Gandi Hosting is now on beta testing by invitation
By Ryan on Wednesday 11 June 2008, 08:24 - Gandi - Permalink
Though our hosting service has been in the beta testing phase since the beginning of the year, this has not kept it from being a huge success: we currently count 7,000 servers that have been created by our customers!
This phase of our beta testing period helped us identify problems that arise during the use of several thousand servers on our architecture, something that could not be done in a test environment.
We would like to thank all of you that have given us your trust and who contributed to this important validation of technology that has been clearly identified by all (customers, experts, sector specialists) as being the future of web hosting for the "general public", private individuals, and companies alike.
We now have a sufficient number of customers that are experimenting with the service, so that we can finalize our service. Now it is time for us to proceed with the last batch of tests and developments so that we can do some fine tuning before the final release.
This is therefore a new step for Gandi Hosting.
The objective of a Beta version is to identify the most significant problems and to fix them while at the same time maintaining operational goals (excellent level of service and product performance, while remaining profitable).
The next step, which is right before the final release, will allow our engineers to concentrate on a phase of stabilization and optimization, without having to juggle the frequent maintenance operations which is the normal consequence of having several thousand customers, even in beta testing. Because, as you know, we believe so much at Gandi in going a good job that we make it a point of honor to not hide behind this reality, which is beta testing.
This is therefore the reason why we have put on hold the creation of new hosting accounts automatically. They can be created by invitation only until tomorrow.
As a note to reassure our existing customers: we are not going to delete any account, nor cut any existing service, we are just going to concentrate our efforts on creating an irreproachable service that will be ready in its final version in the Fall.
For those of you that would like to know the details: we are currently working on improving overall performance, stability, disk access redundancy, network stability, and improvements to the Gandi interface. Current performance is good, but can be better, and so we will be focused on that this summer.
It will be hot this summer, and it will be beautiful - but fall will be even more so :D
P.S. We will give out invitations depending on the nature of the requests sent to the usual e-mail address of Gandi management. Please note that they are very limited in number.
This phase of our beta testing period helped us identify problems that arise during the use of several thousand servers on our architecture, something that could not be done in a test environment.
We would like to thank all of you that have given us your trust and who contributed to this important validation of technology that has been clearly identified by all (customers, experts, sector specialists) as being the future of web hosting for the "general public", private individuals, and companies alike.
We now have a sufficient number of customers that are experimenting with the service, so that we can finalize our service. Now it is time for us to proceed with the last batch of tests and developments so that we can do some fine tuning before the final release.
This is therefore a new step for Gandi Hosting.
The objective of a Beta version is to identify the most significant problems and to fix them while at the same time maintaining operational goals (excellent level of service and product performance, while remaining profitable).
The next step, which is right before the final release, will allow our engineers to concentrate on a phase of stabilization and optimization, without having to juggle the frequent maintenance operations which is the normal consequence of having several thousand customers, even in beta testing. Because, as you know, we believe so much at Gandi in going a good job that we make it a point of honor to not hide behind this reality, which is beta testing.
This is therefore the reason why we have put on hold the creation of new hosting accounts automatically. They can be created by invitation only until tomorrow.
As a note to reassure our existing customers: we are not going to delete any account, nor cut any existing service, we are just going to concentrate our efforts on creating an irreproachable service that will be ready in its final version in the Fall.
For those of you that would like to know the details: we are currently working on improving overall performance, stability, disk access redundancy, network stability, and improvements to the Gandi interface. Current performance is good, but can be better, and so we will be focused on that this summer.
It will be hot this summer, and it will be beautiful - but fall will be even more so :D
P.S. We will give out invitations depending on the nature of the requests sent to the usual e-mail address of Gandi management. Please note that they are very limited in number.
Comments
I have had a host in the process of creation for more than four days now. I have received three messages from a very courteous Customer Care person assuring me that a technician will be getting right to the problem. Still, there appears to be no progress, or at least the process is not yet completed.
I have been given no information beyond that, and if there is a general problem with the host-creation facility, this is not mentioned anywhere on the site where I have been able to find it.
I have a kind of train-wreck-watching fascination with the question of how long this will end up taking, how minimal Gandi's communication will continue to be, and how good or bad the performance (speed and otherwise) and support of this virtual host will be. But at this point, I would *strongly* advise anyone considering signing up for this service to consider whether they really have a week to burn waiting for Gandi to get its act together.
Let me clarify one thing: this is only partly about how long it's taking to set up the host. It is also partly about how uninformative Gandi's responses have been. Do they not *know* what's going on, are they completely swamped with problems, do they not think it's at all important to keep their customers informed? I'm baffled as to what makes Gandi think this is any way to run a business.
@John: A member of Gandi's support team has just sent you a solution to your problem and an explanation.
For those of you that find yourself in a similar situation to John, I can assure you that if you have received a mail from Gandi saying that your problem is being worked on, that it truly is
During this beta-testing phase, if a server encounters a bug or (as in John's case, fails to be created), this information needs to be analyzed carefully by our teams so that we can find the underlying problem, which may be affecting other servers. Then, in turn, we concentrate on correcting the error at its origin, as opposed to doing so on a server-by-server basis which would not correct the problem, just the symptoms. The result may be that the customer (aka beta tester) who initially reported the error may experience a longer resolution period, while new customers will have their servers fixed proactively, because the underlying issue was resolved.
As a note as to why so much development is necessary: it is important to remember that we are working on the bleeding edge of hosting technology. What we are doing requires inventing from the ground up new and innovative technology which is untested and by its very definition, but which represents the future of web hosting. It is therefore normal that some customers will experience some bugs during this beta-testing phase, and we thank all of you that have taken the time to provide us with not only the valuable and detailed reports that we use to improve our service even more, but also for your patience, as we work to build a revolutionary hosting service.
Thanks, Ryan. I was flying blind, which is stressful, and you have alleviated that condition. In this situation, no news is *not* good news
!
Hi!
Please, can you send me an invitation to contract one of your hosting solutions? I know about your process to improve services, but, anyway, I'm very, very interested in your offer.
Thank you in advance.
Best regards!