As I have mentioned before, I am a happy Linode customer. I mean, Linode just keeps on rocking! I have never in my life encountered a business that is such a pleasure to deal with and provides a product so well-functioning that you forget how life used to be before you could get a mighty little Linode and host a dozen or so web sites on it for about $240/year.
I have ArchLinux installed on my Linode. The combination has been so effective, so easy to maintain, so fire-and-forget, that I have made dumb mistakes maintaining it. Recently, I followed ArchLinux and moved my installation to systemd. Thanks to Linode’s Lish, I made the changes with full peace of mind, knowing that if anything went wrong, I could just connect on the console, and not even have to contact tech support. As wonderful as Linode’s tech support is, we all know that the best tech support is the one you don’t have to contact. Linode has not disappointed in that regard. Their product works well. In any case, the only downtime from moving to systemd? The few seconds it took to reboot the instance.
Now, I am no sysadmin with an uptime obsession. But, I remember feeling a little sad that I had to reboot my instance, after more than a year of trouble-free operation, to take advantage of the quad-core environment Linode was automatically upgrading us to. Of course, I was fine with the dual-core system, but, I mean, four cores?! I gotta get me that. Which I did.
One problem with having such a smooth operation is the fact that I forget to check what’s going on with the system. Today, I belatedly found out that Linode had just increased network capacity (my outbound cap went from 200G to 2000G—free!)
But, they had to mess with my uptime again, right?
Seriously, eight cores? I mean, 010 CORES! (do your best Jeremy Piven imitation from Gross Pointe Blank).
I told myself: “I am not a sysadmin with an unhealthy obsession with uptime.” A few seconds after clicking Reboot, I was rewarded with:
Oh, Linode, does your beauty know no bounds?
Apparently not. Because, in addition to just providing an excellent product, Linode is a Platinum level sponsor of YAPC::NA 2013, continuing a tradition of supporting Perl and YAPC.
So, Linode, you can mess with my uptime any time you want. I am looking forward to screaming “0x10 CORES!!!” next time.
If you’re looking for a no fuss virtual server where you are in control, I recommend Linode with no reservations whatsoever (and, if you want to use a link without my referral code, you can visit Linode.com using this one).
Update 2013/04/16: My praise is on hold for now, see Linode disappoints for more information.
Update 2013/05/28: I decided to stay with Linode after some consideration.