BurstNET

[SC-Daniel]

Hey Guys,

Just noticed BurstNET was down so I headed over to WHT to catch the latest BurstNET Bashing thread to find out that they just decided to perform network maintenance and not notify there clients!

According to BurstNET, when they need to do something they just do it and believe notifying the customers to be a waste of time.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=687307

I am sick and tired of BurstNET's issues personally. I find it completely unprofessional to say an email to clients stating possible downtime due to maintenance is a waste of their time!

Sure, the prices are hard to beat, but when it comes to the way they do business I am completely dissatisfied.

After reading the CEO's remarks on WHT about how notifications about maintenance are unnecessary, I do not plan on offering any more servers from them. That is just bad business and not professional whatsoever.

What is everyone else's thoughts about this?

[Dan]

Here we go again.
Look people, if they are causing so much ----, why are you still with them?

[[JSH]John]

They weren't down for long. From here they were down for around 10 - 15 minutes.

I do agree with Dan, a lot of people complain about BurstNET but they still seem to use them. I myself have no complaints about them yet.

[SC-Daniel]

This is the first problem I have with them... It wasn't the outage but the attitude projected by the CEO.

Don't get me wrong, I am glad that they are improving the network and everything and that the outage was brief and unexpected. It's just the way that they said that they believe email notifications are a waste of time.

If you noticed in some of my offers, I am no longer offering servers from Burst unless by request. I stopped offering them sometime early last week and brought in servers out of Dallas.

[Dan]

This is the first problem I have with them... It wasn't the outage but the attitude projected by the CEO.

Don't get me wrong, I am glad that they are improving the network and everything and that the outage was brief and unexpected. It's just the way that they said that they believe email notifications are a waste of time.

If you noticed in some of my offers, I am no longer offering servers from Burst unless by request. I stopped offering them sometime early last week and brought in servers out of Dallas.

I have to disagree with you.
I read the thread at WHT and he was far from unprofessional etc. He did not say it was a waste of time to notify clients. What he said was "it was not possible to notify all clients" in which I totally agree with the guy.

[SC-Daniel]

I have to disagree with you.
I read the thread at WHT and he was far from unprofessional etc. He did not say it was a waste of time to notify clients. What he said was "it was not possible to notify all clients" in which I totally agree with the guy.

I will admit that when I wrote this the thread was only one page and he didn't have time to clear up what he said, but I just went back and reread all 3 of the new pages and he does seem to clear it up.

I would still like to know why they wouldn't shoot an announcement email out a week or so ago announcing the upcoming improved network when XO comes in. I know its been in planning for 3 months or so now, but it would have been nice to have a little email last week saying that they are about to add the new route and everything.

[Cam.]

So that's why my server went down!

I don't really think it would be practical for them to notify everyone of downtime, as they don't have the direct contacts of customers of resellers etc and it would be pointless for 10mins or so...

[JasonS]

Hey,

I'm sick of seeing BURST issues to be honest. The issue is that they have so many resellers that it causes issues for the companies which resell. They really need to bring their network & hardware to standard.

[SC-Daniel]

The issue is that they have so many resellers that it causes issues for the companies which resell.

That is very true... I kind of get tired of seeing everybody with the same offers and then it becomes a battle of the Burst resellers and who is willing to sell closest to cost.

Burst is a very popular DC to resell from because of the low prices, but that also causes issues because of the large number of order they receive.

It took me 6 days to get a server from them about 2 weeks ago. The support is okay if you use cPanel. I've found them to be a bit slower when it comes to other panels.


They really need to bring their network & hardware to standard.

That is a very good point as well. I believe they are one of the very few companies I can think of that still offers hard drives under 120GB in size. Same with the P4 1.5GHz servers, you couldn't buy a new 1.5GHz processor now if you wanted, so you know they are using quite old hardware.

I had a server about 2 weeks ago that it took 4 RAM replacements to finally get RAM that wasn't bad. They delivered the server to be and it was extremely unstable. I couldn't get it to stay online for longer than 10 minutes at a time. The techs replaced the RAM a couple times until finally they had gotten it to become stable.

If they could work on there internal systems (billing/support/ordering), get updated hardware, and faster setup times, BurstNET wouldn't be so bad.

[Dynash]

Would you rather us waste time and risk further issues, or just fix the problem ASAP?


i agree with Burst on that. whenever we are doing maintenance that wouldn't really cause downtime, we just go ahead and do it. even if they told people, alot will ----- and moan before and after the downtime. i also agree on, if you are dissatisfied, you can find alternatives. as alot here say, you get what you pay for.

[JasonS]

Hey,

If they were going to conduct maintenance I'd rather receive even a 30 minute notice than none what so ever. If they had a client mailing list it shouldn't be too hard to sort out, should it?

I've noticed a lot of people saying they don't want BURST reseller offers on the requests forum which is very worrying. We personally don't use and most likely never will until they bring their network to a stable level.

