Will the planet be offering a management service anytime soon? I am aware of planet alpha (have security), but will there be a program that offers a monthly charge for regular server troubleshooting and maintenance?

I've checked out Northstar but I can't say it makes much sense to me.

Basically: I am new to linux so I have a lot of stupid questions and troubleshooting needs that I'm currently solving via lots of time & search work. Would much rather be able to pass this off to a professional that likely already knows the answer to my questions.

You may want to look a little further into what alpha services offers. I believe they do cover troubleshooting and maintenance.

I went ahead and signed up for the bundle package for Alpha.. but I was told by one of the tech's troubleshooting faults is not covered by the service.


I am a bit confused now..

Your confusion is certainly understandable as a wave of new brands and services have been announced over the past two weeks.

Planet Northstar offers a fully-managed, Enterprise-level Windows hosting solution. You would essentially be outsourcing your entire IT department to The Planet to design and implement an infrastructure for your server ... Because this is such a significant process, each Planet Northstar customer would be different, so it's tough to show a "standard" price or "standard" configuration.

We do not currently offer system administration through our Alpha Advanced Service offering, but we plan on rolling out those services within the next few months. I'll send a few notes around here to make sure everyone is on the same page, but I think Ryan misinterpreted "logging protection faults" and "troubleshooting." If you need specific administration services on more of a one-off basis, our Professional Services group is always happy to help, and these forums offer a lot of expertise, so if you have any administration questions, you're always welcome to tap into the minds of the other community members here.

Thank you for the explanations, it makes a lot more sense now. No problem about the mixup with Ryan, it happens.

Any idea roughly what the Linux administration might cost once it's released, same as Northstar? (A news site listed Northstar at $1200)
So I am on the same page, the hourly rate from Planet Alpha would cover any protection fault errors or technical things I cannot figure out, correct?

Nope, it will be more in-line with the other Advanced Services we currently offer (monthly per-server rate). The Northstar solution is designed for multi-server configurations with complex add-ons ... lot less "help me do it" and a lot more "do it for me."

Our Professional Services team is able to troubleshoot technical problems outside of the scope of normal support, and that aide is charged on an hourly basis. While it's not the same as having a monthly rate per server to ask as many questions as you need, it does guarantee that if you ever have any major questions or need any expert help, we always have someone is there for you.