We’ve just launched our brand-new OpenSim & realXtend hosting service – at what we think are pretty decent rates. $49.95/mo gets you 1024MB of dedicated memory plus a dedicated processor core, including fully managed OpenSim support. James Stallings (a veteran OpenSim sys-admin and grid operator for OSgrid) is managing the operations side and providing full-time dedicated support for SimHost.
So what’s that price get you?
- Fully Managed Support (we’ll deal with sim crashes, and keeping your simulator alive.)
- Regular Updates of the official OpenSim Software (we know you like the latest shinies – so we can provide them)
- Good Quality Hardware – 1GB of dedicated memory + 1 Processor Core is our ‘minimum’.
- Warm fuzzy feeling that money you pay is going to feeding OpenSim developers (our profits are being reinvested in the platform)
- Grid Agnostic Connections – Run your own grid (Standalone), Connect to OSGrid or any other public grid. It’s your choice. We wont force you into our own private grid.
For a little bit extra per month, we have a premium plan that includes 4 regions, the option to use modular realxtend (modrex — not compatible with some other features, just ask us.) and the option for us to run versions that aren’t quite properly tested yet (they require more support on our behalf, hence the higher rate.) – such as megaregions and other more experimental features (we’ll need to talk with you about risks first though.)
If you input the promocode “ADAMFRISBY” (no quotes) you will get a bonus $5.00/mo off the pricing too. (So you can get our standard package for only $44.95/mo).
Web: www.simhost.com
Live & Ticketed Support: www.simhost.com/support
If you have any questions – feel free to contact support and they will be happy to answer them.
Adam –
Under the “standard dedicated” option it shows ” Concurrency: Not Limited ” — what does this mean? Are you able to get more than the 20 standard avatars into a single region? Or is that unlimited for the entire grid?
– Maria
Maria Korolov
14 Sep 09 at 2:40 pm
Hi Maria,
We are artificially limiting the other packages from a quality-of-experience standpoint (since the shared packages do share some resources such as network bandwidth). For dedicated users that limit isnt enforced – since the user isnt sharing any resources. So it’s “not limited” – but it will be the maximum capacity of what the server can deliver.
Adam Frisby
14 Sep 09 at 2:51 pm
1 GB and 1 processor core isn’t clear enough – how useful that is depends on the hardware and OS. Can you give more details about that? (I can’t find any info on the website.)
thought
14 Sep 09 at 4:01 pm
Hi Thought,
We’re not publishing that information publically, because we want to be able to change it down the road as new hardware becomes availible, or provider pricing changes (as it inevitably does).
That being said, if everyone takes the following with a grain of salt (ie, we might change this depending on customer experience, provider pricing, etc) – our standard build out is based around a AMD Phenom 9600 CPU as the base w/ 4GB DDR2, we also have a few Xeon 3220s (”Kentsfield”) with 2GB of RAM for use as stand-by servers (so we can get you setup while waiting for server provisioning). Over the top of this we are using Windows 2008, with the latest versions of .NET installed.
If you are still curious about the specifics, I suggest contacting support as they can probably answer in a bit more detail.
Adam Frisby
14 Sep 09 at 5:02 pm
45 USD that’s about 30 Euro, server colocation costs about 75 Euro per month, if you host 4 sims on that server of yours you make 45 Euro profit. Of course that is with server colocation, if you have to buy that 1500 dollar or 1000 Euro server first you can host for free for the first 22 months before you even see a cent in profit. what a healthy business model, it also encourages companies to look getting into hosting simulators or setting up grids based on Opensim.
If you need money to keep OSgrid online why not ask some sponsoring from Intel and IBM? They get enough in return so I don’t see why they would mind to give you a few 1000 dollars to keep the beta test grid for Opensim online.
Virtual
14 Sep 09 at 8:53 pm
Actually, it’s profitable, but it is like all hosting – a margins game. We’re fully expecting those margins to slim in the next 24 months, so we’ve done a lot of work in optimising our costs where possible. (and looking at ways we can trim them further if nessecary)
We’ve got our costs for this down, which lets us deliver a good price and remain profitable. If you shop around with datacenters – you can get the per-RU cost down to about $50/RU (or less) plus a little extra for bandwidth. (~40 EUR)
We’re hosting this in Dallas, TX where space and bandwidth are both pretty cheap, combining this with using leased equipment – means we dont need to pay off a big upfront cost, so in theory each batch of customers we get are sustainable and profitable from day one. (which is exactly how we like to build a business)
We put a lot of research into selection of where we’re sourcing various parts and hosting – so the result is we can deliver a really competitive service. (We ended up evaluating about ten providers in detail – we had some who were cheaper, but we weren’t too confident about their service in the event something went wrong.)
Re: OSgrid – that’s actually a completely seperate endeavour, and is quite healthy financially (it’s covering costs and putting a little away each month for future purchases). CKrinke could explain more if you asked him; but there’s definetely no dire need for funding there.
Adam Frisby
14 Sep 09 at 9:12 pm
Thanks Adam, that information was basically what I was looking for.
thought
15 Sep 09 at 5:44 am
Virtual, you don’t take into account for example that simulators could use A LOT of network bandwith(even standard package notes 20 concurrent avatars, if you consider 200kbit/s per avatar – 4 Mbit/s all time)
Or that is in fact _managed_ service and they actually _can_ support OpenSim (which is sometimes needed – it’s alpha software after all).
Intari Marjeta
22 Sep 09 at 4:47 am