I also was noticing some slowness recently, and checked our server stats. We are using lots of server resources. See here:

http://radified.com/gfx08/gfx2/server_stats_july_18.png

May need to upgrade.

Sometimes, things just need a restart.  CPU usage on my VPS recently jumped to 100% and stayed there.  I restarted Asterisk, and it dropped back to 3% and stayed there.  We like to think "a reboot should never solve anything" but that doesn't change the fact that sometimes it does.

What VPS do you have?

I use Linode.  I have a 512.

http://www.linode.com/index.cfm

with so many VPS providers out there, what drew you to linode?

do they use Xen?

is that what your VPS uses?

how do you like?

no control panel?

dont think i have the skills to admin without a CP.

$20 for 512 is a good price.

i pay $45 (for 512), but that's only cuz I have a 10% discount.

you have to config & run your own backups?

i like the "choose-your-own-datacenter".

you picked dallas?

Rad wrote on Jul 25^th, 2011 at 7:05pm:

with so many VPS providers out there, what drew you to linode?

Mostly the recommendation of a few friends and price.  I also like that they offer a way to get on the console of my server (they call it "lish," some sort of proprietary virtual shell.)  The also give you free bandwidth between your servers if you have more than one VPS w/ them, which would have been handy for an online service I considered starting (but have abandoned for now.)



Rad wrote on Jul 25^th, 2011 at 7:05pm:

do they use Xen?

Yes.



Rad wrote on Jul 25^th, 2011 at 7:05pm:

how do you like?

I like it.  My server is fast and rock stable.  There was a ~2hr outage in my data center a few months ago, but that's the only downtime I've seen so far. 

I used another host a while back.  Much cheaper (~5/month) but the experience was terrible.  I blogged about my experiences with burst.  tl;dr - you get even less than you pay for with a service that cheap.

http://magooswisewords.com/?tag=burst-net



Rad wrote on Jul 25^th, 2011 at 7:05pm:

dont think i have the skills to admin without a CP.

I think I can get a control panel for a few dollars extra, but I actually don't like control panels.  They tend to be slow and clunky and you have to click 30 places to set up one thing.  I can do it much faster and easier by editing a few lines in a few config files.  I'm confident you could learn it over a weekend or two if you were interested.  The bigger difference between your host and mine is the level of tech support provided.  The Linode guys try to be helpful, but they encourage you to take advantage of their community support (forums and wiki etc) whenever possible.



Rad wrote on Jul 25^th, 2011 at 7:05pm:

you have to config & run your own backups?

They offer backups.  You can turn them on with a few clicks in the dashboard.  I don't have much data that's really critical on my server.  I run a cron job to tar up and transfer off the few directories I care about (the web sites and some of the important config files.)



Rad wrote on Jul 25^th, 2011 at 7:05pm:

you picked dallas?

I picked Fremont just b/c it's slightly closer to me and my friends, and we account for 99% of the traffic on the server.

I kinda got lost there on your site. You write well. Interesting stuff.

You're the first "Xen Master" I know.  [smiley=cool.gif]

Rad wrote on Jul 31^st, 2011 at 11:32pm:

kinda got lost there on your site. You write well. Interesting stuff.

Thanks.  I appreciate that coming from you.  I most often write to get things straight in my head.  I like to share information that I've put together to help other people, but to be honest, half the time the urge to share simply drops off if I can get it straight in my head for myself.  I have a growing backlog of interesting (to me, anyway) posts that I just lost the motivation to finish =(  That's probably why my posts are sporadic and the topics are so unfocused.  Sometimes I'd like to focus better and share more with the hopes that it'll help someone else struggling with the same ideas, but that interest is quickly lost amongst my multitudes of other pursuits.

Oh well.  I guess in that way my blog is an accurate representation of me, and in some ways that is the point of a blog =)


Rad wrote on Jul 31^st, 2011 at 11:32pm:

You're the first "Xen Master" I know.

Heh.  Never thought of it like that.  It doesn't seem nearly as wistful since I work in the industry and being familiar with the technology involved is an entry-level per-requisite for someone in my position.  Like anything else in computers, it only sounds hard until you do it once.