This is my starting on Servint first days official review for WHT. On November 19th, 2009, after evaluating 29 VPS providers, I decided to make a review on Servint, a company online since April 1996, based in Elm Street, Suite 4B, McLean, VA 22101, US. Servint is not a reseller, it is a big company, owner of it’s data center and are using the most advanced and powerful nodes to offer virtual private servers running Linux (actually CentOS 5.x), without control panel or with cPanel or Plesk, both free. According a lot of VPS users, Servint is the creme-de-la-creme in the virtual private servers market because is uptime is around real 100% and it’s famed support is considered fantastic. No negative issues for Servint from it’s customers are known on the Web.

Using Paypal I ordered the product Essential VPS ($ 49.00 USD) with this spec:
30 GB Disk Space
1 TB Monthly Transfer
768 MB Guaranteed (1.5 GB Burst RAM)
CentOS 5 Operating System
4 IP Addresses
Unlimited Domains and User Accounts
FREE Virtuozzo Power Panel
FREE nightly backups
FREE cPanel, Plesk, or Parallels Small Business Panel Available
No set-up fee
$49 monthly

Minimum server specs for all ServInt VPS products are:
Dual Quad Core Intel Xeon L5300/L5400 Series CPUs
32 GB 667 MHz DDR2 Dual Rank, Fully Buffered RAM
15K RPM SCSI/SAS Hard Drives in RAID 10
Zero Downtime During Drive Failure
Hot-Swap Drives and Fans
Replaceable on the Fly
Dual Gigabit Network Interfaces

I found this info from my ssh shell (8 CPUs found, with the same spec):

In the order form I specified a request of complete migration (16 domains, one of them with two complicated Word Press blogs) via cPanel migration tool, total around 8GB of data from Chicago. I also requested installation of third party tools, including Midnight Commander, Webmin. I was expecting a welcome in 24 hours but, for my surprise, Servint guys informed me that my VPS is ready for running. When I entered its WHM I saw all 16 domains there with all configurations, without only one error (in anterior migrations, using Plesk, I’ve noticed some errors like login truncated for email accounts etc.). At that time the only task I have to do was register new name servers using Servint IPs and change DNS in my registrar (Dotster, special IWA account). I did it and in few hours all it is O.K. because Servint’s IPs are fine and it’s networks connection exceeds, opffering pure premium bandwidth. By default Servint does no enable ssh and do not inform the VZPP link but I requested both and in few minutes I visited VZPP and entered my shell to run WHT Unixbench:

Servint offers a tech forum with over 6,000 members, an official tech blog and a Customer Portal for support and much more and I’ve noticed that it’s support tickets response are around 1 minute, no more, on 24 hours. Servint technicians are very efficient and very polish, solving all problems in minutes. Example: I informed I want run rkhunter and in few minutes this app was installed and running just fine. I have noticed that Essential VPS is very stable, running like a real server.

On November 21th, two days after my order, I received another invoice ($18.97 USD) and this is related to Servint pro-rata billing system. Servint do not display this for public access and only you are its customer you will know this billing system as follows:

Servint Billing FAQs

1) I received my first Invoice, but I don’t understand it?

When you signed up with ServInt your initial payment covered your 1st full calendar month of service. The first invoice you receive includes the days that elapsed between your turn-up date and the 1st day of that calendar month. How this is represented on your invoice depends on where in our billing cycle your service began. Below are two examples explaining each instance.

Example one: For New orders placed between the 1st and 20th of the month.

jondoe.com ordered an Essential VPS on May 16th. He paid $49.00 when he placed his order and his new server was turned up the same day. On May 21st he received an invoice for $23.71 which represents the prorated amount for 15 days of service between May 16th and May 31st. The initial charge and payment were also reflected, but offset.

On June 21st he will receive an invoice for the month of July. On July 21st he will receive an invoice for the month of August and so on.

Example two: For new orders placed between the 21st and the last day of the month.

