1. look and feel like magic.
2. Work flawlessly in the first 10 minutes.
3. Provide additional, unexpected awesomeness.

Ever since reading that, I’ve placed most new things I encounter up to that test.  Suprsingly few hold up.  Last week however, one passed with flying colors.  I was shopping for a cost-effective way to consolidate my web hosting plans.  I was specifically looking for a virtual private server with strong uptime and speed numbers, Ubuntu Server OS, and a low price. Rackspace cloud servers fit the bill perfectly, so I signed up.  So how did it score? Let’s see:

Magic:  You start off by picking your server size.  It’s easier than shopping on Amazon.  256mb of RAM. Done.  Then you pick your OS.  Not only did they have Ubuntu, they had the latest three releases.  Next up, you see your virtual server created in real time with a nice little progress bar.  Create an entirely new server in 30 seconds?  Watch the whole process without a page load?  Good enough to be magic for me.

Work Flawlessly:  I spent the next 45 minutes going crazy with apt-get and wget.  I installed Apache, Mysql, PHP, Postfix, Dovecot, GD, Wordpress & Roundcube.  Not a single hitch.

Unexpected Awesomeness:  Backups!  Daily, weekly and variable backups are included.  You can image the entire server without taking it offline, and restore a backup with one-click.  Scaling!  I decided to bump my plan from 256 to 512mb of RAM.  The entire process took about two minutes, and there was no need to re-configure anything.  DNS Hosting!  You can stack domain nameserver hosting on for free even if the domains are registered elsewhere.  Reverse DNS Lookup!  I’ve never found another host or ISP that makes it as easy to set your PTR record.  Support Chat!  I don’t feel like waiting on hold for support.  Twice I opened an IM window and got help from a human within a minute.  Basically there was enough unexpected awesomeness to go around.

Hats off to Rackspace, my new favorite hosting company!