While I think I understand what you mean, I'd caution that Linode does offer free "support tickets" (but not managed support), with response times dramatically lower than the vast majority of hosts out there. So, careful with the wording on that.

Yeah! I just love linode support. It's great! No one can blame that

Awesome! I'm currently only a wannabe Linode user, so I'm not completely familiar with how Linode works.

I'm curious about those free support tickets. I presume that those are for Linode's services. For example if there is a problem with a Linode service, a support ticket may be entered. I also presume that if support determines that this is a problem with the user's personal configuration, and not with Linode's services, then the user is on their own to resolve the issue. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

VPS offers those same free support tickets for VPS services. However, VPS also offers a paid, $10 per issue, support option for ANY issue whether related to VPS services directly or not.

Providing managed services in this way (support tickets) would provide the user some granular control over the extent of services requested and paid for . . . unless this is already provided for free by Linode.

If it's a user config problem then they tend to point you to the forums where help is given my the community pretty quickly.

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Yeah, it's still unmanaged support, so the official line is that a support ticket is for service changes, or problems with the underlying service, that sort of thing. I just wanted to clarify that, they don't offer managed support tickets, but that does't mean they don't have support tickets.

In reality, Linode staff usually are willing to offer advice that goes beyond their obligations, but you obviously can't count on that, so the forums are the fallback for that sort of stuff.

I don't understood.
Do you want to offer both managed and unmanaged services or do you want to completely switch to managed services?

The managed services would be optional and paid. If you didn't purchase a managed service, your Linode would be unmanaged, so both.

I think you should offer a comprehensive managed solution - sysadmin and database admin. I've been trying to find good sysadmins who know how to use linode with a debian distro and who can set up a HA and failover setup and no one seems to be able to do it for less than $500/mo. Seems like a good way to distinguish yourselves from all other VPS hosts if you can do it at the right price and also offer fantastic support. I would be willing to pay somewhere around $300/mo for this (assuming I need about 4 servers to get the setup I want).

We actually currently offer managed hosting solutions, from shared to full clusters, based on Linode (I think we have around 30 with you) and EC2. So there certainly is a need.

On the other hand: one of the reasons we chose Linode is because they are focused only on one thing only: providing excellent quality VPS's with good service. As we are focused also on one thing: providing excellent managed hosting and service. We don't want to manage the cloud.

Expanding into managed services would make it more difficult for us to propose Linode to our customers because it would effectively become a competitor.

But still: you guys rock and we hope whatever the future brings will be compatible with our offering.

ps: currently we only offer our services in Belgium, but are launching our English site soon to attract international customers. You'll find Linode already on the page http://ilibris.be/webhosting/privatehosting/

Regards,

Frederik.
http://ilibris.be

Uh oh

I, for one, am content to let the Belgians corner this market. We did kinda steal the Belgian beer style.

source

No matter what, though, I think there is and always will be room for organizations like iLibris. A cloud infrastructure provider is going to need to be big, and that limits the amount of flexibility they can offer. Another provider offers a managed service level, but I think the limitations and caveats speak for themselves.

Linode has more customers on a single server than you have total customers. In practice, they can't compete with you in your space.

I fully agree with you. Better get our English pages online asap!

In the meantime, Linode is taking baby steps it seems:

viewtopic.php?t=8349

Still in a reactive, on-request style consulting. Not the same as our full lifecycle approach.



You stole our Belgian beer style? How did you do that?

I think these guys probably took too many pictures during a tour.

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