Janedoe.com ordered an essential VPS on May 24th. She paid $49 when she placed the order and her new server was turned up the same day. On June 21st she received an invoice for $61.65 which includes her $49.00 monthly charge for the upcoming month of July as well as a prorated charge of $12.65 for the 8 days of service between May 24th and May 31st. The initial charge and payment were also reflected, but offset.

On July 21st she will receive and invoice for the month of August and so on.
2) I just signed up with ServInt a few days ago and I already got an invoice. What gives?

Regardless of what day of the month your new server is activated and your service begins, invoices go out on the 21st. For more information on your first invoice please see the previous FAQ question.
3) When will I receive my monthly invoices?

You will receive your invoice via email on the 21st of each month. Therefore, make sure to keep your billing contact email address up to date with us.
4) When is my invoice due?

Invoices are due on the 1st of every month.
5) Why are my ‘Service Period’ and ‘Usage Period’ dates different?

ServInt pre-bills monthly service. That means that the invoice you receive on the 21st of the month covers the service period of the upcoming month. So a bill received June 21st would cover July 1st – July 31st.

The only exception to this is if a client utilizes more bandwidth than is included in their base package, resulting in overages or other utilization charges. This obviously cannot be pre-billed, so it is billed in arrears. ServInt post-bills for bandwidth usage, and the usage period runs from the 21st – 20th of the prior month. Therefore the same invoice you receive on June 21st would cover the usage period of May 21st – June 20th.
6) How do I enroll in ServInt’s Auto-Bill program and have my credit card automatically charged each month?

You may use the link below enroll in Auto-Bill.

https://www.servint.net/ccupdate

Simply enter your billing account number as it appears on your invoices, your email address used for billing correspondences, your credit card information and don’t forget to check the ‘recurring billing’ box. Your credit card will then automatically be charged on the 21st of each month and you will receive a statement via email explaining the charge.
.
7) Can I prepay for multiple months at a time? Do I get a discount?

Yes, and yes. You may pre-pay for as many months at a time as you like. 6 month pre-pays include a 5% discount and 12 month pre-pays a 10% discount. After you pre-pay you will still receive statements on the 21st of each month showing a portion of the total payment applied towards your monthly charges. When the payment runs out you will begin receiving actual invoices again. It is up to you to pay those monthly invoices or pre-pay again.
I want invoices sent to a different email address. What do I do?

To change the email address Servint uses for billing correspondences either open a ticket in the customer portal requesting the change, or send an email to billing@servint.com from the current billing email address we have on file.
9) I accidently deleted my invoice. How can I get a copy?

Simply send an e-mail to billing@servint.com or open a billing ticket to request a copy of your latest invoice.
10) Why can’t I see my invoices and payment history in the customer portal?

We understand that it would make things significantly easier if ServInt’s support and billing databases were linked, but at this time they are not. A project is underway to link the two, but our goal is – first and foremost – the security of your billing data. For that reason we will be unable to display invoices and payment history here in the customer portal until it can be done completely securely and with our utmost confidence. We appreciate your patience and understanding.
11) How do you determine whether or not I have overages?

The traffic stats we use for billing purposes are the same ones reported in real-time here in the customer portal. These stats are generated by monitoring the switchport, which accurately manages all traffic on all ports, both incoming and outoging. If the amount of traffic reported is higher that the amount allotted in any given package it is billed at a rate of .25 cents a MB.

Please do not use the traffic statistics reported by your Control Panel to estimate your traffic usage. Control Panels also provide their own traffic stats, however they do not include all traffic on all ports, and are therefore not accurate and not used to determine total traffic for billing purposes.
12) How can I tell If I am using more bandwidth than is included in my package, and how do I avoid going over my bandwidth allotment?

Bandwidth statistics are provided in real-time here in the customer portal, and can be accessed 24/7. You should be actively monitoring your traffic stats in the customer portal. If you see that you are approaching your maximum we encourage you to contact a member of our sales team to discuss moving to a larger package before you incur overage charges.
13) Will you automatically shut me off if I have used too much bandwidth so that I do not incur overage charges?

I will post this review in my blog with a lot of photos of Servint.