
Swiss-Based Cloud VPS – For Developers Who Care - goodluckknot
https://www.cloudscale.ch/?id=open-now
======
piquadrat
As a Swiss citizen myself, I am not convinced that hosting in Switzerland is
any better privacy-wise than e.g. in Germany. New laws like BÜPF and NDG seem
to get us closer to where the EU is in terms of what the government is allowed
to access, and what providers are forced to log.

This talk is a good intro on what's going on in Switzerland right now
[https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7205-netzpolitik_in_der_schweiz#...](https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7205-netzpolitik_in_der_schweiz#video)

~~~
fla
Internationally wise, it's not. We have a long history of doing whatever other
big countries ask us to do. Especially when the request comes from the United
States. (I'm Swiss as well)

Switzerland has been hosting Onyx [1] for fiteen years now ;)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onyx_(interception_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onyx_\(interception_system\))

Edit: typo

~~~
iheartmemcache
Post-2008 (i.e., the final turning point re: the IRS was when the former UBS
employee spilled his beans, but I'd be willing to bet Swiss cooperation post
9-11 just by some heavy-handed Homeland Security Agents in poorly tailored
suits storming in discourteously) even grandfathered numbered accounts have no
security in them for foreign nationals. As I understand it, if you're an MNC
you transfer price and lodge your funds in the most tax-friendly domicile
(Ireland) and retain those earnings without any remittance. For US nationals,
the best way to engage in tax avoidance is to play a game of seashells in the
Seychelles (oh god I'm sorry for the pun) with shelf-companies and auxiliary
signatories, and keep on routing around until you eventually land up in HK.
The only thing a US citizen gain from a Swiss bank account from is protection
domestic civil litigation, i.e., divorce claims. Swiss nationals, as I
understand it, still retain their anonymity but who really knows.

Fun fact: It's not the Caymans, Switzerland, or HK that is the largest tax
shelter in the world - it's the US banking system.

~~~
repomies69
I've heard that for nationals outside US, US is very good place to store your
wealth. Because they give zero information outside. However practically all
financial institutions outside US are very dependant on US finance
infrastructure. That means they will comply hard with US data requests, which
means that US citizens outside US have hard time hiding their assets.

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mdasen
If a company's tag line is "For Developers Who Care", I'd expect more than a
blatant rip-off of DigitalOcean's home page.

The first part of the page is dominated by the demo on the right on both and
the tag-line and signup on the left. The workflow for creating a VPS is
basically the same right down to selecting an SSH key. Even the demo video is
surrounded by the same minimalist OS X-like window. It isn't a standard
library that they both share, but rather a visual copying.

It seems tacky to use the same home page. More than that, I've used a bunch of
different providers (Vultr, DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS, Rackspace, OVH) and
they all have very different control panel interfaces showing distinct
development. It seems like they simply copied DigitalOcean's interface as much
as possible.

Going back to the home page, the second part is a three column bit with info
about the service and each column is dominated by a giant icon, just like
DigitalOcean. Next comes the pricing boxes on each. Both have a "what people
have said about" section. Both put another signup box right before the footer.
Both have the same grey footer. Even the headers in the footer (like
"PRODUCT") are all-caps like DigitalOcean. The whole home page is just a rip
off of the whole flow and style of DigitalOcean.

The fact that they simply ripped off DigitalOcean's user interface seems to
discredit their claim that they're "For Developers Who Care". They don't care
enough to do more than blatantly copy a competitors design (and then charge a
premium by mentioning the name "Swiss" a lot). Cloudscale - For Developers Who
Like Making Blatant Rip-Offs?

That might sound harsh, but DigitalOcean has worked hard to gain its
reputation and trust in the community. To have someone with no reputation
(yet) simply copy their design, possibly out of a combination of laziness and
trying to ride DigitalOcean's coattails, seems really crappy (especially when
they're trying to claim that they're for people that care).

~~~
nickpsecurity
So, you're saying:

1\. DigitalOcean is a good product people trust.

2\. They copied everything about it.

