Service Status items down, Ferrari Server (67.18.54.176)

[Amnet-JM]

The following items were marked as "failed" at 7 AM, MST today:
exim (exim-4.63-1_cpanel_maildir)
ftpd
spamd
pop

Chatting with "Live Support" was not much of a help other than I was notified that "Ferrari is under maintenance, the system admins are on it so that is normal"; when I asked "any idea on how much longer the maintenance will be?" the answer given was "Probably an hour more".

Back in March of 2006 I was doing research on HostGator and was told by a manager that HG has no planned outages. System maintenance is posted at http://forums.hostgator.com when I asked "Will clients be informed directly/indirectly for planned outages?". Unfortunately, I have seen no notifications on System Maintenance on these forums for the Ferrari server.

Businesses in our time zone will be opening soon and I expect a flurry of phone calls from clients who can't use their FTP or POP their mail; we have over 50 clients with sites and mail on the Ferrari server. At my time of posting, an hour has passed and these four daemons/items are still marked as failed (I do clear my cache to be sure I'm seeing the most current status available).


My question then, is this: was I misinformed about the posting of system maintenance messages, or is it posted in a place in the Forums that I've simply overlooked (and will immediately bookmark once I've been educated)?

I would like to be able to relay information regarding the situation to my clients, other than "we are aware of the problem and system administrators are working on the issues". A preferrable answer would be "regularly scheduled maintenance is nearing completion and your systems are expected to be normal in XX minutes".

Many thanks,
Jennifer Martin
Webmaster, Amnet Inc.

[Serra]

Originally Posted by Amnet-JM

The following items were marked as "failed" at 7 AM, MST today:
exim (exim-4.63-1_cpanel_maildir)
ftpd
spamd
pop

Chatting with "Live Support" was not much of a help other than I was notified that "Ferrari is under maintenance, the system admins are on it so that is normal"; when I asked "any idea on how much longer the maintenance will be?" the answer given was "Probably an hour more".

First, do not assume that simply because the system shows those processes as being down, that they are not working. Those indicators are often simply wrong. They look at the ps log and try to determine if they system is up or not.

When a system reboots, those processes often show down when they are not.

Originally Posted by Amnet-JM

Back in March of 2006 I was doing research on HostGator and was told by a manager that HG has no planned outages. System maintenance is posted at http://forums.hostgator.com when I asked "Will clients be informed directly/indirectly for planned outages?". Unfortunately, I have seen no notifications on System Maintenance on these forums for the Ferrari server.

If you are looking for a more positive communication about planned outages and such, you are with the wrong hosting company. Hostgator has never been good at notification and often does maintenance that is unannounced. It is my opinion that they have a policy of announcing maintenance, but do a poor job of actually following it.

Originally Posted by Amnet-JM

Businesses in our time zone will be opening soon and I expect a flurry of phone calls from clients who can't use their FTP or POP their mail; we have over 50 clients with sites and mail on the Ferrari server. At my time of posting, an hour has passed and these four daemons/items are still marked as failed (I do clear my cache to be sure I'm seeing the most current status available).

On average, clients will not immediately start calling about down services. They will first assume they are having a problem and if it doesn't clear up, then they will call.

The indicators are real time, so as long as you refresh your screen, you will have a current, but not accurate picture of the system.

Originally Posted by Amnet-JM

My question then, is this: was I misinformed about the posting of system maintenance messages, or is it posted in a place in the Forums that I've simply overlooked (and will immediately bookmark once I've been educated)?

You were not misinformed. HostGator either is doing unplanned maintenance, which is often the cause when they are doing break fix, or they are doing planned maintenance and didn't notify you. I suspect that it is break fix because those service are not usually involved in normal maintenance.

Originally Posted by Amnet-JM

I would like to be able to relay information regarding the situation to my clients, other than "we are aware of the problem and system administrators are working on the issues". A preferrable answer would be "regularly scheduled maintenance is nearing completion and your systems are expected to be normal in XX minutes".

Never going to happen. You can tell your clients it will be fixed in 30 minutes if you want, but that is as accurate as you will ever get. The tech working on the problem/maintenance likely doesn't even know how long it will be. If you press them for an answer, they will gladly lie to you.

Never tell a customer that it is regular maintenance being done during operating hours. That is just bad business.

The "we are aware of the problem and system administrators are working on the issues". is about all you can tell your clients, its all you will ever know. Just add that you don't expect it to be much longer and you will update them when you know more.

It is very likely that HostGator did not want you to have downtime and it is more likely that they would have informed you if they knew in advance. Hostgator's communication may be poor, but they have a very good track record of keeping system up. They are not off buying donuts while your system is down, you can believe that someone is working on it or has been assigned to do so.

However, support techs are NEVER forthcoming with valid and timely information. Likely they simply don't know the answer to your questions.