What do you do when your host goes down?

34 replies
My hosting company has had two failures this year. One last summer when the data center caught on fire and it took three days to restore service. Then this weekend the suppression system went off accidentally during an inspection and damaged about 70 servers. I lost about seven domains in the beginning, with four still offline. ETA for restoration of the remainder, about 8 hours from now.

So, if this had been in the middle of a big launch or promotion, it sure would put a crimp in my expected return on investment.

What do most sensible marketers do to ensure continuous operation of their sites? Is there an economical "mirroring service" that could help in cases like this? I have backups. As a matter of fact, I made full offline backups on my external drive system as of two days prior to the catastophe.

That is not the issue.

What is the issue is how to have a system in place so that my marketing and customer service continue unimpeded when a supplier such as my hosting company's rack provider encounters a problem.

Anyone have suggestions for planning?
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#host
  • Profile picture of the author Mo Goulet
    Reminds me of the old saying...fool me (go down) once shame on you, fool me (go down ) twice, shame on me...Change host. It's your lifeline.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kirk Ward
      Originally Posted by proapc View Post

      Reminds me of the old saying...fool me (go down) once shame on you, fool me (go down ) twice, shame on me...Change host. It's your lifeline.
      I've been with these folks since 1998 with nary a downtime. Changing hosts for this doesn't seem like a sensible business decision. A fire and an accident can happen at any data center, and every hosting company I know of uses a data center for their boxes. If they don't, then they are probably either pretty rinky-dink or mega gigantic.

      What I think is a better idea is to figure out a business contingency plan, with mirror sites, which is a new area for me, and probably an interesting business opportunity for some technical oriented person.

      So, to restate the question, does anyone have suggestions for a contingency plan that will improve business continuity in case of a minor or major catastrophe?
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  • Profile picture of the author johnben1444
    I think you should visit a web hosting forums and ask your question. You will surely find solution to your problems. I understand how you feel, just because something bad happened to a hosting company does not mean it can't happen to any other hosting company.

    Truth is if it has occurs frequently, you should kiss that hosting company good bye or put your business at risk.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kirk Ward
      Originally Posted by johnben1444 View Post

      I think you should visit a web hosting forums and ask your question. You will surely find solution to your problems. I understand how you feel, just because something bad happened to a hosting company does not mean it can't happen to any other hosting company.

      Truth is if it has occurs frequently, you should kiss that hosting company good bye or put your business at risk.
      I agree that if it occurs frequently, then it is a sign I should change hosting companies. But it hasn't over the twelve years (or is it thirteen, LOL) I've been with them.

      Got any suggestions regarding finding a web hosting forum?

      Kirk
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  • Profile picture of the author trevor75
    Wow, a fire at the data center, good lord. Talk about bad luck. I don't think you should worry about it too much. I mean what are the chances that would happen again? I mean short of creating duplicate sites with another hosting company, that would cost time and money I don't really see another option for you. If the company has been in business since 1998. They sound pretty solid.
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      • Profile picture of the author Kirk Ward
        Originally Posted by Jeff Henshaw View Post

        Thanks Jeff,

        After web hosting forums were suggested that was one of the first ones I found.

        Kirk
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      • Profile picture of the author Daniel Brock
        I can tell you that no matter who you go with, you are going to experience problems like this.

        Technology is...well fickle.

        If you have been with them since 1998, and they have only experienced 2 major downtimes, I would say you are probably with one of the most reliable hosts out there.

        100 hours of downtime compared to 12 years you have been using them is hardly anything.

        There aren't many hosts that can live up to that to be 100% honest with you.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kirk Ward
      Originally Posted by trevor75 View Post

      Wow, a fire at the data center, good lord. Talk about bad luck. I don't think you should worry about it too much. I mean what are the chances that would happen again? I mean short of creating duplicate sites with another hosting company, that would cost time and money I don't really see another option for you. If the company has been in business since 1998. They sound pretty solid.
      I also like them because they offer quality 24/7 telephone support, and have for almost their entire existence. I don't remember it being 24 hours a day when Chris started it with 8 boxes in his apartment in 1997, but he did do well.

      After looking around, I'm starting to think that a live or continuous backup of changed files to a large external drive (Western Digital World Book) here at home may be all I need. Just need to find if the WD software will backup my servers. Else, I can update my WS_FTP. I think WS_FTP can be set up to do automated backups.
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  • Profile picture of the author cmaq
    Backup everything. Get a new host.
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    • Profile picture of the author susanm
      One possibility would be to have a second hosting account at another hosting company and mirror your sites there. Then, in the event of a failure, as long as you don't get your domains from your hosting companies, all you would need to do is point your DNS servers to the other host. Of course, you may have to wait for the DNS records to propagate again. I don't really see a way around that.
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      • Profile picture of the author TelegramSam
        Originally Posted by susanm View Post

        One possibility would be to have a second hosting account at another hosting company and mirror your sites there. Then, in the event of a failure, as long as you don't get your domains from your hosting companies, all you would need to do is point your DNS servers to the other host. Of course, you may have to wait for the DNS records to propogate again. I don't really see a way around that.

