
Rackspace Launches Developer Discount - jnoller
http://developer.rackspace.com/blog/developer-love-welcome-to-the-rackspace-cloud-developer-discount.html
======
DjangoReinhardt
WHAT THE HELL, RACKSPACE?!

You emailed me just because I semi-filled in your form? I didn't even click
SUBMIT! o_O

Why would you assume that if I semi-filled a form I would probably go ahead
and register? Maybe I don't want to register at this very moment?

Did you even consider that my NOT submitting the form was a conscious
decision? Maybe I realized halfway through filling the form that my skill-set
wasn't good enough to make me want to sign up now? Or my finances wouldn't
allow me to maintain an account on your platform after six months? Or maybe,
just maybe, I just didn't want to sign up right now?

Why would you take my email ID from a non-submit-clicked form and NOT tell me
that you had taken it? Why? o_O

Even worse, why would you email me asking 'did I forget to take my cloud'? How
do I know you are not going to spam me with your promotional offers in the
future? How do Iknow you are not going to sell (or worse, 'inadvertently
leak') my email address to some third party?

~~~
kordless
Using Chrome's developer tools shows the form submits your email address when
it checks your username. It's possible it's going into Marketo and then you
are getting emailed automatically when the record doesn't end up updating. It
could be intentional, or it could be accidentally mixed with other site
behaviors. I'll check on it for you and figure out what's going on.
Regardless, I agree with you assertion you shouldn't be emailed if you didn't
click submit.

Thanks for mentioning it!

~~~
DjangoReinhardt
Okay, I understand if the form is sending my email address to check if I am an
existing customer. I can understand if it wants to check if the username I
want is available. Both of these are valid actions and usually helpful for new
customers.

However, I can assure you that the email is intentional. Here's the text of
the email:

> We noticed that you started signing up for Rackspace Cloud, but you didn’t
> finish. Your cloud is ready for you, and it says it’s getting lonely.

Apart from the cheesiness of the text and the language, one thing stands out
clearly: The process that handles your form submissions __knew __that I didn
't finish signing up.

> Don’t let your cloud be lonely and sad – finish signing up for Rackspace
> Cloud and start using it to spin up a website, an app, or any awesome new
> project.

> You can finish your sign-up HERE.

[ed. I have removed the link associated with `HERE`]

Again, ignoring the cheesiness of the text, this sentence clearly indicates
that the email is triggered when someone (like me) DOESN'T finish signing up.
While I appreciate your proactive attempts to acquire potential customers,
this definitely veers into creepy...

> If you have any questions about signing up or our products, give us a call
> or shoot us an email. We're here to help!

One question: How do I ensure that my email is NOT added to any of your
newsletters that I MOST DEFINITELY - NOW OR EVER - DID NOT SIGN UP FOR?

(Apologies for the all caps. I am a little unnerved by this. I never expected
RackSpace to do this sort of a thing.)

~~~
kordless
No apologies necessary - it's your data. You have a right to say how it makes
you feel.

I opened a ticket on it for you:
[https://github.com/rackerlabs/devsite/issues/99](https://github.com/rackerlabs/devsite/issues/99).
The dev code (which is on Github) doesn't actually implement the signup flow,
so keep in mind there won't be a resulting commit for it. However, we will
update you there on what we find out!

~~~
DjangoReinhardt
Thanks for raising the issue. Will follow it on GitHub as well.

Also, thank you for understanding and accommodating my outburst, as well as
acting on it speedily. I sincerely hope (and would like to believe) that this
was a one-off phenomenon and the resulting mess was completely accidental and
unintended.

I would also like to request you to not judge me if I reserve my opinions
until I am assured otherwise. I assure you I am not holding a grudge; I am
just being cautious, that's all.

~~~
kordless
I hear you, and agree with prudency when dealing with trust issues. Tell me
what you think about this:
[http://www.stackgeek.com/blog/kordless/post/a-code-of-
trust](http://www.stackgeek.com/blog/kordless/post/a-code-of-trust). It's an
important topic!

------
rsync
We're not a competitor and are not in this space, so I hope it's not untoward
to note that we (rsync.net) also have a FOSS/.edu/dev/HN discount:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5640700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5640700)

... so after you've got your environment up and running at rackspace (or
wherever) you can get a similar discount for offsite backups.

