plan was made to suit the needs of your dynamic, database-driven site on the proven Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP framework and we’ve made it ultimately affordable.
|
Unlimited | |
Unlimited | |
Unlimited |
| Disk: | 10 GB | Bandwidth: | 100 GB | Cost: | $5.95 / mo |
Looking for a solution to host multiple projects?
Get unlimited domain hosting, unlimited MySQL databases, unlimited e-mail accounts, and a dedicated IP address with 10 GB of space to host everything (with room to spare!)
|
Unlimited | |
Unlimited | |
Unlimited |
| Disk: | 50 GB | Bandwidth: | 500 GB | Cost: | $14.95 / mo |
You know that customers demand the security of SSL-secured shopping and you’ll need as much space as you can get to grow your business.
Get the right tool for the job with our SSL-ready eCommerce shared hosting plan.
Visit our Shared Hosting page to find out more about the innovations in hosting (and pricing) arriving at Spry.
The latest additions to the VPSLink Linux OS template library are our Debian 4.0 Apache/Ruby on Rails stack and Debian 4.0 nginx/Ruby on Rails stack templates.
These two templates replace our CentOS 5, Fedora 8, and Ubuntu 7.10 lighttpd/Ruby on Rails templates. While we have curtailed the range of preconfigured operating systems, the option to install Ruby on Rails is never more than a few commands away – VPSLink provides full root access to install Ruby on Rails on any hosted Linux VPS.
If you are a fan of Debian, we’ve done all the work for you. Simply select the Debian 4.0 “Etch” – RoR w/ Apache + Mongrel or Debian 4.0 “Etch” – RoR w/ Nginx + Mongrel template from the My.VPSLink.com Server Control Center, click Change OS, and get a full-featured Ruby on Rails VPS with:
- nginx (a light-weight webserver) ”or” Apache (the ever-popular HTTP powerhouse)
- MySQL
- Mongrel
- Ruby 1.8.7
- RubyGems 1.1.1
- Rails 2.1.0
- ActionPack 2.1.0
- ActiveRecord 2.1.0
- ActionMailer 2.1.0
- Rake 0.8.1
Starting a new Rails-powered project? Choose Ruby on Rails VPS Hosting at VPSLink and have your virtual private server working in minutes.
Spry Says “So Long” to the Webmin VPS
Jun 13
Posted by danl as Announcements, VPSLink, Virtual Private Servers
After careful consideration, we’ve decided to move away from offering Webmin VPS plans to new Spry customers in favor of giving users of the Webmin platform the option of hosting with VPSLink.
Security Notice: OpenSSL Vulnerability in Debian and Debian-based Operating Systems
May 15
Posted by danl as Debian, SysAdmin, VPSLink, Virtual Private Servers
An OpenSSL key vulnerability for Debian 4.0 and Debian-based Linux distributions was published on May 13th, 2008. This vulnerability has the potential to affect any systems which trust keys generated by Debian 4.0 and its derivative operating systems.
Please see the Debian and Debian-based Distribution Security Notice posted on the VPSLink forums and the SSL Keys entry at the Debian Wiki for more information regarding this vulnerability and recommended actions to address the potential security issues which may result from weak SSL keys.
Categories
Archives
Links
