SCO Identifies EV1Servers as Linux Licensee 740
jasonhamilton writes "EV1Servers.net has been identified as a Linux licensee, giving them the dubious title of being the first dedicated hosting company to have a licence agreement with SCO. Rather than 'eliminating uncertainty from our clients' hosting infrastructure', as Robert Marsh (CEO of EV1Servers) claims, some users of EV1 appear to be somewhat upset."
Sweet! (Score:2, Informative)
So (Score:4, Informative)
699x12000=$13,980,000.
So they're paying almost 14 million dollars for nothing. Nice.
EV1Servers.net was known as Rackshack.net (Score:5, Informative)
goto Rackshack.net [rackshack.net] and you'll get the 'official' word (and a redirect to EV1Servers.net)
For some reason there seems to be a lot of confusion about this.
Re:I was about to rent.... (Score:5, Informative)
EV1Services clients : choose your new provider (Score:4, Informative)
Oh well.. (Score:2, Informative)
Microsoft nehind this (Score:2, Informative)
"EV1Servers.net Leading Hosted Service Provider Deploys Windows-based Hosting Solutions Faster than Linux-based Solutions
"Business managers at EV1 Servers.net knew that there was a demand for a Microsoft Windows-based hosted service offering, but they did not think they could deploy Windows-based servers with the same speed or level of automation that they had achieved in their deployment of their traditional Linux-based systems. Yet with the introduction of the Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting 2.0, which can take advantage of Automated Deployment Services (ADS)--a powerful new server purposing tool in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition--EV1 Servers.net is finding that it can deploy a Windows-based hosting service in less than half the time it takes to deploy a similarly configured Linux system. And they can do it with much less hands-on involvement than their Linux deployments demand."
Re:Their other accolade: (Score:3, Informative)
Netcraft sez... (Score:5, Informative)
The site forums.ev1servers.net is running Apache/1.3.28 (Unix) mod_gzip/1.3.26.1a PHP/4.3.2 on Linux.
EV1? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:So (Score:3, Informative)
From the article, the number of servers were 20000.
699 * 20000 = 13980000 [google.com]
Re:Boycott EV1Servers (Score:2, Informative)
well we already have nuked their php/mysql forums..
Paying How Much? (Score:2, Informative)
And remember, there's no such thing as bad PR.
Re:They have to. (Score:1, Informative)
No, throwing away money is never a smart thing.
It's not worth the risk to not comply if you a re a large company.
The risk of whatworst thing that could happen is that they would be forced to pay (or to switch to something else) after the cases have been finished.
There is no down-side to not paying now, there is no risk.
ev1 associated with microsoft? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/
Ummm, slight correction.... (Score:5, Informative)
OT: Robert Marsh (CEO of E1servers.net) interview Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, March 01 2004 @ 01:08 PM EST
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/02/03/inter view_ev1servers_ceo_robert_mar
sh.html
Q. You recently made a long-term commitment to Red Hat Enterprise as EV1Servers' standard Linux OS going forward, and have also begun offering FreeBSD. What factors guided your decisions on the "OS road map" for EV1Servers for 2004 and beyond?
A.Our number one consideration was long-term stability. For the majority of our users, web servers are business tools, not unlike phone systems or copy machines. They expect the equipment to work smoothly, and have no interest in devoting significant time and attention to frequent updates. We felt that RHE's 12-18 month release cycle and 5-year support timeframe would best meet their needs.
We also took into account our customers' feedback. While most were strongly supportive of our selection of RHE, we also received a significant number of requests for FreeBSD as an alternative. And that's what we now offer.
Re:I am an EV1 customer!!#$@ (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Their other accolade: (Score:5, Informative)
The text of the contract [groklaw.net] says pretty clearly that you don't have much recourse if/when it turns out to be worthless.
Being Not A Lawyer, I can't really comment on how enforceable this clause is.
Re:Boycott EV1Servers (Score:5, Informative)
Miscellaneous plug (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No kidding... (Score:5, Informative)
They offer dedicated servers with no support (beyond basic setup of the machine) in either linux or windows.
That article is just saying that initially they offered ONLY linux b/c it took too long to deploy windows servers, but now they can deploy windows servers even faster than they can deploy linux servers.
Re:You want me to Refresh? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Customers Will Pay For It (Score:4, Informative)
I have the felling they paid closer to $6.99 a server than $699 a server.
Correction of what? (Score:1, Informative)
EV1's 800 number... (Score:3, Informative)
(800) 504-7873
Unfortunately I'm a real dedicated server customer. I called and asked them to look into it and threatened to end my relationship with them if the situation is not rectified!!!
Re:They are NOT on "our" side... (Score:5, Informative)
That's a bad summary of the article. EV1 has a great high-volume system for selling Linux dedicated servers in real time. They knew from their own web boards that some people wanted a hosting place as good as EV1 for Windows servers, but EV1 stalled forever because it just wasn't that easy to work with Windows.
