Oh man. I've had a VPS with them since before they acquired SliceHost, and have been paying a (way overpriced) $20/mo for a SINGLE 512mb server just because the IP reputation is super squeaky clean, as it's my mail server.
They just announced a $5 hike in price this month for "fanatical" support, I haven't opened a support request with them in eons:
> In July 2014, Rackspace introduced a minimum support fee of $50 for all new accounts to offset the rising cost of providing Fanatical Support. Legacy accounts like yours were unaffected by this change, keeping your previous rate without a support fee for the past four years. Effective February 2019, you will see the addition of a $5 support fee on your invoice.
I've been grooming a elastic IP @ AWS for the last year, and rackspace is getting dropped this week.
What tools do you use to monitor IP cleanliness? I monitor mine with free blacklist monitoring tools, but a lot of my emails to corporate addresses end up bouncing. The rejection message often gives a generic error so I'm not sure if that's my fault or not.
You could utilize a managed SMTP service like AWS SES or Mailgun, which is free for up to 10,000 emails per month. They have reference configurations for various MTAs[1] and you wouldn't have to manage IP reputation yourself.
Hah! I'm in a similar position. I have a really old machine at Rackspace ($20/mo) from about 2010 that's running websites for some family and friends. I could easily transition to a ~$5/mo VPS elsewhere but I really don't want to deal with the migration hurdles.
It's been a while since I've had to manage anything hosted with Rackspace but:
They just announced a $5 hike in price this month for "fanatical" support, I haven't opened a support request with them in eons:
How is their fanatical support lately? I recall my company (at the time) paying through the nose for a pretty responsive Fanatical Support SLA, such that I could call in at 2AM and almost every time get someone in no more than three rings-central time zone, no less-for our dedicated services account.
Curious how it is for other customers who might not have had a tech budget the size of ours and could swing heavy hammers to get such support.
Boy they have to be angry with customers like me. I have Rackspace account created in February of 2014 and it was free back then. I think 2 months later they start charging mandatory $50. Like anyone else I moved all my servers out and only using their DNS console for DNS management which is good enough.
About your mailservers: location doesn't matter, as reputation is being build over the time. I have Digital Ocean $5/1GB machine that was previously used for heavy spamming (had to submit tickets with all biggest SpamHouses) and since then has pristine reputation with constant 97-99 SpamScore, etc. You just need about 45 days of constant raising volume of mailouts and you be fine. This machine currently does about 40,000 mailouts a day.
Their service level went from amazing to awful once they were purchased by private equity. As a result after having been Rackspace clients since 2007 my company started moving our clients away from them over 24 months ago and finished November of last year.
I very much miss when their support truly was fanatical.
Yes. They say the bulk of the cost is fanatical support but it's been far and away from that lately. It's like £1000 a month for a low end server and crap support. It's ridiculous now.
For example, we agreed a planned maintenance window 2 weeks ago. It happened, it failed and they left the server offline for 7 hours after the window cut off.
We asked of compensation was available. It took 7 days just for the account manager to say no. I can accept that it's in the ToS but is 7 days for a response from our account manager 'fanatical support'?
We're in the process of moving our WP sites to WPEngine, where the support is much better, and software we maintain for clients to AWS for a fraction of the cost either way.
They focused on Professional Services - that's what Apollo (the private firm that acquired them) thought it would make sense business-wise. And somehow it did, although it probably costed the company its soul, and now increasingly his loyal customers. A pity.
I had boxes on Rackspace and Linode at 1/10 the price, if anything Linode was better on both uptime and support. At one time Rackspace justifies the price tag, but that’s not been for years now.
I happen to work for Rackspace at the moment, and I'm really disappointed that I keep hearing about these things in the news first. Ever since we went private, all the upper management changed and we've kinda been kept in the dark, which is a big giant red flag. I think it might be time to polish up the old resume.