~~~
e911
Is there any way to protect backups from being deleted? ServerA shouldn't be
allowed to destroy ServerB's backups. And preferably it shouldn't be allowed
to destroy it's own backups (bad backup script or evil attacker trying to
delete eevrything).

~~~
rsync
Well, two things...

First, our ZFS storage arrays have read-only snapshots (7 dailies by default,
or any arbitrary day/week/month by request). No charge for them, or their
space, unless you do a custom retention setup.

Second, we support "pull" backups ... that is, instead of rsyncing (or
wahtever) to us, we can set up a cron job on our end and pull from you, using
an SSH key. That way an attacker on your system has no ability to log into
your rsync.net account, nor do they even know it exists unless they watch all
the network connections and put two and two together...

So we'll make it work for you ...

------
clicks
Pretty nifty.

One thing, while I have the ears of you Rackspace people: offer more
documentation maybe? Kind of like how Linode does:
[https://library.linode.com/](https://library.linode.com/) Common things like
how to run a mail server, how to get a LAMP/LEMP/LNPP/$XYZ setup going on,
etc. Not full books or anything, just stuff to get things off the ground more
easily when playing around. This is one of the reasons why I was so attracted
to Linode, the docs, and the support whenever I'd join their IRC channel. It
was good stuff, to get things running even though this is not my field by
trade.

~~~
russell_h
Agreed, Linode's library is awesome.

One thing we're working on already is a knowledge base. A lot of it is
product-specific, but we're accumulating an increasing number of general
articles like you're referring to. You can see a lot of them here:
[http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/product-
articles/c...](http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/product-
articles/cloud-servers)

------
mattjaynes
The article mentions Salt and Ansible - if you're interested in these new
generation config management tools, check out my book which launches tomorrow:
"Taste Test: Puppet, Chef, Salt, Ansible"

[http://devopsu.com/books/taste-test-puppet-chef-salt-
stack-a...](http://devopsu.com/books/taste-test-puppet-chef-salt-stack-
ansible.html)

In the book, I implement an identical project with each tool so you can see
what each one is like to work with.

I definitely had some big surprises when writing the book. Spoiler: Ansible
was by far the simplest, easiest to understand, and quickest to get up and
going.

To get a discount for the book release, just sign up on the mailing list:
[http://devopsu.com/books/taste-test-puppet-chef-salt-
stack-a...](http://devopsu.com/books/taste-test-puppet-chef-salt-stack-
ansible.html)

~~~
ylem
I signed up, but no code yet...

------
300bps
I use Azure VMs but this post got me to check out your pricing again. You're
not as expensive as I remember. In fact you look right in line with Azure and
EC2.

Looks like with this program you can get a free 1 GB Linux or almost free 1 GB
Windows server for 6 months anyway. Thanks for the program - it put you back
on my radar.

~~~
fotcorn
We switched to DigitalOcean a month ago. The servers are 2x faster than
rackspace (same RAM size) and we pay only half the price. DigitalOcean doesn't
have all the features of rackspace (additional storage, private networks
etc.), but the much better performance is everything we need.

[https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing)

~~~
cnlwsu
is there any benchmarking in comparison with rackspaces SSDs?

~~~
jread
I've conducted some independent tests of various block storage options with
Rackspace, EC2, HP and GCE. Here are links providing a CSV of the results (may
take a few seconds to generate). A value of 100 signifies near performance
parity to a baremetal SAS reference system. Overall, Rackspace SSD is
performant, but lacks the consistency of EBS PIOPs or GCE persistent storage.

IOPS
[http://app.cloudharmony.com/cloudgrade/api/query/cloudharmon...](http://app.cloudharmony.com/cloudgrade/api/query/cloudharmony.disk_iops?scopeFilter={%22compute_service_id%22:\[%22aws:ec2%22,%22hp:compute%22,%22google:gce%22,%22rackspace:servers%22\]}&limit=100&csv)

IO Consistency
[http://app.cloudharmony.com/cloudgrade/api/query/cloudharmon...](http://app.cloudharmony.com/cloudgrade/api/query/cloudharmony.disk_consistency?scopeFilter={%22compute_service_id%22:\[%22aws:ec2%22,%22hp:compute%22,%22google:gce%22,%22rackspace:servers%22\]}&limit=100&csv)

~~~
jnoller
There's also an excellent writeup by GlusterFS contributor Jeff Darcy:

[http://pl.atyp.us/wordpress/index.php/2012/10/rackspace-
bloc...](http://pl.atyp.us/wordpress/index.php/2012/10/rackspace-block-
storage/)

------
ashray
I have to say here that I've been impressed with both the price and
performance of Cloudfiles.

I was using S3+Cloudfront for a long time and with cloudfiles my bills pretty
much HALVED.

What made the difference ? GET request pricing. Amazon S3 charges for each get
request on an object, so with millions of requests on small objects, you get
hit pretty hard.

Also, Akamai seems to be really fast :)

------
jnoller
And like always: I'm around to answer questions.

~~~
workhere-io
Cloud Files invalidations: Is it technically possible to make invalidations
that are performed in just a couple of minutes or even seconds? That's a
feature I really miss both on Cloud Files and on CloudFront.

~~~
creiht
Hi, I work on the cloudfiles team. I'm assuming that you are talking about the
TTL setting for the container that is exposed to the CDN. Currently, the
minimum that it can be is 15 minutes. We partner with Akamai for the CDN
functionality, so while we get all the benefits of the Akamai network, we also
have to work within the parameters of their systems. Would you mind sharing
more about your use case for needing shorter TTLs?