[SC-Daniel]

If they were going to conduct maintenance I'd rather receive even a 30 minute notice than none what so ever. If they had a client mailing list it shouldn't be too hard to sort out, should it?


That is also a very good point. They do have a customer mailing list as when I ordered my first server I received a confirmation of my joining the mailing list. They also have a private reseller mailing list to notify us of hidden specials and such.

That was my view on the issue when I first wrote the post. I didn't even know that Burst was down as I personally do not have our server in that DC. I have it out of FortressITX for redundancy. Because I do not have any servers in the DC, except resold clientel, I was not aware until I had received an email from a client, that is when I investigated the issue.

Needless to say, I now have a VPS in the Burst DC so that I may monitor the network and know if something is down prior to receiving an email from a client.

Now the Dallas DC is another story as I have 5 min interval monitoring on all of the servers.


I've noticed a lot of people saying they don't want BURST reseller offers on the requests forum which is very worrying. We personally don't use and most likely never will until they bring their network to a stable level.

The main reason we stopped reselling for Burst was because we wanted to offer plans that were different from the typical Burst offers that you see so much of.

[JasonS]

Hey,

I'd say about 70% of FWS server site owners resell BURST. This means you get similar offers and different prices. There's a few websites out there that I'd recommend for reselling. For a starting company I'd recommend Hivelocity (http://www.hivelocity.net) We started out reselling from them and then moved to a much better & stable network.

The issue with BURST is that they have the live chat on the website and I'm not surprised it's never online, they'd be swamped with complaints. Their ticket responses are picking up from what I've seen & heard. For VPS' I would personally never buy from a data center. They can be over priced or pretty limited CPU.

I also seem to be having a stream of good points today :D

[SC-Daniel]

Hey,

I'd say about 70% of FWS server site owners resell BURST. This means you get similar offers and different prices. There's a few websites out there that I'd recommend for reselling. For a starting company I'd recommend Hivelocity (http://www.hivelocity.net) We started out reselling from them and then moved to a much better & stable network.

The issue with BURST is that they have the live chat on the website and I'm not surprised it's never online, they'd be swamped with complaints. Their ticket responses are picking up from what I've seen & heard. For VPS' I would personally never buy from a data center. They can be over priced or pretty limited CPU.

I also seem to be having a stream of good points today :D

I actually did check into Hivelocity before, but the network speed was not the best. I actually was EXTREMELY surprised by Burst as I could download at 3200kbps from them.

I am pretty sure we both moved to the same "better & stable" network as your configs look pretty much the same as mine ;) And I agree that they are MUCH better and they still blow me away with the setup and response times :)

[JasonS]

I actually did check into Hivelocity before, but the network speed was not the best. I actually was EXTREMELY surprised by Burst as I could download at 3200kbps from them.

I am pretty sure we both moved to the same "better & stable" network as your configs look pretty much the same as mine ;) And I agree that they are MUCH better and they still blow me away with the setup and response times :)

I'll say their name consists of a rock? (The new network) :D

[SC-Daniel]

I'll say their name consists of a rock? (The new network) :D

Yep, that's the one!

Now back on topic about Burst...

They just updated there VPS plans, but I do not understand why they only offer 3GB of space on the first plan as it would be pretty much useless

[JasonS]

Yep, that's the one!

Now back on topic about Burst...

They just updated there VPS plans, but I do not understand why they only offer 3GB of space on the first plan as it would be pretty much useless

Hey,

It is pretty useless, cPanel can take up a LOT of that and you're left with 1 - 2GB Disk Space which in all fairness, you may as well as get a reseller. This is why our lowest plan is 10GB HD so the user can receive the maximum optimization. One issue with their VPS plans is probably the CPU proportion. With our VPS' we don't set a proportion we just let it split equally depending on how many VPS' we have on the node. We will provide a base minimum obviously, but BURST have a capped CPU Usage on their VPS and it is very low.

[Dynash]

Yep, that's the one!

Now back on topic about Burst...

They just updated there VPS plans, but I do not understand why they only offer 3GB of space on the first plan as it would be pretty much useless


that makes you buy the server above.
tactics of the salesman:D

[LSComputers]

Well personally, if Im starting to think if you have to resell you shouldnt be in business.. If your reselling its because of two reasons:

1) Not enough knowledge
2) Not enough funds

If those are the cases why are you in the industry. We have seen our fair share of people/children start in the industry and damage the name of others by offering services but not supporting them.

I honestly have to say that its not the datacenter but the small resellers that are damaging BurstNet. I deal with them daily I have a cage there, none of the problems you guys compain about happen to me.. There is the odd delay in techs doing something but there tending to you guys who complain all the time.

As dan said, if you dont like them dont use them simple as that. If you do then dont complain.