I wonder if there’s room in the market these days for a new managed dedicated hosting service like Rackspace used to be, where you paid significantly more than for an unmanaged server (or a “managed” server that basically just gets OS security patches) so you could instantly reach an expert sysadmin to fix any problem with your servers.
That's the problem; hosting is a commodity these days. 90% of people who want hosting only compare based on price. It's hard to justify paying "real staff" high wages when the margins are razor thin.
Big hosts can survive by essentially offloading support, and making as much as possible self-managed by the end-user.
The non-technical people who just want "a server that works" won't, broadly speaking, pay a premium for that. They're non-technical and will eat up support-hours too, asking questions about setting file permissions on Wordpress.
It used to be them. We used them for a decade and up until a few years ago they were great. You could call and get someone competent in an emergency as an adjunct to your in house talent. It let us punch way above our weight.
That is dead and buried now though. There may still be some good people there but their products are dated 'also ran' knockoffs of AWS services and I don't trust them within an inch of our environments anymore.
Rackspace had it good with the little incentives they gave to web agencies. The agencies would build websites for companies that didn't really need $$$ servers as they were new to being online and didn't have the customers yet. Rather than recommend sensible hosting that could scale, e.g. a VPS that had the RAM, CPU, disk and bandwidth low to start with and an option to upgrade later, the agency would sell the newbie client the gold plated Rackspace solution. What wasn't discussed with the client was how Rackspace would cough up a handy referral fee whereas the price competitive VPS would not.
I felt bad for clients that had been suckered with that cost burden, particularly if the customers did not show up after go-live. It was like the online equivalent of them being lumbered with a giant mall when they needed a prominent spot on the High Street.
Nowadays though services like AWS have taken on this agency provided hosting setup.
You are aware that pretty much every hosting organization in existence pays referral fees, yes? Including "cheap VPS that can scale" (also known as: a contradiction in terms).
You're also clearly unaware that Rackspace built itself and went public on colocation, which dates your perspective. "What type of servers to use" is such a variable question for each outfit, and even with a web-focused startup perspective like this one, there's so much variance in work that colocation often made sense at the time. Time sharing a VPS with Bob's IRC Vhost Service often does not.
I used to work for rackspace. I'll answer any questions you might have, this was 2 years ago.
My take is that they were pivoting HARD away from the server business and trying to provide "cloud architecture solutions", where they would tell you how to properly set up your GCP and Amazon clouds to fit your needs.
From inside the company, coming from the silicon valley, the culture was rather jarring. They're from San Antonio, and try to hard to be hip and silicon valley-ish, but it's just in the uncanny valley where everything is a little bit... off. Also, it might be the corporate culture in San Antonio, but they try really hard to incoporate the new employees into "the family". For instance, all new employees have to get flown to San Antonio for a week of team building exercises and orientation. To me, it almost seemed culty.
That company cannot implode fast enough. I will never do business with them again after they hell they put me through (twice) with their inherently broken security model
So they laid off 200 workers but they now have 200 job openings?
Why not just retrain existing workers instead of laying them off? Stuff like this seems like the quickest way to kill morale and run the business into the ground.
Agreed but job openings in different areas most likely. Hypothetical example: you lay off 200 developers and want to hire 200 sales/marketing folks. Devs don't want to be retrained in marketing (I sure wouldn't).
But, also consider that the PE firm doesn't care all that much. They just need to make the numbers look good, so they replace highly paid veterans for cheaper junior workers. And ultimately, they force the company into treading water with a smaller/cheaper workforce which makes the numbers look good in the short term so they can sell it. Sucks for the company though.
I had the same thought when I heard about this internally. Especially given that our company wishes to "retain the top tech talent" and "become/remain a destination employer". Morale is indeed quite low because of this :(
Seems like everyone working at these two companies is a wizard that put on their robe and hat before work. When you pay for hosting you want someone on call and smarter than you for when things go south.
