Hvassing.com

Since July 2006 I've been a (mt) Media Temple-customer. A happy one, I might add. I used my (ss) Shared Server at Media Temple only to host minor projects, testing software on different servers and that alike. A good web host is kind of like a bank; the best ones are those you never have to grant a thought.

Enters the all new cluster-based (mt) Grid-Server:

(mt) Media Temple's Grid-Server is a completely new hosting platform that replaces yesterday’s obsolete shared server technology.

The main difference between the (gs) Grid-Server is that the entire system works like an anthill that's spilt into three parts. The main advantage behind (gs) is that there's a shared storage system for all the individual servers that serves the information to the rest of the world. So when a request is made to a site that's hosted at Media Temple using (gs), the system automatically chooses the least busy server in the grid, avoiding what's called the "bad neighbour effect".

Now, this all sounds really great, and it is! Given that all the cluster-nodes can actually access the information stored on the remote network storage system. As mentioned, I had a (ss) Shared Server and when the new system came along I wanted to upgrade. The new system was, after all, meant to be even faster and even more redundant. Better yet; upgrading was just three simple steps that should not take more than 5 to 20 minutes after changing name servers.

Step One

Since I have my e-mail hosted elsewhere I had to make sure that all the A-records at Media Temple were pointing to the right places, then I changed the name servers seen as Media Temple must be Start of Authority.

Note:
Before I moved anything at all, I set the TTL to five minutes for both the old and the new name server, giving me the opportunity to update records and have them working shortly after.

Step Two

The second step was, by far, more confusing than the first step. This is primarily a billing step where they let you chose the type of setup you want. When upgrading they allow you to chose a Lite-version of (gs) for the same price as most people paid for their (ss). One Digital Life has a summary of what it looks like and the difference between (gs) Lite and the regular one.
I must say that I was pretty confused and the choices I made was mere guesses rather than confident choices. Reading the post at One Digital Life about the second step of the process makes it a bit clearer.

Step Three

Step three is where things actually start happen. This step is said to take between 5 to 20 minutes, which it actually does. However, in my case it took 26 hours (!!), or rather; it took 26 hours before the actual move started. The moving itself didn't take more than what Media Temple said it would. Imagine the frustration felt when nothing happens, not after one hour, two, five, ten and not even the following day. After adding a couple of support tickets, getting answers that was less than satisfying, there was little to do than to wait. Waiting is about just as fun as watching the grass grow; after a while you start reconsider what you're doing. Next thing I had decided to call Media Temple, and as I was reaching for my phone to call Media Temple, things started to happen - the magic worked!

The new administration panel was nice and pretty easy to use. I'm surprised about how intuitive it was to find the various bells and whistles. All of a sudden, while I was playing around, the following screen:

Fair enough, some childhood problems are to be expected I thought, the only problem was that the childhood problems soon became youth problems. New support ticket, the answer came soon after, excusing and apologizing, alas there was nothing they could do at present as they were looking into it. In Media Temples own words: "Thank you for your patience and understanding in this matter". Back to watching the grass grow. The service was not at all reliable, going down quite frequently and when it decided to work, it was putting all its efforts into being as slow as could be.

Conclusion

I'm not all too happy about the (gs) Grid-Server system. First of all, I'm a bit puzzled by their wording, grid, and proclaiming that it's a brand new idea that's never been tried out before. In their own words "the Grid System is breaking new boundaries in the hosting world and along with the uniqueness of this technology comes unique problems". I'm not sure what they mean by that, it's only a cluster of servers with a network storage system, nothing all too fancy. It's not like it's rocket surgery or reinventing the wheel.

But fair enough, there are several advantages with this cluster-based system. The biggest advantage is the fact that it's a cluster, which will (eventually) reduce bottlenecks and busy servers.

Moreover; the Grid-Server system has a feature called "1-Click Applications" which allows you to install software such as Drupal and WordPress with a single click. Nifty, although, you only use it once or twice, but useful nonetheless.

My overall impression with the Grid-Server system is that it seems a bit buggy and beta-ish. I think Media Temple would be better off if they had waited a while longer and introduced the (ss) v6 that they had announced for quite some time. So if you're considering migrating from your (ss) Shared-Server to (gs) Grid-Server system, I would recommend you wait a little while longer, till they're done debugging and are finished with all the childhood diseases.

If you're considering (mt) Media Temple as your web-host I would honestly recommend it, even though I'm not pleased with the Grid-Server system. My main reason for choosing Media Temple was that they have a reputation of being excellent with support and that they provide first-class hosting services. The latter can be discussed in light of the recent events, but the customer support is nothing short of brilliant!

So if you're looking for a new web-host, Media Temple is well worth the extra duckets.

Update: (mt) Media Temple apologizes.