We’ve just completed an upgrade to our support and control panel infrastructure. Our main website and support site have always been hosted on a standard Mach-3 VPS in Dallas. However we’ve taken the decision to move the support system to an offsite network. This now means that if there is a network issue in Dallas, you will still be able to access our customer support system!

We’ve also been working behind the scenes moving servers over to the new control panel system that we recently announced. This will also be located off-site (in a different location to our support system) for maximum redundancy.

Finally, a quick update on the control panel updates. We’ve moved a few servers over to the updated control panel already, and are moving clients over server-by-server at the moment. The new control panel is completely white label, so its great for VPS resellers!

As you may already know, we introduced speedCP, our in-house customer VPS control panel management site, as a replacement for HyperVM. We rapidly developed the basic features we knew customers would need. These include start/stop/reboot, change hostname, change root password and change operating system.

Of course, because this was an in-house project, it has taken up a LOT of our time. Because of this, we recently started looking at working with a third party control panel, which would be used in place of our existing control panel. The idea being to allow us to free up development time (which can then be used to get new services setup faster), and of course providing a much required bunch of features.

We have taken the decision to go ahead with replacing speedCP. The new control panel will still be branded as ’speedCP’ but it will be effectively a professional VPS control panel under the hood.

What this means for customers.

The new control panel will allow a huge number of new features, the main ones being:

• Backup tools (finally!)
• Full bandwidth monitoring
• Direct serial console access (allowing you to login, even if ssh is down)
• View server logs
• New OS Templates
• A reseller interface, allowing you to resell VPS hosting, with no VPSSpeed branding being shown.
• Instant VPS setup upon payment being received.

So, here’s how its going to work:

We’re already in the process of rolling out the changes. As your server is moved to the new control panel, you will find commands in the existing speedCP will no longer work as we will turn the daemon off. Customers will be notified of their new control panel — the method of notification has not yet been decided, however it will likely be either a support ticket, email or a post on this blog saying ’server xyz has been moved to the new control panel – customer can login at: http://someurl’.

So, sit back, relax, and have a great New Year!

New VPS Plans & Dedicated Servers

We’re happy to announce the immediate availability of our new Unmetered, Hybrid and Unmetered Hybrid VPS plans, as well as Dedicated Servers!

These new plans provide some fantastic new features, such as our 100mbps Unmetered VPS accounts. Never again will you have to worry about going over your Bandwidth limit!

Our Hybrid plans provide you with a step up between a standard VPS, and a Dedicated server. Get the resources of a Dedicated Server, but at the VPS price point!

The all new range of Dedicated Servers caters for everyone! With prices starting at just $44.95, we feel we’ve got the best range of servers for any level of usage.

speedCP

After months of hard work and planning, speedCP has finally launched. Designed to replace our old HyperVM platform, speedCP is a secure way of managing your VPS, from simply rebooting, right up to changing the operating system!

To access speedCP, go to http://cp.vpsspeed.com and use the ‘forgot password’ option to reset your password (based on the email address you use for your My.VPSSpeed.com account). Once reset, go ahead and login, you will then be able to manage your VPS accounts!

New Website

Our new website has now gone live, sporting a great new look. The new site provides a lot more information, and is designed to be much easier to use. Our company blog (http://blog.vpsspeed.com) and forums (http://forums.vpsspee.com) are also using the new look design!

Well we’re just about ready to launch speecCP, our new site and new product lines.

We’re still about a week out, and we’re hoping to pick up schedule and release asap.

In the mean time, we’re looking for a group of customers, who would like to give speedCP a go! It’s all ready to be used, however we’ve just not ‘turned on’ everyones accounts, whilst we’re making the last few minor tweaks.

So, if you’re interested in test driving it a week before everyone else, just send in a ticket! we cant guarantee everyone who asks will get a spot at this time, however will do our best!

We’ll be making a ost in a few days with some detailed information on speedCP, including some more screenshots!

Ok, its been a while since we posted any news (sorry about that — you’ll see why in a second!). Basically  we’ve been hard at work preparing for the release of speedCP.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be performing a huge overhall of our main VPSSpeed.com site, which will include the launch of 10mbps and 100mbps UNMETERED VPS hosting, and Hybrid VPS hosting! On top of this, we’ll also be rolling out a full range of dedicated server solutions.

Why Unmetered? (more…)

We’re offering customers 50% off their next monthly hosting invoice for posting a truthful review of VPSSpeed!

