eNlight

[Jester]

Cheers Ben.

I understand the need for a cache, but double the currently used? I'm just talking to someone on live support about this.. and I'm being told that being charged for it is correct.

Currently, my inactive system has 1024MB Allocated to the VM.

WHM is reporting in the Service Status Screen -

memory used as being: 45.39% (475,940 of 1,048,576)

WHM is reporting in the Server Information Screen as being -

Total Mem: 1048576 showing 969516 used with 482688 cached.

My eNlight control panel graph shows that between 2PM and 3PM I have used 908Mb of RAM and has billed me accordingly.

Surely to be a scalable solution, you can only charge what is being used and not what is cached - or, if you are going to do what is cached, make the cache a lot smaller in size - and not matching the entire RAM current usage.

I apologise now if I've completely missed the point. But these are the figures in front of me and they don't add up

Thank you!

[Ben Stones]

Cheers Ben.

I understand the need for a cache, but double the currently used? I'm just talking to someone on live support about this.. and I'm being told that being charged for it is correct.

Currently, my inactive system has 1024MB Allocated to the VM.

WHM is reporting in the Service Status Screen -

memory used as being: 45.39% (475,940 of 1,048,576)

WHM is reporting in the Server Information Screen as being -

Total Mem: 1048576 showing 969516 used with 482688 cached.

My eNlight control panel graph shows that between 2PM and 3PM I have used 908Mb of RAM and has billed me accordingly.

Surely to be a scalable solution, you can only charge what is being used and not what is cached - or, if you are going to do what is cached, make the cache a lot smaller in size - and not matching the entire RAM current usage.

I apologise now if I've completely missed the point. But these are the figures in front of me and they don't add up

Thank you!

Hi Jester,

I have an eNlight VM as well so I would want to make sure that I am not charged more than for the same as a standalone Linux VPS. I have already forwarded this to John. He should respond tomorrow for you. As I had said in my previous post, we have already adjusted what eNlight customers get charged for in regards to RAM usage, so customers aren't charged the previous amount which would make an eNlight VM not more cost-effective than a VPS, which is a primary advantage of our new cloud product.

I can understand your concern and it is rightfully valid which is why I'm requesting John to respond directly.

Kind regards,
Ben.

[Jester]

Cheers Ben. Apologises if it sounded like I was repeating myself... just been one of those weekends where nothing has gone smoothly.

On the plus point for eNlight servers - the fact that it documents in graphs and is visible at a glance is awesome... definitely the best option to have if you haven't got the fund to go fully dedicated but want the security and features of a dedicated server.

Once this issue is resolved I know I'm going to be one happy customer

[Ben Stones]

Cheers Ben. Apologises if it sounded like I was repeating myself... just been one of those weekends where nothing has gone smoothly.

On the plus point for eNlight servers - the fact that it documents in graphs and is visible at a glance is awesome... definitely the best option to have if you haven't got the fund to go fully dedicated but want the security and features of a dedicated server.

Once this issue is resolved I know I'm going to be one happy customer

Not a problem Jester . I will keep up on this thread to ensure you get a response as quickly as possible.

Regards,
Ben.

[Jester]

Cheers Ben. Sent you a PM.

[Ben Stones]

Cheers Ben. Sent you a PM.

Hi Jester, thanks for your PM. I have responded .

Regards,
Ben.

[John]

I have signed up for a new Enlight cloud. First of all well done guys at bringing in proper cloud computing. Huzzar!

I am a little confused about a couple of things however. (I can hear the sigh from many EUK staff from here.. sorry)


During the migration period and the period of inactivity afterwards I thought I'd keep a close eye on resources and what was occurring on the server with no user load. I have had issues with my VMcloud in the past so this seemed a logical step to keeping you as my webhosts.

I could write a long post here, but I'll cut to the chase as I've not had much sleep in the past 48 hours.. Attempted hacks and fraudulent transactions have shot my nerves a tad. Anyhow, that's a different story.


The stats in my WHM for memory use do not correlate to the amount I'm actually being billed for. If I allocate 2GB is bills me for just under 2GB - with no users on an inactive site. I've adjusted the allocations.. it drops down initially and then the use rises back up to max again.

In my WHM, The server status screens tell me my actual memory use is a fraction of what it says i'm using.

My best guess, is the memory is being cached (which I can see it is on my WHM) - and the cached + the used is being calculated as being used and therefore billed. Is that right? I presume it isn't. Because if i'm using my full 2GB when the system is practically idle, I'll be paying over £200+ a year more than what I currently do for the same resources.

I tried to explain this to Livesupport, they didn't seem to understand. I've taken screenshots to explain what I am seeing to and to show the times on them - and can provide them accordingly.

Anyone clear this up? At the moment it feels like I've made a wrong decision and i'm going to be paying a lot for it!

Hello Jester,

It is a little complicated.

The figure you see in WHM is your USED figure, minus cached and buffered. That is WHM doing some maths for you. I'm personally not a big fan of the way it does it, as it can give clients a wrong impression over how much RAM they have using and how much room for growth they have. Doing a free -m in terminal will give you a clearer picture.

