Poll: Automatic Notification of Downtime

[intrepid]

Hello,

Two questions for the group:

1. Who here would like to be told via email that there is a scheduled downtime on their related server?

2. Do you want to be informed of any issue that has occured on the server via email.

I'd like to get a consensus of interest from the group.

Cheers,
-Geoff

[hotdog]

Is a great idea, but do you sersiouly think it would happen? I mean if HG informed everyone they were outside the 99.9% they would be giving away free months of hosting. The way it is now, HG only give it away if people contact them about it, meaning they have to either be checking their server 24/7, use a uptime service (which HG has said isnt reliable) or keep an eye on the forums and hope you get the right info. It's very hit and miss most of the time and I'd guess less than 25% even worry about the refund for 99.9% uptime

It's like running cars on water, great idea but to much money to be lost elsewhere.

Scheduled downtime should be posted on the forums anyways.
To much email could be bad for us as well, say three servers were having hiccups, and there were 1000 people on each server, thats 3000 emails, possibly every 10-15mins until fixed. And if they were to send out 3000 emails I'd hope they'd follow their own rules and throttle the email so as the rest of us dont get effected which may cause some of the emails being an hour or more delayed. Which really would be a waste of time as the problem could of been fixed or the next problem arisen.

[amartins]

I just voted for scheduled downtime.

I don't see the point of emailing us about serious issues unless HG have a remote supportsite set up away from Theplanet.

Go back to the example of the outage at ThePlanet a couple of months back... how could they have communicated with us? HG was down.. so were a bunch of the servers... and many of us along with them. At times like those places like webhostingtalk are a good place to get info and even, if it came to that, for HG staff to communicate with us.

Scheduled downtime is usually announced here in the forums so if you manage to come hee often enough you can probably keep up to date on whats going on.

Antonio

[esl]

I voted that they should inform us of downtime, before/during/after. I should not have to pay for a uptime service to see if my hosting service provider is being honest and honoring this uptime gaurantee and giving me the refund, not not honoring it just because I have a job and can not go to my site every minute.

I dont mean to be so "harsh" but this is what I think... nothing but.

[intrepid]

I personally think its ludicrous that I have to visit a web page every day, on the hour, sift thru messages just to determine if there is going to be maintenance done on the server which supports my business.

The technology is available and its cheap - so why don't we utilise it?

I would expect only top-level accounts to get the email - not all accounts; i.e. those accounts with reseller accounts and possible those direct accounts of HostGator.

Right now any outages / problems are being told me by my clients - and I look bad every time. These issues could be eliminated if I visited a web page every hour, on the hour, and sift through some messages. All I'm asking for is 1) something happened/going to happen, 2) it should take us X minutes.

My angle is not the uptime guarantee and getting $. I'm concerned with knowing of service outages.

Do I expect HostGator to email me with any server outages? No. Will doing so help me anticipate communication issues with my own clients? You bet. Will it make me a happier customer? You bet.

Hi Hotdog.

I agree the info should be here and also agree that it would burden the server if many mail were going out. However I think I mentioned in another thread that is does not have to be anywhere connected to Hostgator. I think yahoo groups are abhorrent but one of them could save this sticky little situation. I like "Intrepid" am not bothered about refunds at all. It's a question of knowledge. Not every single little thing, but major problems? Yes please.

I am almost certain we will not get the mail updates now and it is sad that despite 48 people voting it will remain the same. Incidentally 48 people even if only on the 'Aluminum' package is about $14,371 per year. I suspect there are a lot more than 48 customers. Food for thought.
Chipfryer.

Originally Posted by hotdog

Scheduled downtime should be posted on the forums anyways.
To much email could be bad for us as well, say three servers were having hiccups, and there were 1000 people on each server, thats 3000 emails, possibly every 10-15mins until fixed. And if they were to send out 3000 emails I'd hope they'd follow their own rules and throttle the email so as the rest of us dont get effected which may cause some of the emails being an hour or more delayed. Which really would be a waste of time as the problem could of been fixed or the next problem arisen.

[intrepid]

I got an email from Brent regarding this issue:

we've been trying to think of a way how to do this. What do you think about us purchasing a hosting accounts on another network, than setting up two types of mailing lists.

1. for network issues that would affect everyone
2. a mailing list for each server, so we can send out notifications

Sounds like they want to act quickly on this:

however we do wish to get something like this implemented soon. you're welcome to post what I said, we will post an official statement once we are ready to launch it.

[Robert]

Looks like a good result!!

[bagel50]

excellent!

For myself I am surverying customers every week now to ensure mail is getting through and actively encouraging feedback. The response is fantastic and is serving to make customers realize that someone is there.

Thanks Hostgator for listening and to Intrepid too for launching the poll in the first place. 72 people have now cast a vote and the response here was total.

The only real power in the world today is communication.
Thanks all.
Mark.

[gtgeorge]

Originally Posted by chipfryer

72 people have now cast a vote and the response here was total.

Mark, you may be miscounting votes as each poster was not limited to 1 vote, but could vote for 2 notification options when they cast the vote....

Hi GtGeorge. Hmmm..... That's not good. So there's pretty much no way of telling anything then, still in the dark with less than perfect replies to support questions and downtime information issues.

Thanks for letting me know that I really did not look
Mark.

Originally Posted by gtgeorge

Mark, you may be miscounting votes as each poster was not limited to 1 vote, but could vote for 2 notification options when they cast the vote....