Microsoft came in and gave them a great deal of support in setting up their existing order system to work with deploying Windows servers. They didn't throw any Linux servers out, and in fact they're still setting more up... they just were able to add Windows servers to their product lines and were actually able to make it work. Nobody's been able to match their $89/mo. price point on a true dedicated server that runs Windows yet.
EV1's the best in the business. They're not zealots towards any particular OS... they just have a reputation of keeping a large datacenter humming, and now they're about to have two.
Re:EV1? (Score:1, Informative)
The only think EV1 is good for is feeding your spam filter.
Other pickers after IBM (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget that SCO has a PIPE deal with BayStar Capital and the Royal Bank of Canada that gives them priority over most claimants in any liquidation deal. Plus, The Canopy Group has a promissory note to SCO which also gives them priority.
So, I don't really know what kind of priority a court judgement gets in a bankrupcy, but I'd almost bet that IBM is third in line after BS/RBC and then Canopy. Even if they end up before them, there will certainly be nothing left for the licensees or the common shareholders.
Re:You want me to Refresh? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Users definetly upset. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This customer: Taking it in stride (Score:2, Informative)
Oh, it's pretty intense stuff, hazardous material teams have been called out before. And, I use a mechanical device to propel it to the target, sort of like a potato gun. Besides, like SCO, I'll be back over and over again until the side of your horse barn rots away.
Re:Not to mention (Score:5, Informative)
Not so. Look at EV1's MRTG graphs [ev1servers.net] -- there isn't even a blip from the slashdot effect.
All that has been demonstrated here is that the server which runs EV1's forum isn't capable of handling the load... as long as you're not hosting your web site on that server, there is no problem.
Re:hmmm... (Score:3, Informative)
Try this, it works fine. [ev1servers.net]
dedicated server price points (Score:5, Informative)
Start with www.servermatrix.com. RHES, Redhat 9, FreeBSD, and, yes, Windows.
And "best in business" is an opinion not shared by many. Go to www.webhostingtalk.com to see comparisons.
Hosting companies easy targets (Score:4, Informative)
1.) They have thousands of servers.
2.) They operate on razor thin margins making money on volumes.
The legal costs of a suit with SCO would for sure shut them down.
EV1 was offered a cheap site license not $699 per server at a cost probably heavily negotiated with a carrot and stick approach by SCO.
Finally it's interesting to note that EV1 advertises Red Hat Enterprise and Windows as their selling point. Infact I don't see any server with SCO Linux on offer at all.
MOD PARENT DOWN -1 Troll (Score:2, Informative)
Re:There seems to have been a slight problem.... (Score:2, Informative)
http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/#reloa
It very good toy for pages that keep changing
Re:They are NOT on "our" side... (Score:5, Informative)
Since my time with them I've found several other much more reputable hosts in a similar to slightly more expensive price range. EV1 (formerly Rackshack) are gutter hosting, and I'd strongly advise all to avoid them.
Treat like extortionists anywhere (Score:4, Informative)
It is important to remember that extortion succeeds because it often makes good business sense to pay the fee, rather than fighting a huge fight at some risk against the person extorting the money.
This means a company might make what it perceives as a good "business decision" which involves paying the extortionists rather than fighting them. You see this with all these types of rackets (DDOS, old fashioned thugs on the street, kidnappers, SCO etc).
It is important to stop the payments to these guys. If no one paid kidnappers, they would stop finding it lucrative to kidnap. Paying SCO just funds their business model, just as paying a kidnapper funds the kidnappers (in some contries kidnappers dive the fancy cars and have full out well oiled operations based on the revanue they realize).
There should be a two prong attack on these SCO extortionsts.
One is to insure that their claims are shot down clearly in a court of law. This IBM is well suited to accomplish, with armies of lawyers who can slowly grind through the millions of pages of documents a $5 billion case can generate.
The second is to make extortion payments a bad business decision for the companies that make them. That is where the vast majority of users come in.
When a company partners with SCO, and SCO starts issuing their press releases, users MUST indicate to the company (EV1) that the partners they do business with say a lot about the company, and MOVE THEIR BUSINESS elsewhere.
It is as simple as that. These companies have often built an entire business on open source, and are now paying cash money to groups who are claiming the GPL is invalid and that the software is like a toy car.
Let's see business move from EV1.
Re:Their other accolade: (Score:1, Informative)
Re:No kidding... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, Windows (XP and 2003, possibly 2000 as well) can be installed via PXE using Remote Installation Services. Microsoft even provides a PXE boot floppy for use with systems that don't provide it in the BIOS.
RIS requires a specially-configured NTFS partition (you can't put things other than installation images on it), and uses hard-linking to save space on duplicate files between similar installation images.
Of course, this doesn't address the question of why they don't image the Linux systems. It's certainly not very hard to do.
Re:Boycott EV1Servers (Score:3, Informative)
try going to http://php.net for example
Never heard of?! (Score:4, Informative)
> an ISP nobody ever heard of
Nobody ever heard of?! EVERYONE in the hosting industry knows of EV1Servers [ev1servers.net] (aka Rackshack). They are one of the biggest providers of discounted rack servers on the planet. NetCraft [netcraft.com] apparently [netcraft.com] knows about them too, and had an interview with Marsh [netcraft.com]. The host a LOT of boxes.