Digital Ocean for stuff that absolutely has to have its own sandbox. Support is slow and ticket only but it's cheap enough you can build out a cluster to mitigate outages.
Pantheon for most Drupal sites. Amazing service. Should have made the move years ago.
Platform.sh for some Drupal sites and for various NodeJS projects.
Various CDNs for asset serving.
Almost everything is available now "as-a-service". The case where a custom server that you manage via SSH is the best solution is now the minority.
Rackspace is sort of mind blowing. They were first to market, had excellent personable customer service, yet somehow now the early lead with a lack of broader vision and ambition.
Unfortunately from reading some of the comments it appears that private equity took over RS at some point and now it's just gonna be their cash cow until they go bankrupt.
They haven't done much innovation wise in years. Its really sad.
Are there any examples of companies bought by private equity firms that did not go down the drain? On the retail side, I recall Toys R Us and Sports Authority being examples of companies recently folding after the PE firms were enriched.
They used to be amazing. 15 years ago if you rented a server from them you were getting a sysadmin into the bargain. For companies without that expertise in house (or who didn’t need enough to justify a full time position) and for whom shared hosting wasn’t an acceptable alternative, they were the perfect option.
[+] [-] jasonjayr|7 years ago|reply
They just announced a $5 hike in price this month for "fanatical" support, I haven't opened a support request with them in eons:
> In July 2014, Rackspace introduced a minimum support fee of $50 for all new accounts to offset the rising cost of providing Fanatical Support. Legacy accounts like yours were unaffected by this change, keeping your previous rate without a support fee for the past four years. Effective February 2019, you will see the addition of a $5 support fee on your invoice.
I've been grooming a elastic IP @ AWS for the last year, and rackspace is getting dropped this week.
[+] [-] fyfy18|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shakahs|7 years ago|reply
[1] https://documentation.mailgun.com/en/latest/user_manual.html...
[+] [-] linkmotif|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meritt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dvtrn|7 years ago|reply
They just announced a $5 hike in price this month for "fanatical" support, I haven't opened a support request with them in eons:
How is their fanatical support lately? I recall my company (at the time) paying through the nose for a pretty responsive Fanatical Support SLA, such that I could call in at 2AM and almost every time get someone in no more than three rings-central time zone, no less-for our dedicated services account.
Curious how it is for other customers who might not have had a tech budget the size of ours and could swing heavy hammers to get such support.
[+] [-] joering2|7 years ago|reply
About your mailservers: location doesn't matter, as reputation is being build over the time. I have Digital Ocean $5/1GB machine that was previously used for heavy spamming (had to submit tickets with all biggest SpamHouses) and since then has pristine reputation with constant 97-99 SpamScore, etc. You just need about 45 days of constant raising volume of mailouts and you be fine. This machine currently does about 40,000 mailouts a day.
[+] [-] yumraj|7 years ago|reply
I've been using mailinabox and am generally happy with it as is mostly a hobby server, but am curious what others are running.
[+] [-] crikli|7 years ago|reply
I very much miss when their support truly was fanatical.
Edit: duration of service, clarity
[+] [-] jwdunne|7 years ago|reply
For example, we agreed a planned maintenance window 2 weeks ago. It happened, it failed and they left the server offline for 7 hours after the window cut off.
We asked of compensation was available. It took 7 days just for the account manager to say no. I can accept that it's in the ToS but is 7 days for a response from our account manager 'fanatical support'?
We're in the process of moving our WP sites to WPEngine, where the support is much better, and software we maintain for clients to AWS for a fraction of the cost either way.
[+] [-] unclebucknasty|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Neil44|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grecy|7 years ago|reply
Any suggestions?
[+] [-] antidaily|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeta0134|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seltzered_|7 years ago|reply
Supposedly this is an annual thing now: https://www.tpr.org/post/third-year-row-february-rackspace-l...
[+] [-] cimmanom|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevekemp|7 years ago|reply
Big hosts can survive by essentially offloading support, and making as much as possible self-managed by the end-user.
