[Andrei]

Hello,

Why not do like Hetzner and simply put old hardware up for auction? We have been trying to get a new server provisioned ever since reading this article, however your staff has not been helpful at all. The request was placed September 22nd for a project due at the end of this month. To my understanding, we were suppose to still get another server provisioned as we are a current customer. This was not the case. At this rate we will be forced to rent servers elsewhere just like your other patiently waiting customers as we cannot simply wait any longer. Our business is prospering and we would like to remain with OVH but under the current conditions this does not seem to be the case. If you need our NIC handle, please simply PM me. If a response is not received within 2 business days stating that our server will be provisioned within 1 business day from that point, we will be terminating ALL server contracts and urge our community to do the same. Estimated termination is of 450 servers.

[mel]

Could you use the old servers for cloud services or other purposes?

For example, I was paying 15 EUR/mo for a 2G server with a 1T disk.
Suppose you could convert it to 10 NAS 'devices' of 100G each and lease each one for 10 EUR/mo (your current price). If you replicate the data to 2 other servers in order to have triple redundancy, then it would "cost" you 45 EUR/mo to provide 100 EUR/mo worth of NAS storage.

Similarly, you could convert them to cloud storage (about the same price/GB), VPS servers, CDN servers, etc. Even convert them to FTP storage, and add the option of buying FTP backup for the new Kimsufi servers. I had put in place FTP backup procedures that I had to replace when the FTP option was removed.

Or you could convert them to "backup" VPSs. A backup VPS would have lower CPU and lower RAM, but higher storage than your current VPS offerings. It might not even need a public IP. Someone who orders a Kimsufi server could then have the option of ordering one of this VPSs to use for backup. An older 2G kimsufi server is perfectly capable of hosting several VPSs. But your 2013 KS-2G pricing was so low that I was planning on getting a dedicated server for backup.

If this conversion of old servers is not possible, consider wiring your data centers and adjusting your products in such a way that it will be possible in the future.

I am a little perplexed with your pricing dedicated servers cheaper than VPSs. Why do you think "everyone should have a dedicated server" instead of "everyone should have a VPS"? I host VPSs on my Kimsufi server and I use those instead. I have a development VPS, two website VPSs, a backup VPS, etc. But I cannot use the backup VPS to backup the other VPSs, since they share the same disk.

Also, before you slashed the prices on the 2013 Kimsufi servers, you had previously effectively raised prices by reducing the server specifications. This is one reason I rushed to order new servers, to make sure I didn't miss the low price.

[oles@ovh.net]

Dear Customer,

The server deals that we offer are based on certain principles which make renting
a server from us very appealing:
- no installation fees
- no commitment
- monthly payment
- regular release of new features

Up to 100, 000 servers in our DCs, we haven't had any particular problems with
these principles. To manage growth, it was sometimes necessary to add a limit
of 2 new servers per month. Sometimes we had added installation fees for a few
months, but overall, the model functions very well.

Between 100,000 and 150,000 servers, we felt that these principles began to
create problems in terms of turnover.

What is turnover? Turnover is when our existing customers that rent servers decide to
take new ones from us to replace the old. This if not a problem if the old server has
been rented for 2-3 years, or if we can re-rent the old server as a Kimsufi for another
2-3 years. But with 150,000 servers, the number of customers renting a new server
again after 3 to 6 months has become the majority. And the old servers are becoming
comercially obsolete too quickly.

Today we have 170, 000 servers and since the range was updated at the beginning of
August, the turnover has sped up even more to become too high. The majority of deliveries
are basically just turnover. We are no longer delivering enough servers to keep up with new
projects or new customers. The delivery time for everyone has become too long and we can
say that the mechanics isn't working any more.

As for the 170K servers already leased out, there's no problem to report and no change to
expect. Everything is running perfectly well and we're not changing anything. The problem
only concerns new orders for new servers.

How do we fix this turnover issue?
---------------------------
We think we can find a better way of working which will enable us to deliver servers in 1hr,
while managing 200,000 or even 300,000 servers. But such a way of working requires
serious consideration.

We have started to make adjustments on certain elements such as IP Failover, but clearly
it is necessary to go more in-depth. We have multiple avenues to follow, but if we start making
changes every day, a piece here and a piece there, nobody will understand anything any more.

And so even if we have more than 10,000 servers ready to be delivered (all ranges and DCs confused),
we have thus decided to "sell out" all dedicated server offers in France and the European subsidiaries,
as well as in Canada and the USA. Orders already placed will be delivered, but we are not accepting
any more new orders.

This "sold out" action will enable us to take time to analyze the sales of the last few months
in greater depth, and understand the behavior of each customer contributing to the turnover.

We will then put the servers back on sale in limited quantities (batches of 100 servers) and new
principles to then re-analyze what has happened, and so on and so forth until finding the principles
which will allow us to:
- deliver the servers to you quickly
- offer very competitive offers
- increase customer loyalty to their servers

At the same time, we're speeding up the rewriting of the API in v6 in terms of domain names,
emails, web hosting and dedicated servers. The same goes for Manager V6 which will replace V3
and V5 before the end of the year. Our order system will be reviewed before the end of the year
for all the services that we offer you. We will be able to offer bank card auto-renewal in Europe
and Canada. In short, we are making the most of this " sold out" period to focus internal resources
not on growth, but rather on consolidation of our backoffice and on careful consideration of the
mechanics of our offers.

In the meantime, if you have new projects which oblige you to rent new servers, please don't
hesitate to contact us so that you can place an order manually. We have the server stock but we
don't want to deliver it and continue this high turnover cycle.

We're counting on your feedback to help us to refine the mechanics, which must be convenient
for you and allow us to do our job without having to change the rules of play every 6 months
because we have 200K or 300K servers in our DCs. This is basically a good time to discuss
and exchange, and then to come up with the idea that nobody has yet come up with…

Best wishes,
Octave