Hi,

I am seriously considering getting a coldfusion vps base plan and wanted to make a few comments and ask a few questions. Has anyone gotten one on here? How has your experience been? How easy was it to setup? How is the stability?

I really like what you did with the coldfusion VPS I just dont quite understand why the plus has better architecture. Not that the hardware is bad or anything on the base, but you say that the other setup is faster. Why arent they all set up to be as fast as possible?

O also maybe you guys should add a VPS category in the forums.

Hello.

I have had my ColdFusion VPS + since June when they were in beta. I am very happy with my VPS. I originally started out with a ColdFusion VPS, and then switched to ColdFusion VPS + 2 weeks later. I was much happier with the performance and features. Especially the SQL Server workgroup. I also very much like the drive partitioning. Having my databases, websites, logs, etc separate from the clutter of the C drive is awesome. That feature alone sold me on getting a CF VPS +. I love that I am able to host as many websites and domains as I want, and have 100% control over every aspect of the website. I had some initial problems during the beta trials (but of course one would since they were in beta ) But since the end of August, my VPS has been rock solid with 100% uptime. My sites run twice as fast than they did on the shared servers (before they implemented seefusion mind you, performance may differ now on the shared servers)

I would only recommend a Windows VPS to someone that knows intermediate Windows 2003 server administration. For those who have never administered Windows Server 2003, I would STRONGLY recommend having Plesk installed so you can manage your server correctly.

SmarterMail and SmarterStats setup was a breeze. It’s great that HMS gives you a FREE 50 site professional licenses for both. Let’s see another hosting company match that!

Cons:
It would be nice if HMS would give you more than 1 IP with the higher end plans. Even though additional IP's are only $1 a month, many other hosting companies offer you several IP's with your VPS.

IIS Setup could have been setup a little better, HMS recommends having your Websites on your "D" drive, however IIS was pointing to C:\inetput\wwroot (the standard setup), and IIS logs to the C drive (Which only has 2 gigs mind you) Not a huge deal It's only a matter of re-pointing your web root to D, and IIS logs to E. (This may have already been changed on the new setups. I can’t say for sure it‘s still like this.)

Although I've seen new features being added to the "VPS" section of the HMS control panel, there is no "Power Panel" like the Virtuozzo power panel which allows you to reinstall your entire VPS from scratch. Although I'm not sure if this is offered in a Windows environment anywhere like it is with Linux plans.

Other than that, I would say HostMySite did an AWESOME job in offering Windows VPS's. I’ve been asking about them for a while and they finally came.

Kudos to HMS

It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have a seperate "Windows VPS" Topic on the Forum Index.

Thanks for the info Jason!

I am not a system administrator at all and have never managed a server except testing servers. I was under the impression that it wouldnt be that tough, but now you got me second guessing myself. So Plesk will pretty much do everything automatically and securely?

That kind of sucks that the plus runs so much faster than the base. I dont really understand why they wouldnt just make them both as fast as possible. It appears that they actually make more revenue off of the base boxes. I dont need even close to all the power of the base, so the plus is just a super overkill.

Also why do you like the sql workgroup more? It appears when I go to the microsoft website that they are basically just the same except you have to get the workgroup when you use more ram and cpu. Thanks again.

Hello.

Well, what plesk is, it helps you manage your server. It will create websites in the click of a button, create users, etc. Plesk is also good if you plan on reselling your webspace. It will allow you to give your clients a control panel to their website. But keep in mind that Plesk must be installed BEFORE the VPS is setup. If you choose to install it after, you will need to recreate everything with Plesk.

You can see a demo of Plesk, and find out more from HMS HERE

I don't use plesk becuase I love to have compelte control. It honestly is not that difficult. The server already have a virus scanner installed (Symantec Antivirus Corporate), and I have enabled the Windows firewall for additional protection blocking our all ports. The only thing you'll really have to be cautious of is securing your code, a strong password on your VPS (for terminal Service access) and a VERY strong SQL server password. Knowledge of using the ColdFusion Administrator is also required.

Between the Dedicated, and VPS support articles, I think you will be able to manage. I would spend some time reading through the Windows VPS support articles above and go from there. If you have any questions at all , post here or drop me a PM.

thanks again. If you could answer my question about the sql server differences and why you like workgroup more I would appreciate it.

Do you know if there is a hardware firewall on the servers?

O and what kind of difference did you see between the two plans? were you using up too much ram or cpu? Or was the difference just from the way they setup the drives?

THANKS!!!!!!

Sorry for the delay, I forogt about this thread.



Well, I like Workgroup becuase it allows you to Generate scripts, Import & Export data, and run Full Text searches. Express edition does none of the above. If you need to transfer data from say a test DB to production, you really can't unless you use a third party tool. (Unless you did a full database restore, but that won't keep the data in sync)



I'm really not sure about this one, I would imagine so, but when I ran a port scan on my server and a lot of ports where still open. So I just enabled the windows firewall and it closed them right up.



I really wanted to extra disk space, plus I liked the disk setup on the CF + Plan. I hate having everyting cluttered on the C drive. It slows performace down becuase it has to write to one drive only. But three drives gives you much quicker write time. When you're running Coldfusion, the more RAM the better. JRun can realy suck up ram. Especially on poorly coded applications.

I was wondering... how does ASP components work with VPS plans? Are they installed by Default? If so, which ones.

Someone mentioned dedicated forums for VPS plans.. that may be an idea. A lot i'd love to learn from other folks.

HostMySite,

I was fooling around trying to see the process of signing up and couldnt get to the second page with firefox, it redirected me to the homepage.

Also, is there a contract commitment? thats what i was looking for

Also, PLEASE offer the cool hardware setup for the base plans and advanced.

If you did the "Cool" hardware setup on the base plans, your would have hardly have any space when they are all partioned. One drive is prob the best setup only having 5gb of space.

Forgot to answer this one...

HostMySite has a 30Day money back guarantee. (Less the price of your domain name)

I'm sure you will be Completely satisfied with your VPS.

Hi c123! Would you be able to tell me which page specifically redirected you to the home page? Or, better yet, what pages and links did you navigate through before the redirect?

why the no space? I dont get it? the plus has 22 gb and the base has 10 gb with twice as many sites. So it appears the operating system takes up 2 gigs per site. It should be exactly the same. Maybe Im not understanding something? I dont know?

Basically, if I click on a signup button and then I go to:
https://www.hostmysite.com/order/index.html?planid=1294

Then if I do anything on this page like "new domain" or "existing domain" it redirects to http://www.hostmysite.com/

It doesnt happen for internet explorer though. Could be form names and form ids not matching or cgi.referrer or a user agent check redirecting or something????????

Sorry, maybe I miss understood.

I was referring to the Windows Base VPS which only gives you 5 GB of space.

Back during Beta Testing, I had a Coldfusion VPS (instead of the Coldfusion VPS+ ) and when I questioned support about why the single drive configuration on only two accounts, they said that's the way the Virtuozzo templates are configured.