Potential customer has some questions.

Judging from the tickets, MSSQL server stability and performance issues have been few and minor over the last couple of months. Most tickets involving MSSQL are resolved as code problems.

[newmem]

Yes, that's right. No one is going to post in the forum if they are happy about it, they will post only if they have a problem

but do you use MSSQL yourself in your websites? bcos unless you first run the same scripts on some other host and then run them on matrix you wouldn't know if the slowdown is due to the scripts or due to the server. I read something here that someone's pages were running much faster in their previous host's servers....when using a MSSQL db.

I haven't yet used any db on my sites, and the static .html pages are very fast. I don't know how the ASP pages that use the sql db will perform, will post here once I have upload the scripts.

[Brangwyn]

but do you use MSSQL yourself in your websites?

I'm primarily an MSSQL/ASP Developer, so yeah I use it in lots of sites

That other person may have had the MSSQL Server and Web both on the same server which will always be a little faster (assuming its not resource bottlenecked) than a network connected SQL Server.

[bigdave]

We've just completed an IP change to the primary network interfaces of all the web server and database servers to have them all on the same subnet, this should speed up the requests between them.

[dpyers]

I came here for the service, and haven't been disappointed. Two issues howver prevent me from moving some sites here.
Password protecting directories - non standard and lame.
No sub-ftp accounts for windows plans.

Two other issues are annoying, but liveable.
Having no way to flag a win directory as an app without submitting a TT.
Not being able to assign a sub-domain to a particular directory - e.g. to a subdirectory within the main domain.

[admin]

Originally Posted by dpyers

Password protecting directories - non standard and lame.

What do you mean non standered?? Unix its always the same .htaccess and windows we remove anonymous access. We don't give other users on windows becuase it cost us so much per user. But psoft has something in the works that may fix this in 2.4 on the windows side..

Originally Posted by dpyers

No sub-ftp accounts for windows plans.

Kind of the same as above and not sure it will be fixed with out switching FTP software and don't want to do that because of security issues.. It's just to costly to be giving out NT users and keep the cost down..

Originally Posted by dpyers

Having no way to flag a win directory as an app without submitting a TT.

Yea I wish they would add this as well.. Would save us a LOT of time..

Originally Posted by dpyers

Not being able to assign a sub-domain to a particular directory - e.g. to a subdirectory within the main domain..

Bah humbug.. I have never liked this one and never saw the point it.. Just up load it to the joe.subdomain.com dir. but if they added it would be nice but not something that is a MUST have..

[logic404]

I'm sure I'm being ignorant here - but why is there a "per user" cost to Matrix to add new Windows user accounts? Is it in terms of the time it would take them to do it, because H-Sphere doesn't current support it (in which case I can look forward to PSoft doing so at some point in the future! ;-) ). Or is there some Microsoft licensing thing that I'm not aware of? Or did I just miss the boat entireley?

Just to add my 2C to the actual topic of this thread - I LOVE MATRIX. To be completely honest, I've only been here a few weeks. But, my MAJOR area of dissatisfaction with previous hosts has always been support, and Matrix are absolutely head, shoulders and torso above anyone else I've been affliated with. They're not only responsive, they're polite, knowledgeable and HONEST.

As someone else said, I don't think there is a better deal going for this price bracket. I'm just glad I found them.

[dpyers]

Sorry, meant to specify the password protection problem as applicable to Windows accounts only. Unix is as Unix does.

Personally, I like the subdomains within the domain folder for backups. The front page folk like to have their subwebs as subdomains. Nice stuff, but not critical.

I'm still going to be consolidating most of my domains here, but I wished I had known about the password protection thing as I have to keep one of my windows web hosts to have that feature and for the sub-ftp.

If you set up a separate account - hsphere control panel - for a windows domain, they can have their own ftp which is suitable for most sites. If you go over your account limit, it's just a $4 set up fee to add another account. A minor cost of doing business that's readily passed on. I do have at least one windows site that'll have to stay elsewhere because they need multiple ftp accounts for a domain.

Also don't understand the cost per user thing of additional accounts. Didn't seem to be an issue with my last few windows web hosts.

[Brangwyn]

My guess would be they have the servers in per seat licensing mode in which case each potential user (NT Account) requires a CAL in which case it additional NT Logons would indeed cost more money.

[logic404]

<OFFTOPIC>
I had always assumed in a business like this it made more sense to have "per server" licences?
</OFFTOPIC>

[Brangwyn]

MS Licensing is a very complicated beast, but it certainly at one point in time used to be cheaper not to go per server simply becuase the only NT Account you generally need on a standalone webserver is the IIS account so why pay the extra money when you can get away with just a handful of CAL's

Of course MS like to change their licensing options so darn often its hard to work out sometimes just what is the most cost effective.

Still Vortech could be under a different model, I'm just guessing at reasons why Brad would say it cost more to add logons.

[logic404]

Well, I'm sure that's probably part of their plan. ;-)

They certainly wouldn't want, G-d forbid, that anyone should work out the most cost effective method and stick to it. I mean, they're *only* getting about $2000 for the actual server software disk, and they're such a *small* company, they really *need* all that $$$...

(Can you sense just how much I think M$'s prices stink?)