the board i manage is at RackSpace.
yes, they are more than willing to help you.
however, they rarely understand the technical aspects of what is being asked to them.
the machine we have 1ghz athlon, 1.5gig ram has a SERIOUS problem with its ethernet connection.
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:B3:9A:41:C7
inet addr:207.71.8.29 Bcast:207.71.8.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:24160939 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:28099087 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1183259
collisions:1375861 txqueuelen:100
this is a SERIOUS problem with carrier and collisions, yet they care less. at one point, the machine was averaging 27,000 collisions per hour. for 95 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
not only that, but their "free" upgrades only pertain to a version level that does not have any security issues. for instance, they will only upgrade php to 4.1.2. if i want 4.3.0, i have to do it myself or pay them. HA! mysql is only upgraded to 3.23.44. if i want .54a, i have do it myself. you would think for the $700 a month we are paying that would include a subscription to the Red Hat Network. no, it doesn't. that is $60 we will have to spend if we want it. and it might void them of ever touching the machine again. trying to find that out now. fyi, RHN says support for 7.1 goes away in december. i just called them.
the harddrive is a ATA33. yep, about as slow as you can buy today.
