VPS DigitalOcean

[Matt]

This is my own personal review and overview of DigitalOcean, and their VPS service. I'm a current customer, and this very site is hosted on the VPS platform.

https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=3753f5bce954

Pricing: 10/10

• Billing by the hour, and a very competitive price

Ease of Use: 10/10

• Easy to use Control Panel
• Easily manage your droplets

Features: 8/10

• - No extra IP addresses
• - Unable to downsize past the initial droplet size.
• + Excellent resource library
• + Private networking
• + 2 factor auth
• - no native iPhone / iPad app

Overall: 9/10

 

[Matt]

Pricing
For me, this is the first major selling point for DigitalOcean.

As someone who likes to spin up servers, destroy them, and move onto something different, the ability to pay by the hour is a big selling point for me. Even at $5 a month for their smallest package, it's a very affordable way to get your hands on a VPS.



Move the slider over to Hourly, and you can see how much the plans will cost you per hour


They also have larger plans available:


They even supply a nice comparison chart, showing the differences in their popular 2GB package

 

[Matt]

Control Panel
DigitalOcean use a custom control panel, which I find very easy to navigate, and has a nice, clean UI to it.

Droplets


Clear navigation menu on the left hand side, with a list of your droplets on the right.

Images
DigitalOcean doesn't charge you anything extra for storing images of your droplets. When I create a new droplet, and have an initial config I'm happy with, I will shut it down, and create an image so I can build a new one with it if I break something, or want to replicate it.

Your images are initially stored in the location where the droplet was created, however, you can choose to make these available across all the DO regions if you want to have a droplet in a different data centre.

SSH Keys
This section basically tells you how to set up an SSH key to allow you to connect to the droplet without the need for a password.

Billing

This section gives you a real time view of your current balances, and a brief overview of previous payment history.
Clicking on the "View this month's usage and charges" link opens a more detailed invoice for the current month.

 

[Matt]

Creating a Droplet
One of the easiest things to do with DigitalOcean, is creating a new droplet.

Set your Hostname, and the size you want


Choose your region (I've selected AMS2 as I want Private Networking on the droplet), and your image


Enabled Private Networking


Create your droplet!


When it's done, you'll get an e-mail with the root password in it


Droplet Management
Another thing I like about DigitalOcean, is the features when managing the droplets.

Power


Access


Settings


Graphs

 

[Matt]

Support
I've opened 2 support tickets in the time I've been with DigitalOcean.
The first ticket was answered in under 30 minutes, and the seconds was answered in 1 hour 45 minutes. I can't comment on any critical issues, as I've never had to raise a support request for an urgent matter.

EDIT: Just opened a support ticket as all droplets in AMS2 were unreachable. Pretty quick response:


Status Blog
They have an offsite status site, which is quick to update with ongoing and resolved issues: http://www.digitaloceanstatus.com/

For the major incidents I've seen happen on there, their post impact statements have always been very transparent, and in-depth. Example here

 

[Matt]

Notification in the control panel for their current ongoing issue


Haven't seen that before, but it's a nice feature

 

[Matt]

$20 2GB Droplet

System Benchmarks Index Score 749.8

========================================================================
   BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.3)

   System: test.mattwservices.co.uk: GNU/Linux
   OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-431.1.2.0.1.el6.x86_64 -- #1 SMP Fri Dec 13 13:06:13 UTC 2013
   Machine: x86_64 (x86_64)
   Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="UTF-8", collate="UTF-8")
   CPU 0: QEMU Virtual CPU version 1.0 (4000.0 bogomips)
          x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
   CPU 1: QEMU Virtual CPU version 1.0 (4000.0 bogomips)
          x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
   12:49:51 up 3 min,  2 users,  load average: 0.56, 0.30, 0.11; runlevel 3

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Sun Feb 16 2014 12:49:51 - 13:17:52
2 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests

Dhrystone 2 using register variables       16520381.6 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone                     2100.8 MWIPS (9.9 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput                               1245.0 lps   (29.9 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks        266833.4 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           72536.1 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks        708797.3 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput                              738259.5 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching                  72782.1 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation                               2456.8 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                   1160.7 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                    334.4 lpm   (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead                        1167463.9 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)

System Benchmarks Index Values               BASELINE       RESULT    INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables         116700.0   16520381.6   1415.6
Double-Precision Whetstone                       55.0       2100.8    382.0
Execl Throughput                                 43.0       1245.0    289.5
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks          3960.0     266833.4    673.8
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks            1655.0      72536.1    438.3
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks          5800.0     708797.3   1222.1
Pipe Throughput                               12440.0     738259.5    593.5
Pipe-based Context Switching                   4000.0      72782.1    182.0
Process Creation                                126.0       2456.8    195.0
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                     42.4       1160.7    273.7
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                      6.0        334.4    557.3
System Call Overhead                          15000.0    1167463.9    778.3
                                                                   ========
System Benchmarks Index Score                                         477.7

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Sun Feb 16 2014 13:17:52 - 13:45:46
2 CPUs in system; running 2 parallel copies of tests

Dhrystone 2 using register variables       25975848.9 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone                     4320.0 MWIPS (9.2 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput                               2792.7 lps   (29.6 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks        215216.8 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           62019.1 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks        629208.9 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput                             1363745.8 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching                 142432.6 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation                               6573.0 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                   3113.3 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                    484.1 lpm   (60.2 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead                        1564228.7 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)

System Benchmarks Index Values               BASELINE       RESULT    INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables         116700.0   25975848.9   2225.9
Double-Precision Whetstone                       55.0       4320.0    785.5
Execl Throughput                                 43.0       2792.7    649.5
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks          3960.0     215216.8    543.5
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks            1655.0      62019.1    374.7
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks          5800.0     629208.9   1084.8
Pipe Throughput                               12440.0    1363745.8   1096.3
Pipe-based Context Switching                   4000.0     142432.6    356.1
Process Creation                                126.0       6573.0    521.7
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                     42.4       3113.3    734.3
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                      6.0        484.1    806.9
System Call Overhead                          15000.0    1564228.7   1042.8
                                                                   ========
System Benchmarks Index Score                                         749.8

 

[RoldanLT]

So this Forum is just using 512MB of Ram?

 

[Matt]

So this Forum is just using 512MB of Ram?

This site would use a lot less than 512. I like to mess about, so I actually had it on 3 x 512mb droplets. One for nginx & php-fpm, one for MySQL and the 3rd for Elasticsearch.

I'm running @Kevin 's test site on a single 512 and that has over 150,000 posts on it

 

[RoldanLT]

I actually had it on 3 x 512mb droplets. One for nginx & php-fpm, one for MySQL and the 3rd for Elasticsearch

Both using Centmin Mod?

 

[Matt]

Both using Centmin Mod?

Yes, set up with centminmod.