[bagel50]

well, worst case scenario is 41 people voted (counting at this time)... the point is that there were none that said I don't want notification. Since HG have stated their intention, I don't think you need worry about being "still in the dark".

Olly

[gtgeorge]

Yes, it sounds like HG is listening and working on the notification system. That's more than I can say for any other host I have had to date

Well I can only say that I hope that you are right. I think actions are better than promises anyday so only time will tell.
Mark.

Originally Posted by bagel50

well, worst case scenario is 41 people voted (counting at this time)... the point is that there were none that said I don't want notification. Since HG have stated their intention, I don't think you need worry about being "still in the dark".


Olly

[intrepid]

The poll I setup was to enable people to vote for more than one option. In hindsight it was not very smart, as it is harder to read. The point is that 41 people voted and not one of them didn't want notifications.

Rome wasn't built in a day so I'm sure the ultimate solution will not be unveiled all at once. However, its a huge differentiator from the other hosts and the sooner HG installs it the sooner the news can be spread of HG's proactive measures.

Communication is power and HG's decision to move on this shows its committment to enabling us all to share in that power. Ultimately means more reseller accounts will be moving forward as their confidence grows in the infrastructure. ( The easier it is to manage as a reseller the easier it is to concentrate on sales )

I look forward to HG's plan outline for all to see; including beta testing and eventual full roll-out.

Happy Hosting.

[AgentElrond]

Advance notice of scheduled maintenance would definitely be useful; would give people a chance to let "users" know ahead of time (although half of them will ask "why was your site down" anyway ).

Notice of issues resolved or being investigated would be nice also, but even using a "central point of contact" like the forum for updates would help (provided, of course, the forum is accessible at the time ).

[baronvonwalz]

I think that for us to expect hostgator to email us all would be a tad ludicrous. If, say there was going to be a network outage for about 4 hours, the amount of emails to send out would be in the thousands.

I think it is just best that people come to the forums.

I think next time I have a problem I will just ignore it.
After all it is ludicrous to expect me to explain to my customers why a site is down or they cannot get mail. Actually I cannot because I do not know what the problem is or was on many occasions.
BMW has worked fine for the last few days except for one minor hiccup.

No offence meant Mr. Baron Von Walz
Simple old Mark.

[bagel50]

heh... notice he's a shared customer, not a reseller - different point of view. and a customer I wouldn't mind having myself, given the lack of information provided, it seems he wouldn't mind too much...

I'm looking forward to this actually happening!

Olly

[gtgeorge]

Yes I really didn't expect email notifications as a shared enviroment customer either. I depended on forums for announcements and was always let down. As a reseller I want to be able give the customer the tools to see actual scheduled times so my customers can see I am not like the others that don't care. In fact the last host I had would come in after an outage and post on the calendar as if it was scheduled and even state they should be back up shortly LOL too funny!

So I am also looking forward to the system when it is in place

[baronvonwalz]

Originally Posted by bagel50

heh... notice he's a shared customer, not a reseller - different point of view. and a customer I wouldn't mind having myself, given the lack of information provided, it seems he wouldn't mind too much...

I'm looking forward to this actually happening!

Olly

And I'd say, if you don't like it, start your own hosting company, that is not leased on someone's else's network.

Otherwise, realize that there are some things that just aren't feasible.

Originally Posted by baronvonwalz

And I'd say, if you don't like it, start your own hosting company, that is not leased on someone's else's network.

Otherwise, realize that there are some things that just aren't feasible.

Hi Baron.

For the first instance it would not be thousands of mails. We are all [Resellers that is] on separate policies and pricing I think I am ok to assume this is correct. Therefore if downtime was in my case on BMW. Then only BMW customers need be informed and so on.

It's just a mailing list after all. Just like this one but the difference being that mail does not get sent out from this board we have to log in. In a nutshell it is not feasible for me to tell anyone if anything is about to happen, or if there were or are existing problems. I would like that to change. 63 People agree so far.

On the self hosting thing? I have apache 2, PHP, Mysql running right now on my other systems. I am fully backed up locally and rely on no-one else for this.
A progressive company is able to change. I am waiting to see if this is the case with Hostgator.

Regards.
Mark.

[bagel50]

thanks for being polite, baronvonwalz! I think i after consideration HG are coming round to the idea that it is feasible at least in part (notifying resellers - there are likely to be less of us than shared customers). Certainly enough people want it. You're correct, the best thing is to manage your own servers, but almost everyone starts out sometime as a reseller - simple economics, and it makes sense to be with a provider that gives you best chance of success. At the moment, chances are hindered, and that's what we're looking to HG to change. If you don't understand the motivation, there's no need to criticise.

Olly

[hotdog]

Notice latest annoucement

I just wanted to add a few cents into the "they are shared and not reseller" angle as I think it needs addressing. This isn't directly directed at anyone, have seen this mentioned a few times and again in this thread.

I am on shared hosting too, means I have one account (on this host), I am running a business on it (also have reseller account at another host), a reseller has several to many accounts, they too are running a business of sorts, so whats with the shared hosting attitude? Someone running a business on a shared server could be the bread and butter, if a reseller is using a reseller account for bread and butter then they wouldn't be doing a whole lot of cash when they could be making more setting up their own hosting provider, like HG have done. So comes down to who could make more, a business or reseller? business probably would 90% of the time, as the reseller only has limited accounts he can sell, then nothing. So if the server went down the sole businesses are often hardest hit.