As it stands right now, your VM has been allocated (via scaling) 1 GB RAM. Below are your stats:

Allocated Used Buffers Cached

1024 924 8 343


In WHM, you will likely be seeing around 570-580 MB usage. However, as far as the operating system is concerned, you are USING 924 MB. It is an accurate figure, but we understand it can be confusing.

The issue comes from an OS not wanting to give resources back after it has allocated them. Performing a cPanel migration for example, will make your VM use more resources than it needs to. If you scale CPU, it will simply remove them as soon as CPU usage goes down, so no issues there. Once you have scaled RAM, the OS is a little reluctant to give back all the RAM it used. In truth it didn't need to use as much as it did, but it did because it could.

We are working on some ways to persuade the OS to release RAM it doesn't need from outside the VM. We need to be careful how we do this though, as many websites these days are so highly tweaked to use cache anything we do could have a detrimental effect on those websites. We are aiming to give customers the option of more pro active scaling down of RAM as well as giving clients more flexibility on prices.

[John]

Hello All,

In the eNlight Online Panel now, under VM OS Setting, you can now select Economy Mode and then reboot if you are wanting to keep control over your spend. Performance mode is intended for those who need the fastest service no matter what.

In economy mode you will still scale, but it will more aggressively scale down the RAM and control how much can be cached.

[Jester]

I see that from 18:00 today, my allocated RAM remained at 1024MB and my used RAM fell to 640MB. This saved me about 1-2p per hour.

Perfect


Thanks John - I'll monitor this and see how it fairs.. it seems to be closer to how I imagined it working.


On another note: I love this service. Anyone not on it needs to seriously consider it.

[Ben Stones]

I see that from 18:00 today, my allocated RAM remained at 1024MB and my used RAM fell to 640MB. This saved me about 1-2p per hour.

Perfect


Thanks John - I'll monitor this and see how it fairs.. it seems to be closer to how I imagined it working.


On another note: I love this service. Anyone not on it needs to seriously consider it.

Hi Jester,

Pleased to hear back from you regarding your eNlight VM. I too have an eNlight VM with us and so I was as eager as you were to get this improvement implemented as soon as possible; John told me today they had implemented the new configuration options earlier today.

Thank you for your patience while the improvements were being implemented.

Regards,
Ben.

[THOMAS-UK]

You will have two options in our eNlight control panel to adjust the memory usage. You can still limit the memory usage as you were used to but in addition to that you can choose a memory mode on the VM settings tab.

Economy mode will try to scale down your system as far as it can. It will never remove all cache from the server but it will ask the OS to release it to a certain point where it is still beneficial. In performance mode your server will work as it did before. The OS is allowed to use more memory and it will probably use that for cache.

[ejsolutions]

Another perspective...

I'm finally finding some time to migrate some of my sites from a low cost VPS competitor, to eNlight. (I also have an EUKHost vmware Cloud with busier sites.) I don't really have the time to explore this avenue but felt the offer to be too good to miss.

I've taken what may be considered the minimum size VM for a cPanel installation (512Mb RAM). What I have noticed is that the £10 signup fee is rapidly used up, during the initial phase. By the time the OS is updated, Configserver installed, Apache rebuilt (for example PHP hardening) and all the other ancillary 'stuff', most of the £10 is gone. Not a complaint per se, just an observation and I'm very glad of the £30 credit, to offset this.
I'm taking the opportunity to upgrade the existing web packages for the few sites, so it'll be interesting to see how much of the resources are used. Once these small sites are stable, I'm hoping to get near to the competitors' £24/month fixed fee. Time will tell and the adjustments to billing should help considerably. I've opted not to use scaling.

The key benefit will of course be the better support from EUKHost! [most of the time]

[jennifer]

@ ejsolutions You're most welcome to order for eNlight and see how it works for you.

Basically, the scale that you see on our website is based on default rates & usage and this is for information purposes only. The slider is more like a predictor tool so that a user can understand the costs. You can use the predictor to calculate an estimated cost you will be charged on eNlight.

When a user scales the predictor as per his requirements, he assumes that he'll be using that configuration 100% of the time, which is not always the case as the usage may vary all the time. Please be advised the real billing pattern could be higher or lower depending on your usage.

[ejsolutions]

@ ejsolutions You're most welcome to order for eNlight and see how it works for you...

Did you actually read my post, otherwise you wouldn't have commented as you have!
My eNlight Cloud was activated on 10/01/2012 - Total used amount (so far): £12.47
In fact, having just looked, I see that unbeknown to me the VM has been changed to Scaled, Economy Mode - as long as it doesn't go beyond the maximum setting, that should be fine. I'm currently on target according to the forecast: "1 Month £21.60 GBP"

[jennifer]

Did you actually read my post, otherwise you wouldn't have commented as you have!
My eNlight Cloud was activated on 10/01/2012 - Total used amount (so far): £12.47

Nice to know that you have already placed an order, although your post did not made it very clear in the first read. Since your post was primarily about migrating sites to eNlight, it appeared as if you were yet to place an order for it