Reverse IP report

[nimzov]

I just found out from http://whois.domaintools.com/ that my new web site is hosted on a server ...with 416 other sites. :eek:

That is what you get with cheap (<5$ per month) hosting I guess.

Now to get the list of these 416 sites I have to pay.

Is there any other tools or services that would list these sites by reverse IP lookup for free ?

I would like to see if these other sites with whom I share the server, have heavy traffic.

Thanks

nimzo

[geni]

I just found out from http://whois.domaintools.com/ that my new web site is hosted on a server ...with 416 other sites. :eek:

That is what you get with cheap (<5$ per month) hosting I guess.

Now to get the list of these 416 sites I have to pay.

Is there any other tools or services that would list these sites by reverse IP lookup for free ?

I would like to see if these other sites with whom I share the server, have heavy traffic.

Thanks

nimzo

How do you know they share a server rather just say an IP?

[nimzov]

How do you know they share a server rather just say an IP?
Good question.

I am not sure how they do it. Maybe by the name server (like ns1.xxx.com).

I found a partial answer to my question with this site which lists many if not all domains sharing the same server.

http://www.myipneighbors.com/

The reverse lookup is for the domains which might be different than the number of sites considering that some domains are parked.

nimzo

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I just found out from http://whois.domaintools.com/ that my new web site is hosted on a server ...with 416 other sites. :eek:

That is what you get with cheap (<5$ per month) hosting I guess.

Now to get the list of these 416 sites I have to pay.

Is there any other tools or services that would list these sites by reverse IP lookup for free ?

I would like to see if these other sites with whom I share the server, have heavy traffic.

Thanks

nimzo

Let us know what you find but I would guess (TM Pending) that you will not have any bandwidth problems. That's about what I pay for hosting and I've had few technical problems (administrative problems -- just don't ask) in four years.

It is most likely a question of tuning and load balancing. ;)

[nimzov]

Let us know what you find but I would guess (TM Pending) that you will not have any bandwidth problems. That's about what I pay for hosting and I've had few technical problems (administrative problems -- just don't ask) in four years.

It is most likely a question of tuning and load balancing. ;)
Yes from the information I gathered it seems that that many sites can be on a single server. But... it is clear that these hosting companies are overselling their bandwith and disk space.

Example: ipower (http://members.ipower.com/ipower/hosting.bml)

My plan:

600 GB disk space and
6000 GB per month of bandwith
for 5$ per month.

With 416 other sites on the same server ? :eye-poppi

This is an overselling scam as it is mathematically and physically impossible for them to respect these specs.

nimzo

[ddt]

Good question.

I am not sure how they do it. Maybe by the name server (like ns1.xxx.com).

I found a partial answer to my question with this site which lists many if not all domains sharing the same server.

http://www.myipneighbors.com/

The reverse lookup is for the domains which might be different than the number of sites considering that some domains are parked.

Wow. How do they do that? I tried for my own server, and it gave back my domain name(s), but there's definitely no reverse DNS entry for them...

[ddt]

Yes from the information I gathered it seems that that many sites can be on a single server. But... it is clear that these hosting companies are overselling their bandwith and disk space.

Example: ipower (http://members.ipower.com/ipower/hosting.bml)

My plan:

600 GB disk space and
6000 GB per month of bandwith
for 5$ per month.

With 416 other sites on the same server ? :eye-poppi

This is an overselling scam as it is mathematically and physically impossible for them to respect these specs.

Of course they're overselling. But I wouldn't say that it is mathematically impossible. With storage solutions like SAN or NAS, it's no problem to have a lot of disk space on a server. Or they can have a server park, where the various sites are hosted on different servers, and the IP address belongs to a web proxy server which proxies to the respective servers.

As to the bandwidth:
6000GB / month = 60,000Gb / month = 60,000 / 30 / 86,400 Gb/sec
= 9.6 Gb/sec

That's not unrealistic.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Yes from the information I gathered it seems that that many sites can be on a single server. But... it is clear that these hosting companies are overselling their bandwith and disk space.