3\. So, it's a bad product that we can't trust?

What am I missing aside from an ethical argument? If it's _operationally_ like
DO, then that's already an argument in it's favor. If it's just appearances,
then it's a knock-off that ain't worth shit. I'm ignoring ethics of copying
interfaces for now in favor of quality of service as many businesses will.
Clearly, the interface will do just fine.

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sschueller
I would prefer moving some of my many VPS to a local provider but Exoscale and
this one have a minimum of around CHF 30 which doesn't make it worth it for
me. I run many small instances not just a few big ones.

In addition I would like to know which datacenter this is in and who is
providing the uplink? Many datacenters in Zürich are foreign owned. Equinix
alone has 5 running and will have 7 soon.

EDIT: BTW Swisscom offers application hosting
([https://developer.swisscom.com/pricing](https://developer.swisscom.com/pricing))

~~~
chinathrow
Just a small heads up: Swisscom is the ex-monopolist and very anti net-
neutrality and even went as far as to dream about demanding money from
startups who want priority of their data.

~~~
nickpsecurity
So, on the flip side, the availability will probably be good for the near and
long term? ;)

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flipp3r
WOW that's expensive for no good reason. I can get a server like this for
about 10% of the price at for example OVH. Apart from being based in Swiss
which I'm sure you're not the only host, what does this have to offer that's
worth the 1000% higher price?

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amatera
It's in Switzerland, which is one of the most expensive countries.

~~~
lorenzhs
Switzerland is expensive, true, but it's not 10x more expensive than France.

~~~
iheartmemcache
It's a great marketing ploy for those who are paranoid of the MPAA and want to
tunnel their torrents or add an additional extra node between them and a Silk
Road. He could commoditize it directly and sell SOCKS 5 proxies for 10 dollars
a month and make a killing just because of the false perception that the Swiss
government won't release information at the request of US federal agencies.
People are way better off using US-hostile-ish countries like China, Russia,
or Yemen (though I'd imagine a Visa charge to Yemen might add a whole new set
of watch-list problems for a US national).

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forcer
Simple pricing. No need for a calculator.

And then you quote prices in swiss franks instead of US dollars as its common
in hosting industry.

I don't have currency converter in my head nor I know USD->CHF rate

~~~
frobozz
If you are looking at their website using a browser connected to the internet,
you don't need to do currency conversions in you head and memorise the
exchange rates every morning, you can just use that same browser to ask for a
currency conversion from any of a number of sites, e.g.

[https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?#q=1%20chf%20in%20usd](https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?#q=1%20chf%20in%20usd)

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=1chf+in+usd&ia=currency](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=1chf+in+usd&ia=currency)

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+chf+in+usd](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+chf+in+usd)

If they are charging in CHF, then it's in both their and their customers'
interests to quote in CHF, otherwise fluctuations in currency markets and
variations in the exchange rates offered by their customers' banks will
invalidate those quotes.

~~~
SunShiranui
You do have a point, but it still would be more convenient if the website
showed the price in USD\other currencies as well.

~~~
icebraining
The problem is that exchange rates vary. Showing the current rate would be
misleading.

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bjacobel
CHF 30 (approx $30 USD) is quite steep for the base offering, compared to US-
based providers (DO, Linode, AWS).

What specific guarantees do I have regarding data privacy that I wouldn't get
of I hosted in the US? That's something I'd like to see listed prominently on
the site, so I can determine if the extra cost is worth it.

~~~
iheartmemcache
I'll save you the trouble - no it is not. I read the entire (very short) TOS
just to see if this was mentioned. They mentioned their _Gesellschaft mit
beschränkter Haftung_'s address of operation, a few indemnification clauses
re: natural disasters and the right to TOS you.

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m_st
OT: Not to sound negative, but I always find it strange to see these 'popular'
banners on these (now standard) pricing pages. I'm sure for such a new product
no pricing plan is yet 'popular' or do they already have so many customers?

~~~
gruez
I've seen enough pricing pages to know that "popular" really means
"recommended", but with the added benefit of social proof.