~~~
workhere-io
_I 'm assuming that you are talking about the TTL setting for the container
that is exposed to the CDN_

Actually I'm talking about what you refer to as edge purge
([http://www.rackspace.com/blog/cloud-files-cdn-gets-edge-
purg...](http://www.rackspace.com/blog/cloud-files-cdn-gets-edge-purge/)) and
AWS refers to as invalidations.

~~~
creiht
Ahh, sorry. Yes, there are limitations around edge purging (how many you can
do at a time, and how long it takes for the purges to occur). All of these are
also dependent on parameters defined by Akamai. I'll pass the feedback on to
our product team as we try to make that experience better. Thanks!

------
jread
6 months/$300 credit - similar to the AWS 1 year free usage
[http://aws.amazon.com/free/](http://aws.amazon.com/free/). Rackspace needs to
upgrade their underlying years old AMD 4170/2374 hardware for cloud servers.
This is a limitation for vertical scaling, and doesn't compare well to
EC2/GCE/HP.

~~~
jnoller
Are you talking about the cloud server (nova) hosts, or the dedicated gear?

~~~
jread
cloud servers

~~~
jnoller
thanks - let me talk to the teams. I can't talk about migrations / upgrades
publicly, but I know the teams have been working on this and thinking hard on
it.

~~~
jread
That would be good - I wrote a blog post on the topic. Rackspace cloud servers
CPU performance caps out low and $/CPU value isn't good on large instance
types: [http://blog.cloudharmony.com/2013/06/value-of-the-cloud-
cpu-...](http://blog.cloudharmony.com/2013/06/value-of-the-cloud-cpu-
performance.html#graph1_2013_05_29)

------
chris_mahan
What are the odds on making a very low power machine, in the 96-128 MB of RAM,
for say, $1-$3/month? I like RS (have been a customer since 2008) but the
minimum service is still overkill for what I like to do. I use other services
like buyvm.net for low-cost machines.

------
philip1209
Our student group has been in the Rackspace Startup Program, where it receives
a similar discount every month. Looking at the billing records, I want to
point out that the way Rackspace runs the accounting is a bit oddly - they
charge my credit card the full amount, then issue a refund a few days later.
On my statement, it surprised me to see a charge- keep this in mind,
especially if you intend to stay under $50/month and do not anticipate
charges.

~~~
jnoller
This is handled completely differently than the startup program discounts.
This is an automated discount code via the shopping cart which is applied
(which is a first for us as a company).

~~~
SwaroopH
Good to hear you guys have finally updated your billing system. We and many
others had refused to accept the $24k sponsorship because of the insane
requirement.

------
jimmcslim
Only US and UK at the moment, any chance to showing us devs down under in
Australia some love?

Edit: Especially since there are now .au Rackspace data centres!

~~~
jnoller
We are working as fast as possible to expand it to the other locales as soon
as we can.

~~~
lemiffe
I am a UK national, just signed up using my UK bank account, however, I am
currently living in Mexico, where I also have a bank account. Is there any
chance I can change my credit card and address? I don't mind having a London
(LON) server for now.

~~~
jnoller
Contact customer service: they will take care of you!

------
desigooner
Is this Discount available for a limited time only or on all future signups?

I'm about to finish a project and travel for a couple of weeks so I don't
anticipate myself using it anytime within the next month. As a result, if this
discount is not expiring, I'd prefer delaying the signup by a month =)

~~~
kordless
It's going to stick around for a while, and definitely longer than a month! :)

------
gregw134
The discount says it doesn't apply to cloud sites or managed cloud, but on the
signup page I only see options for cloud account or managed cloud. If I select
Cloud Account, will the discount still apply?

~~~
jnoller
Cloud Sites is a specific product: you want to use "Cloud Account" \- sorry I
couldn't strip out the other options when signing up. There's some history /
time there that applies.

------
rsmith05
No support for the North? Sad to see Canada not included.

~~~
jnoller
We don't have data centers in Canada, but Chicago may have recently been
annexed to Canada. So, if you are fine with using a US based cloud account,
just sign up and use the Chicago region/datacenter.

You, and all of Canada are welcome!

~~~
patrickdeuley
I may be wrong on this, but I'm at least 60% certain that Chicago is in
Canada. Correct?

~~~
sbarre
Canada wishes, if only for the restaurants..

------
braum
Do you have instructions or a guide on how to migrate an existing Windows VM
from Amazon to your cloud?

~~~
mariojv
This might help:
[http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/migrating-...](http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/migrating-
a-net-application-from-amazon-web-services)

EDIT: Also, this is a mapping of AWS resources to Rackspace resources:
[http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/mapping-
of...](http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/mapping-of-amazon-
web-services-resources-to-rackspace-resources)

------
jensenbox
:( credit card required

------
indubitably
rackspace ripped me off

~~~
iancarroll
Before making bold claims, you should really state what happened and what they
tried (or didn't try) to do.