Example: ipower (http://members.ipower.com/ipower/hosting.bml)

My plan:

600 GB disk space and
6000 GB per month of bandwith
for 5$ per month.

With 416 other sites on the same server ? :eye-poppi

This is an overselling scam as it is mathematically and physically impossible for them to respect these specs.

nimzo

After I posted I checked my "company" site and found I was sharing it with 38 -- at a quick glance I did not recognize any as being very big. Checking my brother's business site I see he shares with over a hundred. :D

You may be correct about over selling but it really depends on so many factors. For example, if I was a hosting, I might start everyone off on the same server and then move them if they started using more bandwidth. I would be more concerned about their "Service Level Agreement" parameters (and whether they actually fulfill them). :(

[moopet]

Seriously, did you ever get an answer to the question about how you know they're on the same physical server? It is possible (and common) for more than one machine to share the load.

[nimzov]

That's not unrealistic.
I find unrealistic and possibly a scam is to sell 2500TB of bandwith per month for a single server:

6000GB = 6TB

6TB/client * 416client/server = 2496TB/server per month.

nimzo

[geni]

I find unrealistic and possibly a scam is to sell 2500TB of bandwith per month for a single server:

6000GB = 6TB

6TB/client * 416client/server = 2496TB/server per month.

nimzo

Almost certianly isn't one server it is simply a number of servers telling the internet at large they are the same server.

[ddt]

As to the bandwidth:
6000GB / month = 60,000Gb / month = 60,000 / 30 / 86,400 Gb/sec
= 9.6 Gb/sec

That's not unrealistic.

I find unrealistic and possibly a scam is to sell 2500TB of bandwith per month for a single server:

6000GB = 6TB

6TB/client * 416client/server = 2496TB/server per month.

I stand corrected. My calculation (as above) was per client 10 Gb/sec. Having 416 clients on the same IP means that some machine (their router) then has to have a 4Tb connection. I don't think those exist :(.

I'd say: check your SLA. Is it more like that you don't have to pay for more bandwidth than that, rather than that they guarantee it? Just like the "unlimited bandwith" for residential ADSL?

Nevertheless, I don't think $5/month is much for that amount of bandwidth.

[RecoveringYuppy]

4Tb?

2.5 quadrillion bytes is about the same as 2,496 Tb. Multiply by 8 to get bits gives you 20 quadrillion bits, a 17 digit number. 30 times 24 times 60 times 60 gives about 2.6 million seconds, a seven digit number. That's a difference of 10 orders of magnitude putting the data rate in the billions of bits per second, not trillions. Or did I miss a few decimal places somewhere?

[Yalius]

Can you imagine what your hosting bill would be like if you did have, A., a dedicated server; B., dedicated 600GB storage; and C., a dedicated 6000GB/mo upstream with SLA-grade hosting? Probably between 2 and 3 orders of magnitude increase from what you're currently paying. I really don't see what you could possible be complaining about for that kind of monthly cost.

Put another way, at $5 a month, those 416 servers are only bringing in $2080 a month for the domain host; that's about what I would expect for the actual cost to be for dedicated hosting. You're not getting scammed, you're just getting what you pay for.

[nimzov]

You're not getting scammed, you're just getting what you pay for.
I call it a marketing scam in the sense that these hosting providers are selling a product that they cannot materially deliver if everybody consumes the share they have paid for.

A bit like selling 10,000 ticket for a concert when the capacity of the hall is 2,000 based on the assumption that no more than 2,000 people will show up.

nimzo

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I call it a marketing scam in the sense that these hosting providers are selling a product that they cannot materially deliver if everybody consumes the share they have paid for.

A bit like selling 10,000 ticket for a concert when the capacity of the hall is 2,000 based on the assumption that no more than 2,000 people will show up.

nimzo

So you have seen "Spring Time for Hitler"? :)

[RecoveringYuppy]

I call it a marketing scam in the sense that these hosting providers are selling a product that they cannot materially deliver if everybody consumes the share they have paid for.
I think I've lost count of how many incorrect assumptions that statement is based on.

Even if you've correctly interpreted this report to mean that a single server/router/connection/IP address is currently supporting those sites (which I doubt it can actually do in the first place), is there some silly language in your SLA that requires the site to never expand to multiple servers/routers/connections/IP addresses in the future?

They probably are only building up to their actual current demands, they'd be stupid not to. But the idea that they are mathematically or physically prevented from supplying that capacity is wrong.

[Broes]

Banks also live by the assumption that not everybody is withdrawing all of their money in their accounts at the same day.

[Yalius]

I call it a marketing scam in the sense that these hosting providers are selling a product that they cannot materially deliver if everybody consumes the share they have paid for.