        This is what we do with our big money sites, just in case.

        They may not be perfectly up to date, a week old at the most, in terms of content, but no big deal.

        There are also ways to speed up the DNS propogation a little (google it), so the damage wouldn't be too great.

        It doesn't cost much for this peace of mind. Perhaps $20 a month or so for another reseller account somewhere.

        Sam
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    It sounds like the problems are not typical of the host. A host can grow to fast an service goes down the toilet, but I think in your case you have to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

    I spread my sites out among multiple hosting companies. Two of them offer unlimited domains on one account. I spread them out because if one goes down, I'm still in business with the majority of my sites.

    If a host goes down I can also quickly upload a site to one of the other hosts and change the DNS and be right back in business.
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Originally Posted by Kirk Ward View Post

    What do most sensible marketers do to ensure continuous operation of their sites? Is there an economical "mirroring service" that could help in cases like this?
    1. Host somewhere that guarantees "five nines" and don't worry about it.

    2. Not really. The places that really need this have deep pockets - think banks and investment houses - so "economical" isn't in the vocabulary.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kirk Ward
      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

      1. Host somewhere that guarantees "five nines" and don't worry about it.

      2. Not really. The places that really need this have deep pockets - think banks and investment houses - so "economical" isn't in the vocabulary.
      What is "five nines?"
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      • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
        Originally Posted by Kirk Ward View Post

        What is "five nines?"
        I'm guessing he meant 99.999% uptime guarantee.
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      • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
        Originally Posted by Kirk Ward View Post

        What is "five nines?"
        99.999% uptime.

        Uptime - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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        "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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  • Profile picture of the author briley knox
    One ? when all this happy to you did your hosting co. offer you any compensation for your lost service if not time for change.
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  • Profile picture of the author MatthewNeer
    Man, that's rough to hear. And it's something I hear ALL to often online. And it sucks.

    That's why I will NEVER use any other hosting provider other than GoDaddy. For the specific reason that they are huge and their server farms could probably compete with the population of the US. LOL

    But anyways man, if you want to keep your stuff secure never use small hosting companies because this is exactly what happens when ya do.

    Check out GoDaddy, they got 24/7 support, great rates. And if you know a little trick you can even pay for ONE unlimited hosting account and put all your domains, databases, etc under your primary. It's pretty sweet, and affordable.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    Matthew - I'm afraid you'll find an awful lot of people here that would never use GoDaddy. From what I've seen, they're probably the number one host people say to stay away from. Whether they are good or bad doesn't matter much in this situation. Things like fires, storms, and earthquakes can knock any host out for a while.
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    • Profile picture of the author MatthewNeer
      You know, I get that from time to time. I've never encountered an issue with GoDaddy, got nothin but LOVE for those guys!

      Are you one who refuses to use GoDaddy? And if so, why?
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      • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
        Originally Posted by MatthewNeer View Post

        You know, I get that from time to time. I've never encountered an issue with GoDaddy, got nothin but LOVE for those guys!

        Are you one who refuses to use GoDaddy? And if so, why?
        I've never used them. Never would either. I've read too many bad things about them. I don't want to derail the thread, just do a search to find what others have said that do have experience with them.

        As with any host, there will be disgruntled customers (and gruntled customers ), but there seems to be an excess of unhappy GoDaddy customers...or maybe they're just the loudest.
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        • Profile picture of the author MatthewNeer
          Mmm, indeed. I've heard all kinds of stuff ranking on GoDaddy. Good + Bad. And you're probably right, they are heard because they are the loudest. Touche.
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          • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
            When my host goes down I usually do my best to help her off the floor.

            Sorry...couldn't resist.

            AKA...if my host goes down, which is almost never, I simply email the guy
            who takes care of my account and he handles it.

            I'm very lucky with my web hosting.
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      • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
        Originally Posted by MatthewNeer View Post

        Are you one who refuses to use GoDaddy? And if so, why?
        GoDaddy is my registrar. They have all my domain names.

        I will not host at the same place that has my domain names. End of story.

        It's not a commentary on their quality or performance, it's just a policy. If I didn't like the company, I wouldn't have my domain names there either.
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        "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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        • Profile picture of the author Kirk Ward
          99.999% uptime seems like what I got after 12 years, so I guess I'm okay.

          Small hosting company? I don't know what you call a small hosting company. Their staff picture shows 15 in the tech support department. They contract out to a datacenter, which is where the catastrophe took place. They lost 70 shared and dedicated servers. Don't think going dedicated would have helped.

          At risk because I kept all my hosting with one provider? Yup, I am, and that is a mistake. I will work on that, but I do feel good that last week I finally started doing backups that included everything. Takes a bit of time, but it does help me feel more secure. I may lose a few days, but with all scripts and databases, I'm in pretty good shape. Probably need to add my php.ini to the list of files though.