[JasonS]

Hey,

I did used to co-locate at BURST and I didn't actually have a single issue. I reckon also it is the whole reseller scheme which is ruining them.
Personally I would recommend anyone starting out reselling then building up to Co-location.

[SC-Daniel]

The reason why we are reselling is because it helps keep our costs down. I don't think it matters if someone resells or colos servers, as long as they provide top notch service then it shouldn't really matter.

I know Burst has a lot of resellers and that is both good and bad. It helps them build a larger network but it also puts more strain on them because a lot of resellers pass the support on to them. We haven't filed many tickets with them for a couple of weeks now. Mostly reboots or stuff that we cannot take care of like licensing or upgrades.

Don't get me wrong, because as I said, when I wrote this I was sort of outraged with the CEO's comment about email notifications. He later went back and clarified and gave more info and I am not as displeased now.

[LSComputers]

Hey Daniel,

I wasn't taking a stab at your business just want to make that clear, as with any other resellers.. Just yes it allows you to make profit. But what I wonder is are you really the company or are you a puppet, an marketer for others.

You have no access to upgrades must request the action to be done, reboot you have access to just pay for a reboot strip and OS installs as for an kvm_ip.

But your limited. So your in fact just marketing for another company. And slowing the time it takes to get a task done, as you must wait for the ticket from client, read and process, then pass it on, wait for confirmation, wait for process to be complete, email client.

Thats a long process with steps that could be taken out.. Again not saying don't resell, just saying if you do, understand that your responsible, its not the dc's fault if they do something you don't like. And most importantly, don't tell your customers to contact them :).

Anyways, yea not attacking anyone who resells, was just stating my opinion.

[SC-Daniel]

Good points LSC...

One of the main selling points that really sold the idea of moving the bulk of our business to Dallas is the fact that every server comes standard with a remote reboot port and we can easily reboot a server in seconds.

I also have someone writing a script for us to integrate into our WHMCS that will allow the users to reboot there own server through the API provided by the provider. Another selling point was the fact that I have never waited longer than 5 minutes to get a response from support. Setup times are also much better than Burst, typically 3-4 hours.

I do plan on doing colo instead in the future... My partner and I just got going about 4 months ago and business has been booming these last couple of months. Hopefully in the next 6 months we will start looking into some colo and start building our own servers.

[EW-Andy]

I didn't face any downtime since I got my server

[PoliticalMonster]

Emergency maintenance doesn't need notification to clients, because it's an emergency. Perhaps an email after would be good, and a constantly-updated off-site status page too, but sending an email is not the solution, fixing the problem with the router/network/whatever is the solution. So far I've been extremely pleased with BurstNET, their support has been outstanding and (for the most part), the network is really good.

BurstNET do get a lot of complaints, but 99% of them come through resellers, and the complaining has really been aimed at the reseller. I guess thats what they get if they offer such an excellent reseller program.

[GlennBeforeTime]

Maybe by Burst NET, they mean... WARNING: We will BURST out and do things with our NETWORK without letting anyone know.

[SC-Daniel]

Man, I just got invoices for all of my servers at the Burst DC and even after the many months I've been with them, I am still completely confused by there system.

Not to mention that for some reason they decided to invoice me for the next two months :eek3: And a payment or two is showing in my paypal and accounting program, but not in there system.

I've already submitted a ticket and now I must wait for billing to open tomorrow and figure this one out.

From a clients stand point, BurstNET's systems are a mess and do not make much since to me. If productivity on the admin panel is half as bad as it is from a clients standpoint, I would be amazed that they get anything done.

[Dynash]

maybe BurstNET has just done what Dreamhost did, billed clients in advanced by accident?

[SC-Daniel]

Well...

BurstNET drama continues :(

They have taken one of my customers servers down because they said that they have received a cancellation submission for that particular server. Considering I have never submitted a cancellation form to BurstNET I am not sure why they are saying that I have.

Of course, the correct department to give me the information that I need is closed and will not open until mid day tomorrow :(

According to the tech, the entire server was dismantled and the parts used on another server. The IPs have already been reassigned too.

Now if that is an embarrassing one to explain to the customer that this server belongs to.

[Darknight]

You get what you pay for, You should have learnt that by now, Only took me 3 months of bad providers to learn that..
It will never get better and you will always have repeating issues, hardly something worth investing your name in IMO.

[Dan]

You get what you pay for, You should have learnt that by now, Only took me 3 months of bad providers to learn that..
It will never get better and you will always have repeating issues, hardly something worth investing your name in IMO.

I couldn't agree more.
By now people should be realising that BurstNet are not a reliable provider. Yes, there are those who will say they have not had issues. But how long will this last?

[SC-Daniel]

Well, I got that sorted out... Evidentially they had sent me an email regarding that server yesterday and I never received it.

But anyway, BurstNET isn't bad for a budget provider, but the new Dallas servers are selling much better. Over the months as people upgrade or whatever, I am going to start phasing Burst out