12
Apr
You read a lot of negativity around the blogosphere relating to Media Temple - so when evo decided to find a new hosting partner, we thought we’d find out for ourselves.
Over the years evo has partnered with 1and1 and HeartInternet to provide client hosting services.
Both have been exemplary and more recently Heart have demonstrated rock solid uptime and great customer service. However, our client’s are becoming more demanding, or rather our client’s websites are becoming more demanding and to work effectively we require a far more scaleable solution.
Our requirements are maximum uptime and speed, flexibility, complete control and rock solid scalability. If a client finds themselves lucky enough to appear on the front page of Digg - it’s our job to ensure their website can sustain the bludgeoning it will receive. If we fail to deliver a service capable of this the client loses out big time - which means so do we.
There are, of course, a huge number of hosting options available. Not least an easy enough route would have been dedicated, or virtual servers from either 1and1 or Heart Internet. Media Template are certainly not the cheapest hosting partners around, and there is certainly no shortage of negative press around - so why do we like the look of them?
Well, because their website is frankly ace. There, it’s been said. Surely we can’t suggest that we choose hosting on the basis of a website? Okay, no - that’s not the full story but….
We design and build websites, that’s our business. We spend hours and hours convincing clients of the importance of great looking websites. We read books, papers, magazines and articles and contribute to all manner of blogs and forums extolling the virtue and importance of a great website. We are in the business of marketing; of working with clients to identify their customers and their needs and delivering.
So when we see a company like Media Temple, for which the design, copy and ethos seems so synergistic to our own - we can’t help but feel these are the guys for us.
That was the bait. The hook came later. Still largely pessimistic based on grumblings about the Grid Service performance, and not least of which from a very close professional acquaintance - it was time to find out.
If somebody asked me to write a couple of sentences about what I would like from a server I’d say. I want a dedicated or virtual private server for which all of the major upgrades and security patches were handled for me, but still gave me root access. I would like it to run Plesk and ideally I would like the hosting partners control panel to also be ace. I would like it to be lightening fast, running LAMP with all the usual gubbins. However, I would also like one touch scalability. Not an invite to buy a new faster server and begin a painful migration - but a switch, or series of switches, for which I could up the horse power as needed.
It might sound reasonable or standard but surprisingly there aren’t many options offering everything I have listed. Media Template Dedicated Virtual delivers all of it.
We are now 48 hours into a migration plan and things are going very well. The server is performing beautifully, at lightening speeds and offering an almost enjoyable migration process. But it’s all US infrastructure, how does it perform in the UK?
Our previous host Heart, is based in the UK. The newly migrated sites are running slightly faster, and in some cases a lot faster than before. Latency is minimal and with cacheing turned on for anything running data driven components it all bounces along very quickly.
Administering the system is faster and easier since Plesk is just a dream. As good as WHM / cPanel are they are no match for Plesk.
Okay, okay, so support is bad then yes? I have read countless posts about the poor quality Media Temple support. But then, that’s all I ever read when researching something. If my only test of Apple Inc’s quality was based on reading their support forums I would probably never buy anything from them. So it’s for this reason I am always weary of accepting everything I read in terms of service quality reviews.
In the last 48 hours I have submitted 4 support queries and each has been answered within the hour, professionally and to a high standard. Maybe this is something new customers are afforded to get them going and things will drop off in the future - who knows. Having said that I would argue the case that new customers tend to need more attention anyhow.
Previously we had a system in place with Heart with which we could host huge numbers of sites with lots of standard features in a reliable, pretty quick but entirely unscalable fashion. Now we have a rapid solution, that looks ace, is a joy to use and most importantly will scale to dizzy heights if demand requires it.
One success story is no more compelling than a story of anguish and failure. Indeed I have read quite a bit of negative press about the Media Temple Grid Service, and also seen a few status warnings over the past 24 hours. But then what would you expect for £15 a month.
All we can offer is our own, humble, opinion. In the last 72 hours Media Temple hosting is the best we’ve experienced.