Mammoth VPS News

We have just rolled out an extensive update to the Mammoth VPS website which adds a bunch of great new features. Here's a list of all the big changes:

• Performance statistics (available under the 'Manage' menu) gives you graphs for your VPS that provide an at-a-glance overview of CPU usage, I/O, and network, helping you to manage your system performance.
• VPS cloning (available under the 'Backups' menu) allows you to create a second VPS from an existing backup, allowing you to quickly and easily create duplicate VPSs for easy-to-manage load balancing (more information).
• You can now attach an existing backup to your VPS as a second disk, allowing you to easily restore individual files and directories - perfect for when you accidentally delete something important (more information).
• Bandwidth pooling allows you to share your total network data allocation between your VPSs - for example, if you have one VPS on a Personal plan (8GB) and another on a Basic plan (20GB), you'll have a combined 28GB of usage between them.
• Custom kernel support using Xen's PV-grub component allows users to install whatever Linux kernel they would like - you're no longer bound by our pre-packaged kernel options (more information).
• A new RSS feed on our Service Status page, allowing you to easily keep up-to-date with the latest service announcements.

All these new features are available now in mPanel. We're keen for any feedback users have about these new features, so feel free to drop us a line!

We have just rolled out a new update to MammothVPS.com.au which adds a couple of exciting new features, along with a bunch of behind-the-scenes improvements and bug fixes. The major changes:

• IP fail-over using floating IP addresses is now available, allowing customers to improve their availability. Customers with two or more guests can activate this option (free of charge!) now by selecting 'IP Failover' under the 'Manage' menu in mPanel.
• VPS upgrades, allowing customers to easily boost their available RAM, disk space and bandwidth to customise their VPS plan.

As always we're keen for any feedback, so please feel free to let us know in the comments here or drop us a line on our contact page!

Just a quick notice to customers that the VPS backup service is currently running behind schedule. For full details please see the notice on our status page.

Due to unexpected demand resulting in a temporary resource limitation, we've had to disable signups of new accounts on Mammoth VPS.

This is only a temporary measure and we greatly regret any inconvenience - while we could possibly squeeze new customers on, we're dedicated to ensuring the best performance possible for our existing and new customers and we're keen to make sure we're not overloading servers by simply cramming on new customers into any little gaps we can find.

We're currently working on the back end to re-arrange some of our internal resources more efficiently and hope to have account creation re-enabled very shortly.

If you are interested in being notified when signups are enabled, please drop us a line, or simply keep track of our news page by subscribing to our RSS feed!

Well the title says it all really - with our upgrade to Xen 3.4 completed, the "R2" version of Windows Server 2008 is now available as an installation option during sign up. Existing customers can switch via the "Change Plan" page - a reinstall is required, however.

The original release of Windows Server 2008 was based off the Vista codebase, while R2 is based off the Windows 7 codebase. For VPS customers, the primary feature of note is that R2 contains IIS v7.5. Its also worth noting that R2 is a 64-bit only operating system, so you will find 32-bit is grayed out on our signup screen.

Impressively, a base R2 installation actually requires about 2GB less disk space than the original - customers on the basic Bronze plan with 15GB hard drive will have just under 7GB of free space after signup.

We have rolled out a new update to the Mammoth VPS website today with a couple of new features. There's a stack of behind-the-scenes little bug fixes and minor improvements, but the major changes are as follows:

• cPanel now available as purchasable option on signup. (Please note that your cPanel installation will not be available immediately on signup; there will be approximately one business day (hopefully less than that) before we can obtain your license.)
• New Internal IP address ("Mammoth LAN IP" in mPanel) provides better support for internal traffic for customers with multiple VPSs.
• New Menu option under 'My Account' in mPanel called 'Newsletters'. This allows you to control what emails we can send you.
• Invoices now show correctly on mobile devices.
• Minor UI updates to DNS management.
• Users can now change their email address.

We have just uploaded a refresh to our Linux distribution images, enabling kernel 2.6.32.12 by default on all distributions. Importantly, the tun module required for software such as OpenVPN is now available by default (previously it had to be requested via customer support).

There were also some notable changes to individual images:

• An image for Fedora 13 is now available, replacing the previous Fedora 12 image.
• A brand new image for openSUSE (v11.2) can now be installed. openSUSE is an excellent choice for customers who want to run .NET applications using Mono on Linux.
• CentOS image now includes the latest changes from 5.5 without updating, and Debian and Ubuntu have been updated to contain all the latest updates in their current release.

Earlier this month we added Ubuntu 10.04 as an installation option; we have now written up some instructions in the Knowledge base on upgrading an existing Ubuntu 9.10 installation to 10.04.

I upgraded my own Ubuntu VPS this morning and the process was easy, but if you are highly concerned about software stability I recommend waiting for the 10.04.1 point release.

Yesterday we deployed the latest release of our VPS software which contains a raft of changes. The most important are:

• We now have an on-site, off-server backup facility available. Unlike some solutions that require you to SSH or FTP your important data somewhere, we simply take automated copies of your entire virtual disk at regular intervals. All customers receive 1 free weekly backup, and additional/more frequent backups can be purchased if desired.
• DNS Hosting is now available free of charge to all customers for as many domains as you own through an easy to use interface within mPanel.
• We have restructured our navigation system and greatly expanded the amount of information available.
• Added two new sections: Service Status to check for upcoming maintenance and any unscheduled outages, and the Knowledge Base to help customers get up to speed on managing their VPS.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS was released last week, and is now available for installation on Mammoth VPS. This includes a mandatory update to linux kernel 2.6.32.12; I've also taken the opportunity to add some more commonly used programs to the default installation like "man" and "file".

For existing customers on Ubuntu 9.10, we will be rolling out an update to mPanel next week to allow selecting which kernel version to boot from (necessary to complete an upgrade to 10.04) along with instructions on upgrading your VPS.