Borkfomb

Update 2: Mosso is now known as The Rackspace Cloud. Maintaining the Mosso name here, but updated links.
Update: I have since switched from Slicehost to Mosso. A more detailed account of my experience with Mosso can be found here.

Yesterday Mosso launched their Cloud Server service, and boy was I disappointed when I tried it out. To start off, I was misinformed by a sales representative. The only gripe (and it’s a small one) I have concerning Slicehost is the inability to upgrade kernels myself, I must contact support to do so… but it seems to simply be a caveat of Xen virtualization. Unsure at the time if Mosso also uses Xen (and being persistently pestered to begin a live chat), I contacted their sales, and asked if kernel upgrades require intervention:

Me: how are kernel upgrades handled? Do they require Mosso intervention, or can the OS handle it itself?
Sales: I’m assuming you are talking about Cloud Sites?
Me: No, the new “cloud server” service Mosso started today
Sales: Ah ok, Cloud Servers is unmanaged, so it’s up to you to do any updates / patches / etc.

Know then I specifically mentioned “Cloud Server service” earlier in the conversation, but apparently the sales rep wasn’t paying attention. It turns out Mosso is indeed using Xen for their cloud servers, so I cannot upgrade the kernel myself.  In retrospect, I should have outright asked if they use Xen, but I figured since I was speaking with sales, it would be best to avoid potentially unfamiliar terms.

Believing I could upgrade kernels myself, I created an account. Logging into Mosso’s account manager, I found it to be excruciatingly slooooow, and it would frequently error out.
However, creating a 256meg cloud server took maybe only a minute. I chose Ubuntu 8.04.1 as the OS, and when I ran uname -r I realized it was running on Xen. Balls. Giving the sales rep the benefit of the doubt, I upgraded to Ubuntu 8.10… despite the kernel not being upgraded by that point, I restarted, just to be certain. Sure enough, the kernel remained unchanged. Ugh.

Being misinformed by sales coupled with the slow and unstable account manager lead me to eschew Mosso for now and stick with Slicehost. They’re both owned by Rackspace, and Mosso’s FAQ states their cloud servers use the same technology as Slicehost (which I found out well after trying Mosso). Hell, Mosso and Slicehost even share a datacenter. The account managers are similar, but Slicehost’s is much faster, stable, and more intuitive… and allows me to change my password.  Considering my present bandwidth usage, I would in fact save several dollars a month if I switched to Mosso… but such may change when, and for how much, they begin to charge for backups.

Despite my disappointments, I believe Mosso’s Cloud Servers service holds some promise, and I’ll keep tabs as it matures. When they iron out the kinks, set a price on backups (dropping the “For a limited time, backups for Cloud Servers are free of charge.” crap), and perhaps form a strong community (a large, helpful community is one of Slicehost’s best attributes), I may give them another try. And next time, I’ll be sure to scour the FAQ instead of contacting sales!