Xen hosting

From Strugglers
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Strugglers can provide Linux virtual machine hosting for cheap, on the understanding that I do this as a hobby. If you're looking for a more professional setup then you could try Black Cat or Bytemark instead.

Technology

Strugglers virtual machines run under the Xen virtual machine monitor. Xen is a technology by which an x86 machine can run multiple other virtual x86 machines ("domains") with close-to-native performance. This effectively allows me to provision multiple complete x86 servers running from one real server.

Have a read of the Xen FAQ for more info. Xen is Free software.

Costs

All prices are inclusive of VAT. MiB is 220 (1,048,576) bytes, GiB is 230 (1,073,741,824) bytes and GB is 109 (1,000,000,000) bytes. For the purposes of tracking bandwidth use and payment periods, a month is 30 days.

RAM (MiB) Swap (MiB) Disk (GiB) Monthly data transfer (GB) Monthly cost Quarterly (3-monthly) cost Yearly (12-monthly) cost
64 256 20 £8 £22 £80
96 256 11¼ 30 £12 £33 £120
128 256 15 40 £16 £44 £160
160 320 18¾ 50 £20 £55 £200
192 384 22½ 60 £23 £63 £230
256 512 30 80 £30 £82 £300
320 640 37½ 100 £37 £101 £370
384 768 45 120 £44 £120 £440
448 896 52½ 140 £51 £139 £510
512 1024 60 160 £58 £158 £580

Extras

Monthly cost Quarterly cost Yearly cost
Additional 1GiB disk space £1 £3 £12
Excess transfer rate per GB per month £1 £3 £12
10GB extra transfer per month, pre-arranged £4 £12 £48

Additional IPv4 addresses can be allocated only if you can demonstrate legitimate need. There will be a one-off administrative fee of £10 for 8 IPs or less, £25 for more than 8 IPs.

Incremental 6-times-daily offsite backups are also available for a fee, please contact me for a quote (the same service but stored locally is available for free, see below).

Additional services

Some additional services are available, some of which are free on to any Xen customers, on request.

Payment methods

Paypal, bank transfer or cheque. Please note that Paypal charge a small transaction fee of 3.4% plus £0.20 which you will need to cover also; you will be informed of the exact fee when you sign up.

If you are going to send a cheque in a currency other than sterling then there is a £4 fee and the cheque may take up to 7 working days to clear.

Available distributions

Currently available for use as Xen domains:

Other distributions are possible but require some effort on my part. Please contact me with your requirements.

Shared resources

There are certain shared resources you can use and is in your interest to do so since it will be more efficient and use less of your own domain's resources. These are detailed on the Xen customer information page.

Network

You will be hosted at Telehouse Docklands, a top UK data centre, with 100Mbit connectivity from Jump Networks. Jump operates a Cisco-based network with direct connectivity to over 40 peers at LoNAP, and one hop access to hundreds of LINX members via the BBC.

SLAs, guarantees, etc.

None! I do this as a hobby, and I try to keep it running as best as I can. All my stuff is hosted here too so it's in my interest to have it working. In event of problem you can contact me and I'll try to fix it as soon as I can, but there's no promises.

If that won't work for you, you can and should look elsewhere.

More information