Contabo: New UK Region
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@timconsidine If a "Dedicated VPS" is within your budget, then you can install Proxmox VE on that and then create KVM containers or VMs within that for your disposable needs and some additional nice features for cloning etc.
If you look at the Boot loader for any Contabo VPS though, you'll see they are using Proxmox behind the scenes, I expect with their web panel connected to its API, so I'm not sure if it nests virtualisation, but it's an idea that might give you more options if that's a regular need.
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I asked them if it's possible to move current VPS VMs to the UK region, the answer seems to be yes:
Dear Marcus,
Thank you very much for your reply.
Moving your VPS to a different region is possible. Please find a full overview on the migration procedure in our documentation https://docs.contabo.com/docs/products/Cloud-VPS-and-VDS/migration/ .
You can start the migration process at any time using your customer control panel at https://my.contabo.com/abos# by clicking on "Manage" right next to your VPS and by choosing the option "Move to other Region" there.
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Best regards,Markus Heimerl
Marketing ManagerHow nice was my reply?
Awesome Nice Boo!Contabo GmbH
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Authorized executives:
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@humptydumpty - Various issues, performance, support mainly. I think a lot of the support issues are due to the fact they still manage all support by email, with no ticket system to properly manage them.
One person signed up recently for the UK, and got set to EUR billing, he asked the same day of signup to change his billing to GBP, and they agreed to change it if he paid a $25 admin fee...
Also, have you noticed that all their pricing is in EUR by default, makes sense given they are in Germany. But a €5.99 plan when the currency is changed to GBP becomes £6.99..
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We had in the past collocation to their datacenter and we got really big issue with there support and especially there networking, they didn't use at that time (2019ish) any software define networking so it was hard to understand some behavior, and customer support was not wall trained.
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@LeeW said in Contabo: New UK Region:
Also, have you noticed that all their pricing is in EUR by default, makes sense given they are in Germany. But a €5.99 plan when the currency is changed to GBP becomes £6.99..
It's the same thing for US customers. It shows $6.99 for the starting VPS. I think that's the conversion rate + a "foreign" transaction fee.
@MooCloud_Matt I agree, my experience with their support has been off-putting but the pricing and overall performance of their VPS' is keeping me as a customer so far.
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@humptydumpty said in Contabo: New UK Region:
my experience with their support has been off-putting but the pricing and overall performance of their VPS' is keeping me as a customer so far.
And that for me at least is where I can't use a provider. Knowing their support isn't good and therefore hoping nothing goes wrong.
If you have the backups and time to move quickly should something go wrong then fair enough, I just don't want to want to be in that position.
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@LeeW said in Contabo: New UK Region:
If you have the backups and time to move quickly
The power of Cloudron
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@humptydumpty - Indeed, won't lie, despite my reservations I was considering giving them a go. Hetzner is fantastic, I would like a UK service though, it's where all my visitors are and I would just prefer being hosted in rather than outside of the UK.
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@LeeW Hetzner and Netcup were next on my list but at that time they lacked a US server location which is why I went with Contabo. I spun up a Contabo VPS and ran a Cloudron on it as a test for a month. It worked fine so I moved my production server from DigitalOcean. I'm paying almost the same amount but I have MUCH more resources (especially RAM).
I feel I made the right choice by switching because if something does go bad provider wise, most likely it's network stuff that you can do nothing about but wait it out. Also, DigitalOcean' support takes just as long to respond. Having done an actual Cloudron migration, I'm less stressed about switching hosts if things do go south. The process was super easy and the only real "hassle" is the propagation time. Of course, this relies on you having S3 backups with a third party like Backblaze, etc..
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@humptydumpty Maybe you're right. I may give them a go for a month and see what happens. Will decide tomorrow
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So, I signed up for a VPS and went for the Medium VPS at 8.99 EUR to try it out. The performance was ok but I noted some initial lag on connect. I have a couple of UK VPS and one in Germany with Hetzner.
From my UK location, when I ping my UK VPSs I get an average of 20ms, with Hetzner its 32ms. With Contabo it's 80ms. That might not seem significant but really it is for a UK visitor connecting to a UK server.
I opened a ticket and politely asked about this. I suspected it was routing, Portsmouth is not the hub of the UK from a connectivity viewpoint, I appreciate that but just wanted to get their thoughts on it.
The response I got back was "Suggest you look for another provider".
Ok then, cancelled.
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@LeeW You won't get comparable specs per £ with the big-brands, but I always found Upcloud to be very good in the premium market: https://upcloud.com/data-centres/#uk-lon1=
Otherwise there's a good hosting research rabbit-hole here: https://hostadvice.com/?server_location=GB
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@marcusquinn - I am fine with DO, Vultr and Hetzner to be honest. But when I saw a new UK location it was worth checking it out. The performance difference is night and day and clearly so is the support.
I wouldn't even have minded if they just fobbed me off but to tell me just to walk if I wasn't happy, lol.
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@LeeW Top be fair to any provider offering anything priced in single digits, but they time they've paid staff to answer an email or two the cost of business exceeds the income. I think most provider's smallest instances are really loss-leader marketing.
I kinda respect the honesty, as well as your voting with your time and doing the same.
Best of luck, and let us know if you find anything else comparable.
I'm in Jersey BTW, so 150 miles south of you. Island-wide fibre to home here, so I get used to 1ms pings to London/Paris and Gigabit speeds at home
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@marcusquinn said in Contabo: New UK Region:
Top be fair to any provider offering anything priced in single digits, but they time they've paid staff to answer an email or two the cost of business exceeds the income. I think most provider's smallest instances are really loss-leader marketing.
Not relevant in relation to the issue though. Whether I pay 8 EUR or 80 EUR, it will not change the problem of an 80ms roundtrip, it will be the same for any service within that DC. It could be teething issues that will get better, either way, not my concern anymore.
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@LeeW said in Contabo: New UK Region:
From my UK location, when I ping my UK VPSs I get an average of 20ms, with Hetzner its 32ms. With Contabo it's 80ms. That might not seem significant but really it is for a UK visitor connecting to a UK server.
That would suggest they're doing some AS network tomfoolery and not actually having servers in the UK, just made to look like they are. Probably in FR.
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@robi - Definately in Portsmouth, it's a configuration issue that is the cause, I gave them a full trace log back to Portsmouth showing precisely where the issue is, just needed a little tweak and it would have largely been sorted. Hence my support ticket to nudge them, which they didn't appear to appreciate
But regardless, whether you are paying 8 EUR for 6vCPU/8GB Ram or 27 EUR for 10vCPU/60GB Ram (lol) they are without doubt horribly oversold. Your mileage will vary. All about setting expectations and if you don't expect much then you won't be disappointed.
Like I said before, 20ms to 80ms may not seem much in isolation but there are other factors which impact visitors inside/outside of the UK and so on. For most that don't do a lot of optimization, it is unlikely to be a noticeable difference. So if Contabo works for people, then it's good for what it is.
