Announcing the BuyVM hardware refresh to AMD Ryzen!

Francisco · February 2020

This was just sent out to all active Slice customers!

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New Year, New... Intel exploit? Sigh.

Since the launch of our KVM Slices, we have used Intel 1270v3 CPUs with SATA SSD storage. This setup has treated us well with performance that does not break the bank. Unfortunately, Intel CPUs have lost their performance advantage over the last 2 years due to design flaws that have led to security exploits/vulnerabilities.

You would have most likely heard of these exploits/vulnerabilities by the names 'Meltdown', 'Spectre', and 'MDS'.

While these exploits/vulnerabilities can be mitigated in software, this comes at the cost of performance. Estimates show a performance loss of around 30% when these mitigations are enabled (and even more if HT/SMT is disabled).

Today we are happy to announce a complete overhaul of all of our KVM Slice nodes to AMD Ryzen 3900X CPUs. Our originally advertised 3.5GHz clocks will increase to 3.8GHz with a boost clock of 4GHz+ (we are seeing an average boost clock of 4.1GHz on most cores). Storage will also be upgraded from SATA SSDs to NVME SSDs, which will increase IO performance by 4x or more.

Network connectivity will be upgraded from 1Gbit to 10Gbit. While your service will remain capped at 1Gbit in each direction, we are considering uncapping inbound speeds for long term customers (customers who have had an active service for >6 months for example). We haven't given this too much thought yet but many users have shown interest in veteran perks.

Last but not least, A+B power will be set up in Las Vegas to protect us from the Homer Simpsons that always seem to end up working on our power panels. This has been in the works for a while but has only recently become possible.

We have begun ordering equipment for Las Vegas and expect to be racking the new nodes in the next week or so. You will receive an email soon that will document when your VPS will be migrated. A reboot will be required upon which your Slice will automagically be migrated to our new nodes.

We expect to get New York done by early April and will be taking this opportunity to bring our Block Storage Slabs online with new network connectivity (ideally, NYIIX & Hurricane Electric). A new Juniper router will also be installed.

Luxembourg upgrades are for the moment up in the air, but we hope to complete them this year as well.

We thank you for your patronage and are excited to see what you think of our new nodes!

===

Francisco

InceptionHosting · February 2020

Nice, ahead of the curve as always.

I popped it in to industry news, I hope that is OK.

Francisco · February 2020

@AnthonySmith said:
Nice, ahead of the curve as always.

I popped it in to industry news, I hope that is OK.

Your ship, captain.

Francisco

vpsgeek · February 2020

@AnthonySmith said:
Nice, ahead of the curve as always.

I popped it in to industry news, I hope that is OK.

I hope to see you offering Ryzen soon as well
@Clouvider get him some Ryzen!

MichaelCee · February 2020

Very exciting news boss

I need myself a reason to deploy in LV

InceptionHosting · February 2020

@vpsgeek said:

@AnthonySmith said:
Nice, ahead of the curve as always.

I popped it in to industry news, I hope that is OK.

I hope to see you offering Ryzen soon as well
@Clouvider get him some Ryzen!

Not happening

vpsgeek · February 2020

The Pony is always ahead of the competition

angstrom · February 2020

Don't some (many?) people say that Ryzen is a desktop/laptop CPU?

(I'll show myself to the door)

Francisco · February 2020

@vpsgeek said:
The Pony is always ahead of the competition

Try to be

@angstrom said:
Don't some (many?) people say that Ryzen is a desktop/laptop CPU?

(I'll show myself to the door)

While EPYC would be cool, people get slices because they want high clock CPU's. 2Ghz isn't high clock and no ones going to use that for gameservers/single threaded apps.

We have a test node up that has been fantastic. Our 10gig configuration (using our connectx cards) works great too.

Francisco

Lee · February 2020

@Francisco said: While these exploits/vulnerabilities can be mitigated in software, this comes at the cost of performance. Estimates show a performance loss of around 30% when these mitigations are enabled (and even more if HT/SMT is disabled).

Intel has handed AMD free market share increase as a result.

Francisco · February 2020

@Lee said:

@Francisco said: While these exploits/vulnerabilities can be mitigated in software, this comes at the cost of performance. Estimates show a performance loss of around 30% when these mitigations are enabled (and even more if HT/SMT is disabled).

Intel has handed AMD free market share increase as a result.

Intel's XEON-E stuff is nice but it has the same exploits and isn't a new arch, it's just the same with some (faulty) hardware mitigation's. A new arch is likely 2022 for regular consumer purchasing.

We'll need to upgrade sooner or later, so we might as well do it now while the iron's white hot.

Francisco

Lee · February 2020

@Francisco said: We'll need to upgrade sooner or later, so we might as well do it now while the iron's white hot.

It's hard not to take notice of AMD right now though, especially for server use.

Francisco · February 2020

@Lee said:

@Francisco said: We'll need to upgrade sooner or later, so we might as well do it now while the iron's white hot.

It's hard not to take notice of AMD right now though, especially for server use.

As I said, our test node has been fantastic.

It's a huge spend for us, but I think it's worth it.

Francisco

willie · February 2020

Are you using ECC ram with the Ryzens? Some mobos support it, others don't. For high clock and lots of cores, of course there is also threadripper.

