Hi,

I realize there are quite a few posts on this subject, however, what I want to accomplish with this post is to probe how many linode user's would immediately transfer their current linode over to a European Datacenter if one became available.

I hope that with this thread the linode staff can measure people's interest and may-be work out if it is a viable plan or not.

I opened my linode account aprox. 2 weeks ago and I must say I am extremely impressed. When I initially researched VPS options I limited myself to European providers. Out of the best providers I could manage stable data transfers of about 1500Kb/sec.

Even thou with my current linode I can only manage aprox. 450Kb/sec (Atlanta -> Portugal) I still firmly believe I made the right choice.

However, a European datacenter would be even a better choice. Germany, Holland or UK are probably the best choices (IMHO).

How many of you out there are from Europe and would jump at the chance of Linode datacenter in Europe?

I realize now that I should have put the question differently... may-be more like:

"Are you European and if so, would you transfer/open an account to a European Datacenter?"

Obviously North & South Americans will probably not want or need this at all.

I'm from the UK and would move my Linode within 2 seconds of a European datacenter becoming available.

I'm in Africa, you insensitive clod!

oh wait ... this is not slashdot?...

--deckert

Hi
if yes i migrate my clients for linode
this means new client (s)

so... please go for it!

... until you look at the business side of it:

Conducting international business is a headache, with export regulations, tarrifs, international income tax, etc

Shipping is expensive, and keeping fresh hardware in those data centers will become expensive

At the time of this post, Google said that 1 U.S. dollar = 0.646914219 Euros.

IMO, in order for Linode to make a profit overseas, the prices would have to be prohibitively high for market entry, and it could become a detriment to the service they provide on US soil.

</soapbox>

I might transfer mine if the DC was in a "data safe" country (i.e. Russia or Czeck Republic or Sweden).

_________________
Jay Faulkner
http://oldos.org

Exchanging rates, shipping, etc. certainly do make a difference, but I don't think it should matter too much. It's not as if every single stick of RAM must be shipped from USA to Europe. Most of these chips are made elsewhere anyway. Besides, I don't think caker flies to Fremont every time a new server needs to be set up there. Why should it be any different with, say, Sweden?

I know of a French company that recently began to offer Xen VPS's. (Don't worry, I won't advertise for Linode competitors.) They're still in beta, so the price is dirt cheap (about half of Linode per MB of memory), but they don't expect the final price to become any higher than US$15 per 256MB. That's slightly more than what we pay here at Linode, but the difference is almost negligible. Now if they can make a profit at that price, why can't Linode?

On a slightly different topic, I would like to see a datacenter in Asia/Australia. Even in Fremont, latency to these areas is quite noticeable. Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore anyone?

I'd move to a european datacenter, however I'd welcome one in a not too restrictive location - Germany and UK have proven over the last months and years that they have no respect for individual privacy.

The Netherlands would be nice, or someplace in Scandinavia...

No, caker doesn't fly out there, but they build the servers themselves, and I'll bet you shipping from New Jersey to Sweden isn't cheap.


In a recent discussion about a certain other company adding servers in Asia, an employee said that choosing an Asian country might not be so easy. That might be wrong, or have changed since then. I dunno.


Or maybe not Scandinavia.

Yes, please... I'm from Europe and would switch immediately (even if it would mean that the prices increase lightly).
Why not using Belgium.... right in the center of Europe!

I would move my Linode ASAP if they opened in Europe.
As much as I enjoy my Linode, crappy routing between my ISP and the US means I get disconnected quite often from SSH and irc.

Having been involved in the quagmire that is customs/export B.S. of hardware and software, it can be a complete nightmare. But also I do know the best route is to have staging areas in Europe which elevates 99.99% of the B.S. I'm not sure if Linode is large enough to take on that responsibility as of yet.

No I wouldn't move my Linode's over, but to be honest I probably would sign up for at least one additional Linode in Europe.

Anyway I do think it's certainly something they either are or will be looking into. As to administration on their end the units, piece of cake. One of the beauties of *nix is the ease of remote administration, unlike the bloated world M$

Can someone of Linode team let us know if it is on the roadmap and if so, foreseen for when?
thanks in advance!
Tim.

Man I'm in Australia, why isn't there an Australian Data Centre