Open Hosting Inc. was my virtual server provider for almost 10 years, and I was inclined to recommend Open Hosting to anybody, since I was a very satisfied customer.
On New Year's Eve 2013 transmission of external emails stopped. The support staff let me know that the technical platform of my virtual server was about to be taken down, and that I had until January 15 to move my data off. They gave me two weeks!
Open Hosting did not enter bankruptcy or anything. No, the company has a new platform for virtual servers. Naturally I asked the support people to help me set up my stuff on the new platform. Their answer? "We don't offer migration services."
As a next step I hired a skilled software engineer, who copied all the files and tried to boot on a new server. However, that proved to not work due to some special configuration that Open Hosting had applied when running my virtual server. In other words, a smooth migration to a new platform would have required Open Hosting's involvement. (You already know about their attitude.)
Open Hosting shut down the server completely on January 28.
It's worth noting that on October 2, 2013 the company charged me as usual for the coming 6 months period. Actually, there was no forewarning of any kind before December 31, so there was indeed no way for me to anticipate the service disruption.
I have not received any refund, BTW.
Now I'm slowly setting up a new virtual server provided by Linode, whose service seems to be very promising. However, I'm just a computing hobbyist, and this will take quite some time. Please use the Server-status mailing list in the meantime if you have comments/questions or want to check on the progress.
Personally I do not consider Open Hosting trustworthy. How about you? Don't hesitate to email them at sales@openhosting.com and support@openhosting.com and let them know what you think.
2014-01-31
Gunnar Hjalmarsson