Phillip Zedalis and ServerWarp, again.

I have implemented CubeSQL on ServerWarp as per kind help from @Olivier Colard

It works! - but I have a question.
For the connection to Cube we state:- (for example)

mDB.Host = xxxxxxx.serverwarp.hosting ‘ your ServerWarp DNS Name

If I state the ip address of server = it works fine (both debug run on local laptop / and cgi run on the server)

For my interest, I also tried “localhost” as host address for the cgi app on server - but this fails to connect.

Is it acceptable to use server ip address (even for cgi app running on same server as Cube)??

[quote=493315:@Tony Davies]I have implemented CubeSQL on ServerWarp as per kind help from @Olivier Colard

It works! - but I have a question.
For the connection to Cube we state:- (for example)

mDB.Host = xxxxxxx.serverwarp.hosting ‘ your ServerWarp DNS Name

If I state the ip address of server = it works fine (both debug run on local laptop / and cgi run on the server)

For my interest, I also tried “localhost” as host address for the cgi app on server - but this fails to connect.

Is it acceptable to use server ip address (even for cgi app running on same server as Cube)??[/quote]

Yes, it’s absolutely fine, in fact it’s a better way to do it. You could also create a DNS record and point it to the IP address so you had db1.mydomain.com etc, which is useful future proofing for if you end up scaling your up over multiple databases.

Different metrics for different folks. Xojo hosting is actually a small part of our business now. I do have a dedicated customer support engineer but they don’t help on the Xojo side much at all because it is a different technology stack (we have a new platform for PHP/NodeJS/etc that plan to open up to Xojo soon).

Some metrics that I feel good about: never data loss or extended outage due to hardware/network.

Some times people upload bad apps or things crash and we have to deep dive. I’ve often spent hours helping customers debugging their Xojo code - even recently.

Some problems are Xojo itself can’t handle much web traffic so you need elaborate load balancing setups to support any real concurrent usage. This is something we have added to our new platform which is in private beta.

Also, we have failed several times on the email support front. My ticketing system was blocking things because for a long period of time we were getting thousands of emails an hour in spam. We either incorrectly classified it, was automatically blocked, or we just missed it. A lot of growing pains and hurdles. Factor in COVID, my family’s own health concerns, etc. and as a very small company, there have been ups and downs.

We aren’t the best fit for every customer. Not every host is created equal. You do get top-notch hardware, no overprovisioning, etc. and ServerWarp v2 will be the best yet. We aren’t just reselling some generic hosting setup.

Finally: every customer who has been impacted by bad support has always been made whole often with very generous free months of hosting. I don’t want money from a customer who ultimately isn’t happy. I don’t need it.

[quote=493315:@Tony Davies]I have implemented CubeSQL on ServerWarp as per kind help from @Olivier Colard

It works! - but I have a question.
For the connection to Cube we state:- (for example)

mDB.Host = xxxxxxx.serverwarp.hosting ‘ your ServerWarp DNS Name

If I state the ip address of server = it works fine (both debug run on local laptop / and cgi run on the server)

For my interest, I also tried “localhost” as host address for the cgi app on server - but this fails to connect.

Is it acceptable to use server ip address (even for cgi app running on same server as Cube)??[/quote]

No problem using the IP address. The reason “localhost” doesn’t work is each application/service runs in a dedicated Linux container and so they don’t see each other as on the same virtual machine. It’s a nuance but important when scaling so you don’t have port collisions when running 10 copies of the same standalone.

[quote=493200:@Raimund Pock]My story of ServerWarp:

1st May - Ordered and payed Managed Linux 2048
Nothing happened for one week
7th May - Created a ticket, Phil answered it fast, told me he’ll send me the server details in the morning
Nothing happened
9th May - tried again in the same ticket, no answer
11th May - Created a new ticket
No answer
13th May - Closed the two older tickets and created a new one
No reply
25th May - PM in Xojo Forum to Phil
28th May - Reply from Phil, told me he was in holiday this last week and that I’ll get the details today
Nothing happened

I’m really sorry, but that’s not the costumer service that I expect. I’m sure, Phil is a very competent and nice guy, but that doesn’t change anything.

What happens, when we have a problem with the server or anything else where we need a fast assistance? Should we tell our customers, that their app comes up again in a few days? It’s a shame that this great xojo hosting service has such poor customer service that we can’t choose it for our app hosting.[/quote]

I see it as a platform failure that you even need customer support for:

  • Ordering a server
  • Provisioning the server
  • Enabling databases
  • Launching standalone apps
  • Upgrading standalone apps
  • Binding domain names
  • Configuring email addresses
  • etc

So we did everything manually at first and that was time-intensive. I am glad I did though because if I had automated what I thought Xojo customers needed I would have gotten it totally wrong.

Now I know exactly what is needed to scale on the infrastructure side and minimize customer support requirements. It hasn’t worked for everyone because different clients have different needs and expectations. Some of our large clients even pay for extra support and that lets me easily afford a support engineer that sits with them on Slack with the client.

With ServerWarp v2 we have taken all that knowledge and experience and built a framework that puts the customer in control. More than half of customer support requests could be solved by the panel being smarter and more capable. The fix is in the works.

Sorry you fell through the cracks. Anyone is welcome to email me phillip@serverwarp.com and I’ll make it right no matter what.

Happy Fathers Day all.

Thanks for replying and answering questions Phillip. I am not someone that has needed any support beyond initial setup and databae provision so I guess I am luckier than some it would seem. What I can say however is that I have had a rock solid server from you that runs my web apps 24/7 and without any down time in 2 years. Your service works for me and at the right price point. Prompt answering of support calls, or a knowledge base of some description covering the service is however a bare minimum these days and would be a great help to customers, old and new. For my needs however you keep providing me with a great value reliable hosting service and for that I am grateful.

Most of the people that had posted their experiences with ServerWarp I am totaly sure that had told the exactly true story, and I am also sure that had enough reasons to be dispointed with Phillip.
I am not his lawyer nor his defender, but good experiences have to be told too.
I had been using ServerWarp for many years, I had not too much tickets placed during that long time, and the ones I had placed I received a reasonable response from Phillip. Technically perfect answers, and most of them in the time expected by the SLA and it was supposed to be.
Of course when any of us have a problem with a server we use to,provided a service, an a customer sends his complains to us, we expected an instant answer from our provider. And sometimes the answer doesnt occur in the time we expected.
Probably Phillip in the last months didnt answer as fast as he had to answer or we expected to be. But I believe that he will solveir, it is a temporary and particular situation he will final y solve.
I don’t want to discuss with any of the people that wrote in this post, most of which I respect and I know for a while, but I felt that good experiences need to also be mentioned.
I hope and I am sure that Phillip will do his best in order to recover the confidence of all his customers
As many of you said he is a good guy.