          Compensation for my downtime? Sure, but it would be much more worthwhile to have business interruption insurance. That can amount to more than a bit of free hosting, which would be the limit under most hosting services TOS. Although, I may have a claim against the datacenter since they set it off when they were doing the annual fire prevention inspection.

          GoDaddy? Never could figure out their registrar page. But, it has been awhile.

          Plan now ...

          (1) Spread hosting accounts around a bit more. Maybe current provider and possibly HostGator. (I hear a lot of good stuff about them.)

          (2) Automatic Backups on an hourly or daily basis. Continuous with changed files only is my goal, except that may include all of the databases. Have to check on that as the database downloads can take several hours on a low speed DSL.

          (3) Look into a second hosting account and set up Rsync to keep a continuous copy of the master online.

          That do be my plan. What you think?
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  • Profile picture of the author luvtrees
    This is why I spread my sites and client sites across about 5 different hosts. You just have to experience all your sites and client sites being down at the same time once, angry calls at 4:30 in the morning, the dozens of irate emails, the revenue lost, to not want to deal with that again. By spreading it out, you drastically lessen the amount of support work and any revenue hit should one host have a problem. Plus, for most sites, if the wait seems like it's going to be a while, it's usually faster to just move a site or sites to another host.

    I would never, ever put every site on one host, no matter how reliable the host has proven to be. As others have said, even the most reliable have problems.
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    • Profile picture of the author Derek B
      As others haves said spread your sites out on muliple host, and look for a host that offers 99.99% uptime or will credit you for any downtime. The worst part is that you will have no idea when the site will come back online so it is a guessing game if you should change to another host really fast or not and you are losing money every minute.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Vendilli
    I had a server go down on my old host about 2 hours before the launch of a giveaway I was hosting...

    I had about 200 ticked off JV partners and a lot of scrambling, explaining, and regrouping...

    It was a complete nightmare.

    Needless to say, I switched hosts and went to a dedicated server. Since then I haven't had any problems. The dedicated server option is a bit more expensive but it eliminates a lot of potential problems. Many times one infected site on a server can bring down the whole box or at least have adverse effects on other sites on the same server...

    The dedicated option isn't failproof but in my opinion it's a lot better of an option that those cheap hosting accounts. It's a bigger investmen and may not be for everyone but if you're having those types of problems it might be time to think about paying a bit to expand and safeguard your online empire.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikkosant
    Wow, a fire... Yup, backup everything. I'm not going to let my business depend on one single host. Always have a backup plan.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kirk Ward
      Originally Posted by mikkosant View Post

      Wow, a fire... Yup, backup everything. I'm not going to let my business depend on one single host. Always have a backup plan.
      It was a fire last summer. This time it was a human mistake during the annual fire inspection mandated by the datacenters' insurance company. I am thinking the hosting company is blameless and the insurance inspector or an employee of the datacenter bears responsibility.
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  • Profile picture of the author eclario
    Here is the techie answer - IT happens (no pun intended).

    I am curious to find out who it was. I think I have an idea. But let me make a suggestion. They have had 2/3 chances. A fire is a rare beast so you can't blame them for unnatural disaster; however, a failure should be a known event and the provider should have a failover or a disaster recovery plan. If they are in a single data farm in a single location that can be an issue. Are you using a shared hosting provider or a dedicated provider. My personal recommendation is go with a provider who has failover redundancy from coast to coast or on more than one content (i.e. JustHost or HostGator).

    Hope this helps!
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    • Profile picture of the author Kirk Ward
      Originally Posted by eclario View Post

      Here is the techie answer - IT happens (no pun intended).

      I am curious to find out who it was. I think I have an idea.
      I was trying to avoid mentioning the hosting company, as I didn't want some folks disparaging them, and as far as I can tell, the datacenter with the server farm is at fault, not the hosting company. However, since there is another thread running, I'll mention their name. It is WestHost and I have been very happy with their service for almost 13 years. Only two failures over that period of time. Mud happens.

      Originally Posted by eclario View Post

      But let me make a suggestion. They have had 2/3 chances. A fire is a rare beast so you can't blame them for unnatural disaster; however, a failure should be a known event and the provider should have a failover or a disaster recovery plan. If they are in a single data farm in a single location that can be an issue. Are you using a shared hosting provider or a dedicated provider. My personal recommendation is go with a provider who has failover redundancy from coast to coast or on more than one content (i.e. JustHost or HostGator).

      Hope this helps!
      I agree in general. I need to do more planning and preparing on my own, including all the steps I outlined previously. This includes formalizing my backup plan, and adding redundant online backups with quicker DNS notification and rollover.

      Plus, business interruption insurance.
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      "We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice."

      Dr. Samuel Johnson (Presiding at the sale of Thrales brewery, London, 1781)
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  • Profile picture of the author ImHot
    Why not host your own servers lol?
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