common practices of webhosts?
 

I was talking to an IT friend of mine today who has a friend who has boxes in a datacenter that he resells as a hosting service...

He mentioned that it's a common practice among webhosts to sell a virtualized machine as a so-called "dedicated server". It makes sense from a scalability perspective, but I haven't yet decided if I think it's right or wrong to sell something as something it's clearly not.

I've suspected this all along, considering that customers aren't within a physical vicinity to see their own machine with their own eyes. It really wouldn't technically matter... technically. But do you think webhosts should be more honest about what you're really buying? That you're really paying for access to more server resources, etc... and not a box entirely of your own?

What are your opinions?

That's pretty unethical. I've never experienced anything like this.

I have heard that rumor about a couple hosts. It is wrong no matter how they try to justify it.

Usually webhosts flock to these threads... hmm...

:2 cents:

So there's money in hosting :)

It's unethical, but then again, many hosts are not intelligent enough to understand partitioning a (single) physical machine even at ring 1 does not a physical machine make.

How do they give two clients root access to one and the same box, what happends if Client A changes his root password? Am I missing something here?

Yes.


For the issue at hand, its pretty easy to figure out if you're inside a virtual box when you get root access.

cat /proc/cpuinfo

not all hosts will give root access and i'm sure if they were doing this they wouldn't want to :disgust

every user is able to read /proc/cpuinfo

-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 2009-06-09 12:26 /proc/cpuinfo

I admin my own servers so it would be pretty easy to see if I've been shafted, but for fully managed hosting I wouldn't be surprised if some companies quietly put you onto a VPS and claim it's dedicated. Having said that I think it would be fairly rare and certainly not the norm.

I know of at least one prolific sales guy (owner?) here who started out his hosting business doing this.

its not common at all.

there are a few hosts tho that run a whole server as a single vps to make it easier to do backups and things like that.

Yes, that's what I meant, it would be a matter of minutes to find out with root access. So there are actually hosts that provide a DEDICATED server without full root access? :helpme

I know hosts that refuse to give root access on managed servers.

yes they dont want you to fuck shit up so they do all the work for you.

I think this thread confirms it's a common practice. Like I said, I don't necessarily have a problem with it... I guess in the name of "being green" it's best to have a virtual machine instead of wasting resources you wouldn't otherwise be using... assuming, of course, that you wouldn't otherwise be using the resources. And I suppose from the perspective of a webhost, it means the difference between infinite profitability and otherwise not being able to be a profitable business...

It explains perfectly why webhosting is so profitable, and why there's so much competition in the market.

But it still begs the question "Shouldn't you just say what you're selling? And educate the consumer as to the benefits of the product."

I don't think it's common at all. A few shady companies have been outed doing it, but it's 100% unethical and stupid to even try - since you WILL be found out.

Even if it's "1 VM - 1 Physical machine" setup, anyone doing this will be up-front and tell the customer why it's being done, and the benefits/drawbacks of doing so. If not, then chances are something even more shady is going on.

No it is not common, you would hear about it if it was. The amount of webmasters around here and the amount of webhosts used you would hear about it. In all my years of being in the webhosting biz I have seen it one time, and that person was outed.

I notice your prices are also substantially higher than most of the rates I've been seeing lately for dedicated machines, etc. Your prices look more reasonable for someone who's truly giving customers a dedicated machine - and not just saying you are.

I agree in that I don't believe it to be common practice. You're then essentially selling a VPS as a Dedicated Server. False advertising and obviously unethical.

Sometimes hosts sell these services under slightly different names. Such as "virtual dedicated".

For those that provide managed services I can see how they may be able to get away with this. Often times those requiring fully managed services aren't technically inclined enough to know that they're not on a "real" dedicated server.

How come I believe I know who you're referring to lol

What are you talking about? Phil has some of the best prices and services in the business.

There's a lot of companies that have dedicated servers with 5mbps connections in the $99 / month range. I'm sure he's providing a different product. That's what I'm saying.

i dont think the website has been updated in a few years :pimp