They are likely the biggest provider of startup web hosting servers around. Although they aren't the cheapest [serverpronto.com] around [server4you.com], they are probably the cheapest that still offers any level of service. I'd say anyone who hasn't heard of them probably isn't in the industry.
Re:They are NOT on "our" side... (Score:3, Informative)
I was the lead admin for was considering
using their services. I was attracted by
their price/performance ratio, but I found
their sales staff to be ridiculously
uninformed, arrogant, and god damned RUDE.
If the *sales* staff are like that I
don't want to even think about what their
technical staff are like.
(An amusing side-note would be the
description of one of their admins
by a poster to (iirc) houston.internet
as a "shit for brains, know it all,
20 y.o. l33t haxor punk", heh. apparently
this twerp tried convincing a guy with (again, iirc)
over fifteen years of unix experience
that reverse dns was entirely without merit)
Re:They are NOT on "our" side... (Score:2, Informative)
On another note, Neowin.net suffered about 3 weeks downtime because EV1 'accidently' wiped both their hard drives (they should of done the server in the next rack along) and needless to say, neowin isn't with EV1 anymore...
ev1servers (Score:3, Informative)
EV1 admin's response (Score:3, Informative)
--- quote ----
Why? Here's why.
Our primary consideration is the stability of our customers' operations. Many of you rely 100% on your servers to do business. Any risk to your uninterrupted use of Linux could have very serious financial impact.
Instead of waiting to see what develops, we decided to acquire a SCO site license in order to preemptively eliminate this issue from your list of possible worries. Regardless of your position on SCO's claims, we feel it is our responsibility to provide a hosting environment that is not dependent on the outcome of future legal proceedings.
--- end quote ----
I'm beginning to think that EV1 really had no idea what they were doing. Maybe they really are that clueless.
Re:No kidding... (Score:3, Informative)
However big the target drives are, as long as they are big enough, all you need to do is set up your preferred partitioning scheme, untar the files into it and set up the boot manager. Make a bootable CD which will allow you to fdisk, mke2fs, set up and get on the network, mount the tarball drive, untar the files, run LILO and do the steps I forgot to mention; you can update the tarballs anytime, since they're on a read-write medium, and any fragmentation you create in the process will be ironed out when the files are rewritten to the target disk.
Patching is simplified if you standardise on one distribution, and set up one of your own servers as a package repository. What's a few extra gigs of storage for the time and effort it's going to save in the longer run?
email to ev1 and the response (Score:4, Informative)
"I've been trying to decide which hosting company to use for my business. I've been looking long and hard at a few, ev1servers being one of them. Your purchase of licences from SCO has helped me narrow down the pack by eliminating hosting by ev1servers from consideration. Bravo, and thank you."
(my name with-held(sp))
Their response...
"If you do not want to host with the best in the business, that is definitely your choice, but I would not recommend it.
Thank you,
Aaron Conklin
Sales Supervisor
1-800-504-7873
www.ev1servers.net"
The best in the business? My ass, more like the most clueless in the business. More like run by the clueless.
I only deal with smart persons and smart entities, ev1 is not one of them.
Re:A good argument for dumping EV1... (Score:3, Informative)
Obviously I'm not defending ev1server's deal-making with SCO - that's plenty of reason not to ever do business with them right there (I have never hosted with them, but I have registered a bunch of domains with them when they were doing 5 dollar registrations). But I've seen some of these ridiculous spam-crusaders come down absurdly hard on people who don't deserve it many times before, and I refuse to believe any such claims without extremely clear evidence of an intentional pattern of hosting/doing business with spammers.
Re:Their other accolade: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Other pickers after IBM (Score:3, Informative)
You would be what is known as an "Unsecured Creditor". This means you are last in line for bread off that loaf, and you'll get crumbs-for-the-slice at that (if you get any at all).
Bankruptcy won't save you from judgements against you, except for protection for your primary residence and, I believe, one automobile. At least, that's how it is for humans; I don't know exactly how corporations are done.
I am not a bankruptcy attorney, but I did work for one for a few years in the early 90s.
Re:No kidding... (Score:2, Informative)
They DO mirroring for their RH servers. They actually have those little boxes that mirror harddrives bit for bit. They plug in a source drive, then plug in 6 or 7 destination drives. Unfortunetly this takes about an hour (so I was told). You then have to put the drive in the server.
I guess Microsoft's claim is that it only takes them 18 minutes using RIS via PXE.
Hello EV1! What are you thinking? (Score:5, Informative)
By buying SCO's licenses (and their FUD), EV1 effectively is providing a hosting environment dependent on the outcome of court proceedings; if SCO wins, they could try to milk EV1 for more money, while if they lose, they could also sue EV1 for money (unless IBM and RedHat grind SCO into asphalt like a good steel-toed boot squishing a cockroach),
Am I missing something, or is EV1 not smart enough to hire good lawyers?
Re:SCO learned their lesson (Score:3, Informative)