~~~
jacquesm
Wow, you actually believe that? To me 'popular' means 'has the best margins
for us'.

~~~
mkuhn
For me these popular badges always were much more about anchoring [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring)

~~~
jacquesm
Sure, but that's just the means, the margins are the ends.

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repomies69
I once rented servers from Switzerland. I guess mainly based on the image of
them being secure, privacy-oriented etc. It was not cheap, of course, but I
was fine with that.

Turns out that they had really lousy security practice, their staff was
probably some idiots. The granted access to our servers to some random dude
with simple social engineering hack. In addition they never admitted their
mistake, although it was clear from the admin console what had happened (I
guess they didn't even research it).

The company in question was Private Layer Inc. Never use their services. I
will personally never trust anything Swiss on any IT-related.

~~~
detaro
If you use that kind of measure, I guess we'll all have to create our own
countries to make sure we don't use services from a country that once had a
company with bad practices?

~~~
rdl
Yeah, that doesn't work out as well as you might think.

~~~
detaro
I wondered if you would comment on that ;)

Wasn't really meant as a practical suggestion though

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paulofilip3
What about putting the prices in EUR or USD?? I know it only takes a google
search to find out. But you see, other than Swiss no one really cares, thinks,
calculates or anything in Swiss francs.

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yc1010
Is Bitcoin and/or paysafecard an payment option? all that talk about privacy
is kinda silly if can not pay with (Semi)private payment methods

edit: why downvote? is this not a valid concern for a service that is
marketing privacy as its main pro?

~~~
detaro
Presumably it is not about the operator's privacy, but about keeping the data
stored/processed private. Protecting your users' data, not you.

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brightball
On-topic but not for this particular company...

What is an ideal host for privacy? Been doing research for a potential
security product and that particular question is one of the still-open
problems to be solved.

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lessthunk
Unfortunately CH gave in to the US -- look e.g. at the banks, or at the EU,
especially DE blackmailing tiny CH to give up privacy.

Iceland is a country worth investigating when it comes to hosting.

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psuter
Comparing with DigitalOcean (seemingly CloudScale's model), what's missing
here for me is a dirt-cheap, let's-spin-a-VM-for-a-single-webpage option. I
want something like CloudScale to exist so I'll definitely give it a try.

Edit: had a comment about previous performance, but I had mistaken CloudScale
for one of their competitors, woops.

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seivan
Is there still a market for providers that only sell bare bone private
servers?

I wish more would look into cloning Heroku in terms of features and ease of
deployment.

It's not just easy to create, deploy and manage but it's easy to add a slave
or replace Memcached with Redis.

~~~
Cyberdog
> Is there still a market for providers that only sell bare bone private
> servers?

Are there still sysadmins out there who would prefer that their servers run
only the softwtare they themselves installed on it, no more?

There's something to be said for turnkey solutions like Heroku, but there will
always be those who want more control.

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numbsafari
Instead of advertising your "simple control panel", advertise your "simple and
secure API".

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Raed667
This is very expensive. I have the exact same spec from a German provider for
10% of the price.

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XERQ
I'm the founder of SSD Nodes, a US-based cloud provider, and we have special
HN pricing where you can get 1GB RAM instances for only $2.99/mo

[https://www.ssdnodes.com/hn/](https://www.ssdnodes.com/hn/)

* You can upgrade with zero downtime to a larger server (it will live resize)

* 100% uptime SLA

* Fastest SSDs (we've achieved over 200K write IOPS and 1GB/s writes)

* Direct support from engineers

* Bitcoin payments accepted

* 7-day no-hassle refund guarantee

/plug

~~~
tshtf
What virtualization do you use? OpenVZ, KVM, XenPV, XenHVM?

~~~
XERQ
Across the company we use all of them, because our enterprise clients all have
different needs. For this deal we use OpenVZ, with our own proprietary
workload balancing algorithm that migrates containers so that each gets
optimal performance.

~~~
tshtf
Thanks. Like most technically-minded people, I wouldn't be interested in
OpenVZ even at $2.99 a month.