A bit like selling 10,000 ticket for a concert when the capacity of the hall is 2,000 based on the assumption that no more than 2,000 people will show up.

nimzo

You're not buying a fixed share of their capacity, you're buying the use of a resource up to a particular limit. There are so many industries that do the same thing, it's become the de facto standard in selling services. Airlines, hotels, telephone companies, banks, practically every service industry in existence, all sell greater than their total capacity based on the extreme unlikelihood that all those resources will be in use at once. What do you think the likelihood is that every single server they host will be serving their maximum capacity every month? If hosting companies had to limit their clients to their available bandwidth, there would be no hosting companies, since the only ones that could afford the fees would be the ones who actually owned the servers and pipes.

Trust me, it's not a scam. It's just statistics and economics. You're getting what sounds like a good deal.

[geni]

aditionaly even with sever and pipe shareing there is a lot of spare capacity on the net. A couple of years back you could have technicaly hosted the entire web on a server capacity of rather less than your average data center if you has been running the servers at close to to full capacity (the actual figure was as close to capacity as wikipedia generaly runs).

[nimzov]

You're not buying a fixed share of their capacity, you're buying the use of a resource up to a particular limit. There are so many industries that do the same thing, it's become the de facto standard in selling services. Airlines, hotels, telephone companies, banks, practically every service industry in existence, all sell greater than their total capacity based on the extreme unlikelihood that all those resources will be in use at once. What do you think the likelihood is that every single server they host will be serving their maximum capacity every month? If hosting companies had to limit their clients to their available bandwidth, there would be no hosting companies, since the only ones that could afford the fees would be the ones who actually owned the servers and pipes.

Trust me, it's not a scam. It's just statistics and economics. You're getting what sounds like a good deal.
Banks are regulated by law (at least in this country) and they cannot offer services that they cannot respect. Telephone companies are also regulated by law (and they will not slow down your line of you are a heavy user). Hotels are responsible for providing you with accommodation to the level you paid for.

Hosting companies are doing thing a bit differently. They offer so call deals under 5$ a month for 6 TB of traffic and 0.6 TB of disk space, but users who get close to using this amount of bandwith regularly will get their connection speed slowed down (so as not to reach their limit) and they will be "invited" to upgrade to another more expensive plan.

I am not trying to convince anyone not to buy these hosting plans, if they are comfortable with them good for them. But someone who thinks he may be using an important share (>30%) of the bandwidth and disk space he paid for, should not believe he gets a honest deal. For such a heavy users I still think it is a scam.

But for someone who will use less than 1% of the capacity he paid for, then I agree that such a user is not getting scammed in the process.

nimzo

[Wudang]

Just because an external tool shows it as a single server doesn't mean anything. It could be a VCS cluster, the IP address could resolve to a CSS workload distributor etc.
On the other hand, check the SLA- what do they actually promise? For example, lots of ISPs in the UK offer "up to 8 MB broadband" when most customers will get maybe 1.5.

[Yalius]

Banks are regulated by law (at least in this country) and they cannot offer services that they cannot respect. Telephone companies are also regulated by law (and they will not slow down your line of you are a heavy user). Hotels are responsible for providing you with accommodation to the level you paid for.

Hosting companies are doing thing a bit differently. They offer so call deals under 5$ a month for 6 TB of traffic and 0.6 TB of disk space, but users who get close to using this amount of bandwith regularly will get their connection speed slowed down (so as not to reach their limit) and they will be "invited" to upgrade to another more expensive plan.

I am not trying to convince anyone not to buy these hosting plans, if they are comfortable with them good for them. But someone who thinks he may be using an important share (>30%) of the bandwidth and disk space he paid for, should not believe he gets a honest deal. For such a heavy users I still think it is a scam.

But for someone who will use less than 1% of the capacity he paid for, then I agree that such a user is not getting scammed in the process.

nimzo

Banks are required to make up to a certain amount of funds available to you, not your entire deposit. They'd just close for the day, and they have, if there's a run on withdrawals.

And you're telling me, you never got an "All circuits are busy, please try your call again later" message?

These are SOP, not the outliers.

And honestly, would a heavy user, who actually expects to use 6000GB of bandwidth a month regularly, would he really put his site on a $5 / mo host? That 6000GB is a ceiling, a max, that someone might rarely hit, but gives him enough headroom so that, in a month where usage spikes, he won't get hit with an unexpected bill. If someone honestly expected to serve that much data regularly, wouldn't he want a plan that wouldn't bottleneck him? Somebody who was planning to serve TB of data on average would have spikes that go way, way beyond his monthly average.