Planet Network Issues

[Serra]

Originally Posted by minnow

I personally am most concerned by the apparent havoc that a simple hdd failure on acura caused. They saw it failing, it failed...and whatever system hostgator was supposed to have in place just melted.

I read that thread and it doesn't seem like anything melted. The drive failed, they restored the system. That seemed to go fine. Yes, it takes forever to restore one of those shared servers.

It appears that there were some configuration issues once the box came back up, but those just need to be tracked down and fixed. Servers are very complex and things don't always work like the should when they are setup. I wouldn't say that HG did anything wrong, they admitted there were issues and they are/were fixing them as soon as they were reported. Keep in mind that this is a shared server. This is th WORST place for someone to have an account. Like I've said 100 times before, if your site is critical, makes you money, represents your business or you are a reseller, then you don't belong on a shared server. It like a guy who mows lawns for a living. Ever seen them? They use the giant mowers, specially made for mowing large areas. Well, the shared server is a little green 4 hp lawn mower. Any lawn mower man with that mower needs to upgrade!

Originally Posted by minnow

It didn't affect me, but it sharply reduced my confidence in hostgator's professionalism. If they are really professionals, how about they discuss openly whatever caused the meltdown, and lay out the steps they'll take to forestall recurrances?

That may simply be because you don't understand how everything works. I don't think you are taking into account the unrelated network issues right after the restore was finished. Its difficult for users to see that is two different probelms when thier site has just been down for a hd crash.

[amartins]

Hi

Originally Posted by Dwight

I second that. Blaming HG for a network wide problem is like blaming your light bulb when the electricity is out. Things happen. If you want a business that never gets complaints, build caskets.

If HG is the lable on that network thats who customers are gonna blame couldnt give a s**t if its an issue at theplanet. HG gets the customer money ergo it has to offer up its cheek .

As for network issues not being covered... depends I am sure HG's ass is covered by some form of SLA on its servers+theplanet's network. I'd say if u were one of the customers caught up in this make a claim for the downtime because the problem seems to have been at theplanet.

As for the lack of disaster communications... this has been going on for years. Many promises made but none came to fruition. I'm just glad (knock on wood) my server was never caught up in any major problem over these past few years. As long as that remains true I will stay here even though I do have a reseller account at another company providing more disk space and bandwidth compared to what I get here at less than half of what HG charges me.

[Serra]

Originally Posted by amartins

As for network issues not being covered... depends I am sure HG's ass is covered by some form of SLA on its servers+theplanet's network. I'd say if u were one of the customers caught up in this make a claim for the downtime because the problem seems to have been at theplanet.

You can claim downtime, thPlanet pays by the minute. So if the account was down for 30 mintues and you pay $300.00 a month, they would refund you $0.20.

You're right Serra, I'm not a network admin etc so many of the issues that hg has to deal with are way over my head. I'm not expecting them to be perfect either. I'm just rather suprised that a simple hdd failure couldn't be handled better than it was...not at the time of failure but in the prep for such inevitable events. There were a good number of posts in the acura thread with the same view. No one was saying "gosh, this is so much better than what I experienced at site5!" No, it was a mess per everyone...except you seem to think it was handled as well as could be expected. I don't discard your perspective, at all, it's modified my take on things. But I'm completely amazed that it's not possible to run a shared server such that when the inevitable disk failure occurs, it's so ruinous and slow to fix. That-is-amazing.

HG still gets low marks for responding to user concerns, at least with these particular events. I don't get that, because they've been so good in dealing with my own little config issues.

[Serra]

Originally Posted by minnow

HG still gets low marks for responding to user concerns, at least with these particular events. I don't get that, because they've been so good in dealing with my own little config issues.

I'm not on Acura, so I don't personally feel the pain, but I'm fairly sure that when a box goes down, the owner of HG is right there supervising the restore. It isn't something that is put off as just another problem. It is a big deal and HG acts that way.

They have always been bad at communication, and for that I'm sorry, but I'm not sure exactly what could be done to make it better. Often with things like restores, its hard to know what is happening until it is over. I guess my personal experience with this type of thing clouds my judgement, but its been my observation that when things hit the fan, its far easier to see what happened once it is over, than it is while the problem is being worked. I've worked problems that me and my co-workers were clueless about, right until we figured it out, then the fix was trivial.

When a shared server needs to be restored, things are NEVER going to go smoothly. Its a fact of life. There are too many accounts, and machines, even the same machine never acts right when it has been setup the second time. I feel sorry for the people who were involved, both the customers and the staff at HG because I'm sure it totally sucked.

My point is, that the shared environment sucks. Its great for people who need a $7.00 a month account or a reseller with 10 accounts, but for everyone else, it is a disaster waiting to happen. There are better solutions than shared servers for people who have critical applications. Redundent systems, using shared accounts can be setup for about twice what a shared account costs plus about $25.00 per year. Anyone with a critical application/website/ecomm/bbs needs to look at that solution. PM me and I'll help anyone who can't understand what I'm talking about.

good lord what is wrong with hostagtor I have no access to my site. one minute its up the next its down?????

[kmaw]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

good lord what is wrong with hostagtor I have no access to my site. one minute its up the next its down?????

Clearly, somebody who hasn't been reading (and/or understanding) the last few posts...