Beta Test Media Temple’s Grid Server

July 3, 2006 · 21 comments

If you currently have a Media Temple hosting account, you are eligible to apply for a beta test for the upcoming (gs). The grid server is the new name of the Shared Server v6.0 which will have some impressive features such as the ability to run PHP 4 and 5 simultaneously as well as Ruby on Rails support.

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{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Ben Gray July 3, 2006 at 2:11 pm

Dude, that’s sweet. Thanks for the heads up.

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2 Paul Stamatiou July 3, 2006 at 2:13 pm

I’m not sure, but I think they give you a separate beta test account.. don’t think they can upgrade your current one.

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3 Ben Gray July 3, 2006 at 3:35 pm

As I was reading the information they’ve released it seems that all ss accounts are going to get a bump in storage and bandwidth too. Is this the impression you get?

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4 Paul Stamatiou July 3, 2006 at 3:36 pm

Yeah, once the beta test is over.. that’s what should be happening.

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5 Ryan July 3, 2006 at 4:50 pm

Anyone got any info on what this whole grid server deal is all about? I saw Media Temple’s own sneak peek a while ago, but it was kind of ambiguous about certain aspects. I mean, the disk/bandwidth limits as they stand now are kind of gigantic (2gb/1tb), so what’ll they end up being after these supposed increases? :~

http://mediatemple.net/services/webhosting/ss/linux-standard/ss6_sneak_peek/index.php

In particular I’m intrigued by the cluster technology mentioned on there. I may be barking up the wrong tree here, but does that refer to clustering a bunch of servers together so that multiple machines can process one website? That’d be kind of revolutionary for shared hosting if so, and something I’ve always been keen to see implemented by a host (as processing is the #1 restriction now that hosts seem to be offering insane bandwidth/space quotas).

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6 Joel July 3, 2006 at 5:50 pm

thanks for the hat tip…

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7 mfer July 5, 2006 at 7:47 am

This is really interesting to me since I am looking to switch hosts.

The ‘clustering’ where more than one server puts out your page is being done by powweb.com.

There are, also, several providers who give you more space (from 5 gig to 20 gig) for the same price along with more bandwidth. MT give you 1TB over a long period. That is not on a per month basis. Powweb, for example, gives you 400 Gig throughput a month.

Though reading the teaser does make it sound like managing everything will be as easy as the setup websitesource.com has.

MT is somewhat tempting to host with. Any news on what the space and bandwidth will increase to? What’s really tempting in the php4 and 5 along with RoR.

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8 Ryan Williams July 5, 2006 at 7:57 am

Ah, okay. I wasn’t actually sure if clustering did mean what I thought it meant, so thanks for confirming that.

You are mistaken on the bandwidth, though. I sent Media Temple an email when I signed up to clarify this point, and received the following response:

“To answer your questions specifically, since our introduction of higher allotments, 1TB of monthly network transfer provided on our (ss) Shared Linux Server Professional plan and 1.5TB of monthly network transfer on our (ss) Shared Linux Server Advanced hosting plan, that we provide as part of the hosting fee we have phased out the ‘rollover bandwidth’ feature.”

Which might ease your mind a little if you’re considering a move. It did mine, anyway!

Personally I’m very happy with Media Temple, and I would definitely recommend them. I was with Dreamhost before moving, and the difference in quality is almost unbelievable. Not so much the space/bandwidth resources, but the general responsiveness of the servers and such is lightning fast.

I certainly couldn’t say the same for Dreamhost, where 2-6 second page load delays were common, and the system-wide control panel was ludicrously slow. :(

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9 mfer July 5, 2006 at 8:28 am

Thanks for the heads up. I sent them an email asking the same question about the bandwidth and the response I got was that the 1Tb or 1.5Tb is broken up monthly.

They are definitely something to consider. Thanks.

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10 Mark July 5, 2006 at 12:17 pm

I talked to some people at (mt). The guy who sold me my plan said that the 2GB storage plan is going to 10GB and the 5GB is going to 20GB. With their new grid server setup there will be no “bad neighbor effect.” When I asked whether they would be using Apache or Lighty or whatever for running Rails, they could not tell me. But they assured me that no other host has done this before and their solution will be better than any other host’s out there. I can’t wait to see.

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11 Christian Montoya July 8, 2006 at 6:11 am

Wow, I’m moving to MT, it’s just a matter of time now. Thanks for all the great info guys.

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12 me July 13, 2006 at 12:23 am

i’ve been testing the package for a couple weeks now and it is amazing to say the least. unfortunately i can’t say much more though. from what i can tell, it should be out relatively soon. if you’re looking for a [new] host, i wouldn’t setup anything too long term in the mean time.

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13 me July 13, 2006 at 12:26 am

at least one of the posts with info on the new setup is NOT correct, and it’s thrown some of the discussion off.

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14 Ryan Williams July 13, 2006 at 3:04 am

Being specific would be a good start. ;

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15 David Vanderbilt July 18, 2006 at 8:24 pm

everything looks awsome with (mt), only thing is FRIGIN 2GB of storage, I think we passed that in 2001 web hosting top offers. cusaders had bigger mailboxes….

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16 Leo July 24, 2006 at 4:12 am

Has anyone got any idea when it will come out of beta? Within the next month or so I will be upgrading to (mt); from what I have read they are an exceptional host.

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17 Andrei Maxim August 8, 2006 at 12:40 pm

I’m one of the almost 100 guys testing the new grid setup at MediaTemple. Right now it’s in the second phase of the beta test program and they aren’t exactly meeting their deadlines (but they are adding some features on the fly) so I wouldn’t hold my breath.

One of the really cool things is that they are really talking with beta testers, from system engineers to CEO. Most of the problems you mention were already tackled in the Collab forum.

Oh, and one more thing: you will have 1 TB of roll-over bandwidth for the Professional plan. The other plan[s] might have more. Also, it’s very likely that the cheapest plan will have more than 10 GB of space. Unfortunately, the final server specs aren’t ready yet.

PS: The Grid won’t load balance just the web sites, it does that for SSH and mail and everything. It’s a really sweet setup…

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18 Sean August 13, 2006 at 10:58 pm

Do you guys know if you can upgrade to ss advanced in the middle of your term if you order ss pro for 2 years and only pay the difference?

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19 Chanpory Rith August 28, 2006 at 5:55 pm

Ok, I’m dying over here. It’s the end of August practically, and still no announcement of (gs). :-(. I just switched our blog anyway to mediatemple despite the kinks of having to downgrade to MySQL 3.2. I only hope (gs) gets announced in a few days.

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20 chris October 20, 2006 at 8:00 am

That’s crap, overselling and I hope that’ll fail! I’m using http://www.tribolis.com, better than MT. Hate their control panel and crap multiple shared without control panel, no reseller as well.

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21 mt January 23, 2007 at 9:30 am

Actual Media Temple Grid Server Response times

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p-Ab3UaY590VDhZCTaDinHg

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