MikeA · February 2020

@willie said:
Are you using ECC ram with the Ryzens? Some mobos support it, others don't. For high clock and lots of cores, of course there is also threadripper.

Most mobos support ECC which is nice, even the cheap $60-70 ones.

foxone · February 2020

Do you require a reason to request the uncapped speed, or the age is sufficient?

Francisco · February 2020

@foxone said:
Do you require a reason to request the uncapped speed, or the age is sufficient?

For inbound?

We haven't decided what we'll do. One idea is to use the 'Premier' system I wrote for our billing system to upgrade/downgrade users ports.

Basically give more perks for being a long term customer.

Francisco

CamoYoshi · February 2020

@Francisco said:
Last but not least, A+B power will be set up in Las Vegas to protect us from the Homer Simpsons that always seem to end up working on our power panels. This has been in the works for a while but has only recently become possible.

Sounds like a intern keeps tripping over the power cables.

Francisco · February 2020

@CamoYoshi said:

@Francisco said:
Last but not least, A+B power will be set up in Las Vegas to protect us from the Homer Simpsons that always seem to end up working on our power panels. This has been in the works for a while but has only recently become possible.

Sounds like a intern keeps tripping over the power cables.

No, it's just a lot of incompetent electrical contractors that trip full boxes or breakers.

It's our fault, I should've had A+B on those racks but didn't since I didn't like the idea of ATS units.

I've ordered all new chassis to address that.

Francisco

CamoYoshi · February 2020

@Francisco said:

@CamoYoshi said:

@Francisco said:
Last but not least, A+B power will be set up in Las Vegas to protect us from the Homer Simpsons that always seem to end up working on our power panels. This has been in the works for a while but has only recently become possible.

Sounds like a intern keeps tripping over the power cables.

No, it's just a lot of incompetent electrical contractors that trip full boxes or breakers.

It's our fault, I should've had A+B on those racks but didn't since I didn't like the idea of ATS units.

I've ordered all new chassis to address that.

Francisco

Nick_A · February 2020

@Lee said: Intel has handed AMD free market share increase as a result.

And a nice boost on the stock market.

WSS · February 2020

@Nick_A said:

@Lee said: Intel has handed AMD free market share increase as a result.

And a nice boost on the stock market.

Other than the 1800 points lost in the last two days on DOW.

dahartigan · February 2020

@AnthonySmith said:
Nice, ahead of the curve as always.

Ackshually, @seriesn was the first to offer Ryzen upgrades for free to existing customers :-P

Nyr · February 2020

Impressive how BuyVM has steadily evolved over the years.

I remember when I got my first VPS ever: it was a 256MB container from BuyVM, single homed to HE in Fremont and costed $3.5/month, which was crazy cheap at the time. Performance was utter shit and the machine unusable.

And there you have, a decade and some migrations later, they have managed to sustainably grow and improve including an expansion to Europe, own control panel, own network, have lots of happy customers and Fran has somehow resisted the temptation to have the IP space pay for his retirement.

I got a bit nostalgic lol

seriesn · February 2020

@dahartigan said:

@AnthonySmith said:
Nice, ahead of the curve as always.

Ackshually, @seriesn was the first to offer Ryzen upgrades for free to existing customers :-P

Mighty pony is mighty pony my friend .

Fran and gang has never been nothing but amazing and he continues to prove that why he is always voted as the top provider, year over year.

deepak_leb · February 2020

shit I need to renew the contract with Fran.

When it will be hitting to LUX boxes @Francisco ?

Francisco · February 2020

@deepak_leb said:
shit I need to renew the contract with Fran.

When it will be hitting to LUX boxes @Francisco ?

I'd like to see it this year but i'm not making any promises. LV & NY will for sure be this year with a 3rd US location happening as well.

Francisco

Francisco · February 2020

@Nyr said:
Impressive how BuyVM has steadily evolved over the years.

I remember when I got my first VPS ever: it was a 256MB container from BuyVM, single homed to HE in Fremont and costed $3.5/month, which was crazy cheap at the time. Performance was utter shit and the machine unusable.

And there you have, a decade and some migrations later, they have managed to sustainably grow and improve including an expansion to Europe, own control panel, own network, have lots of happy customers and Fran has somehow resisted the temptation to have the IP space pay for his retirement.

I got a bit nostalgic lol

While it's stressful I enjoy doing this job.

Down the road when you all piss me off for the last time I'll sell it off and go blow it all on the strip or something.

Francisco

seriesn · February 2020

@Francisco said: Down the road when you all piss me off for the last time I'll sell it off and go blow it all on the strip or something.

Won't be that difficult since you are in vegas a lot often on "Business trip"

poisson · February 2020

Not exactly the earliest to the AMD party, but definitely one of the earlier ones! More choices for everyone!

Francisco · February 2020

@poisson said:
Not exactly the earliest to the AMD party, but definitely one of the earlier ones! More choices for everyone!

We're one of the first to do a full fleet replacement I think. Maybe @MikeA?

Anyway, I'm not Ricky Bobby so I'm not worried about it. I'm just excited to get it done.

Francisco

Announcing the BuyVM hardware refresh to AMD Ryzen!

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