no-nonsense vps hosting
As of today (2008-06-14) BitFolk will not be accepting any new hosting contracts in San Francisco, and contract renewals will be limited to monthly (30 day) plans. Three months from now (Sunday 14th September 2008) BitFolk will not be accepting any renewals for San Francisco.
If you are a current customer with services in San Francisco then what this means for you depends exactly on what contract length you have now (30, 90 or 360 days):
You may renew your existing hosting contract two more times, but after this you will need to find alternative hosting arrangements. You are of course free to not renew whenever your existing 30-day contract expires.
Once your existing contract expires you may continue to renew on a 30-day basis any time before Sunday 14th September. You will need to find alternative hosting arrangements before the end of your last renewal.
If your current contract expires before Sunday 14th September 2008 then you may renew with a 30-day contract at that time. Otherwise your hosting is guaranteed until your current contract expires, by which time you will need to have found alternative hosting arrangements.
If you want to find alternative hosting sooner, BitFolk will be happy to give a pro-rata refund of unused service.
Some customers receive a 5% discount on their cheaper UK VPS because they have a more expensive one in San Francisco. These customers will continue to enjoy their 5% discount even after their VPS services in San Francisco are terminated.
As a special offer to loyal BitFolk customers in San Francisco, BitFolk is willing to make the following proposal to move your VPS to the UK before your existing contract runs out, at a 20% discount to UK prices. As BitFolk will be making a loss on such hosting, this will have the following additional terms and conditions:
Strictly only available for services still active in SF at the time the move can be made.
You are required to renew with the yearly equivalent of the plan you are on. e.g. "120MiB Monthly" will become "120MiB Yearly" in London, with a 20% discount from list price for the yearly plan. Your existing contract will be extended by one year and this becomes your new contract.
After the new contract expires this offer ends and you may renew with the usual London prices, terms and conditions which are in force at the time.
No downgrades.
Any upgrades will be at regular London prices.
This is subject to BitFolk having capacity for you in London, so this may have to be a gradual move from 2008-09-14 onwards. To avoid disappointment or delay please express your interest early.
Your filesystem gets copied but your IP address(es) will need to change.
BitFolk's upstream in SF, cernio.com, also does Xen-based VPS hosting although I have no personal experience of it. I have also heard good things about slicehost.com, but again no personal experience. If anyone else has any personal recommendations for US VPS hosting then I am more than happy for them to be made on this list. BitFolk does still have capacity in UK if that is of use to you.
If anyone has any questions about this please feel to ask on or off list.
I apologise if any customers feel like they have been let down. This difficult decision has not been made in haste, being the result of more than 6 months of deliberation. I also have made efforts to sell on the US side of the business to ensure a smooth handover but this did not work out. I hope that the extensive notice (at least 3 months) will give you ample time to relocate your US hosting. I also feel that the UK relocation offer is very generous, but I am willing to discuss alternatives.
Finally a big thank-you to customers in San Francisco; it's been a pleasure doing business with you over the last two years.
Regards,
Andrew Smith
Director,
BitFolk Ltd