Here’s the deal:

We don’t want you to go out there and post about how wonderfully amazing and awesome we are. Far from it. We want you to post a completely honest review. If you hate our website, say it. If you hate our support, say it. Be open and honest.

Heres the terms:

• Reviews must be posted on well know forums that are relevant for the subject (e.g web hosting, webmaster, etc)
• We will pay 50% for your first review – please do not copy/paste onto multiple sites/forums.
• You will need to open a support ticket with the link. If you go and post it on some unknown little forum, it will not be counted.
• Please dont spam, and make sure you are posting in the correct section.
• Feel free to link to our site, and your site.
• Review content must be ‘decent’. I.E extensive review of support, speed, service, etc and not a 1 paragraph, 30 second job.
• This offer is open to new existing customers only.
• Payout is for one VPS only (so if you have 2 VPS accounts with us, only one will receive 50% credit)

So, if you are up for a bit of writing and would like to get 50% off your next month, all you’ve got to do is post a completely honest review!

Once done, just send in a ticket with a link to the thread.

We’ve got a few more teasing little bits to share with everyone about speedCP, our new web-based VPS control panel.

So, in my last post I explained some of the features we were planning to get put in for the initial release. We’ve had a bit of a rethink, and are going to work on getting the ‘priority’ features out first. These will include:

• Start / Stop / Restart
• OS Reload
• Change Root Password
• Change Hostname
• Shell Terminal (Java based) (more…)

Heres our first in a series of updates about our new, in-house control panel.

As you may already know, we’re building this from scratch, which will take time. In the next week or so, we hope to get order and setup functionallity live, along with start/stop/reboot/change os abilities. Things such as backups, bandwidth graphs and the ability to run system commands will be launched at a later date.

Lets take a look at some of the features:

To be included in the initial release

• Customer area where you can manage multiple VPS accounts (no need to log in individually to manage each of your accounts!)
• Billing, support and knowledgebase are all tightly integrated into the control panel.
• Start/Stop/Restart/Change OS
• Disk space usage monitoring
• Managed DNS  — note: we are still working out some kinks with this so may not include it in the initial release.
• Announcement system so we can let you know about new features!

Later releases to also include:

• Backup options
• Bandwidth usage graphs
• Virtual Shell Console
• More great features (We’re keeping these secret for now we wouldnt want to give it all away at once!)

A screenshot to the right (intentionally small!) shows you a little sneak preview of the system. We’ll announce more closer to it’s release!

UPDATE: After some lengthly planning, we’ve decided to slightly alter the development phases of speedCP. We’re going to be leaving billing/support in our existing My.VPSSpeed.com system for now. This will allow us to focus on the vps side of things.

Email sent to all customers:

We just wanted to bring everyone up to speed with everything thats happening regarding the HyperVM situation. As you already know, we disabled HyperVM due to potential secuirty issues. Readers of our blog will also know, that the sole developer of HyperVM was founded dead in his house after committing suicide — our condolences to his family. These tragic events have unfortunatly meant that there is very little chance they any LXLabs procuct will continue development.

Because of this, we will not be reopening HyperVM access, but are instead making our own panel to replace it. For now we are accepting orders as usual, however setup times will vary due to the fact that we are manually setting up accounts. Patience is appreciated.

Our new control panel will, to begin with contain basic functions such as start/stop/reboot, OS Change and possibly a few other options. Our goal is to get this completed, tested and accessible to clients as soon as possible. We’ll then be opening a section on our forums where customers can suggest improvements and request features.

We’ll be posting updates on our blog during development so be sure to keep an eye out for some previews soon.

I would personally like to thank all our customers for their patience so far. VPSSpeed is here to stay, and we will recover from these difficult times in the VPS industry.

As some of you will already know, the sole developer of HyperVM was found dead after committing suicide last night. Our condolences go out to his family.

In light of this news, we have taken the decision to cease usng HyperVM. We are in the process of making our own custom system, which we hope to launch early next week.

At this point, we are unable to accept any new orders, except in special circumstances.

The last few days have been tragic for the VPS industry, with VAServ (owners of A2B2, FSCKVPS, CheapVPS and several other brands) having their entire infrastructure destroyed by the HyperVM exploits, they are now being passed over to BlueSquareData, who will continue the operation of these brands.

VPSSpeed are not going anywhere, and customers data is safe. As always though, take backups. I dont say this to incite fear, I say it because its common sense. Backup your data. VAServ is a prime example of what happens when you dont take backups.

Again, updates will be posted when avaliable.