The non-technical people who just want "a server that works" won't, broadly speaking, pay a premium for that. They're non-technical and will eat up support-hours too, asking questions about setting file permissions on Wordpress.
[+] [-] Bombthecat|7 years ago|reply
Rackspace might have had a chance, but it is gone now..
[+] [-] ratling|7 years ago|reply
That is dead and buried now though. There may still be some good people there but their products are dated 'also ran' knockoffs of AWS services and I don't trust them within an inch of our environments anymore.
[+] [-] scarface74|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Theodores|7 years ago|reply
I felt bad for clients that had been suckered with that cost burden, particularly if the customers did not show up after go-live. It was like the online equivalent of them being lumbered with a giant mall when they needed a prominent spot on the High Street.
Nowadays though services like AWS have taken on this agency provided hosting setup.
[+] [-] raxthrowaway0|7 years ago|reply
https://www.linode.com/referrals
https://www.digitalocean.com/referral-program/
https://www.vultr.com/news/Summer-Promo-Now-Earn-%2430-For-E...
You're also clearly unaware that Rackspace built itself and went public on colocation, which dates your perspective. "What type of servers to use" is such a variable question for each outfit, and even with a web-focused startup perspective like this one, there's so much variance in work that colocation often made sense at the time. Time sharing a VPS with Bob's IRC Vhost Service often does not.
[+] [-] jimmywanger|7 years ago|reply
My take is that they were pivoting HARD away from the server business and trying to provide "cloud architecture solutions", where they would tell you how to properly set up your GCP and Amazon clouds to fit your needs.
From inside the company, coming from the silicon valley, the culture was rather jarring. They're from San Antonio, and try to hard to be hip and silicon valley-ish, but it's just in the uncanny valley where everything is a little bit... off. Also, it might be the corporate culture in San Antonio, but they try really hard to incoporate the new employees into "the family". For instance, all new employees have to get flown to San Antonio for a week of team building exercises and orientation. To me, it almost seemed culty.
[+] [-] ex3ndr|7 years ago|reply
This is actually very SV way.
[+] [-] orestis|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ratling|7 years ago|reply
Rest In Piss.
[+] [-] new_guy|7 years ago|reply
Why not just retrain existing workers instead of laying them off? Stuff like this seems like the quickest way to kill morale and run the business into the ground.
[+] [-] quacker|7 years ago|reply
But, also consider that the PE firm doesn't care all that much. They just need to make the numbers look good, so they replace highly paid veterans for cheaper junior workers. And ultimately, they force the company into treading water with a smaller/cheaper workforce which makes the numbers look good in the short term so they can sell it. Sucks for the company though.
[+] [-] raxthrow2022|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christophilus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrownaway954|7 years ago|reply
Hands down expensive as hell but AMAZING support.
For Linux... Inmotion Hosting
Reasonably priced, but UNBELIEVABLE support.
Seems like everyone working at these two companies is a wizard that put on their robe and hat before work. When you pay for hosting you want someone on call and smarter than you for when things go south.
[+] [-] crikli|7 years ago|reply
Pantheon for most Drupal sites. Amazing service. Should have made the move years ago.
Platform.sh for some Drupal sites and for various NodeJS projects.
Various CDNs for asset serving.
Almost everything is available now "as-a-service". The case where a custom server that you manage via SSH is the best solution is now the minority.
[+] [-] bitzun|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exUKRacker|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exabrial|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zelon88|7 years ago|reply
Unfortunately from reading some of the comments it appears that private equity took over RS at some point and now it's just gonna be their cash cow until they go bankrupt.
They haven't done much innovation wise in years. Its really sad.
[+] [-] unclebucknasty|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimmydddd|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linkmotif|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burlesona|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iandanforth|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patrickg_zill|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ykevinator|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cimmanom|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] charliebrownau|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Sam_Harris|7 years ago|reply
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