|
WebFreak
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Johannesburg
Posts: 19
|
Guys, I understand how you all feel because I was on the same server and went through the same hell at the same time you did. And, although we also took endless of flack from our 50+ Corporate Clients on this server of which some are still trying to overcome the trauma of not having email for two odd days, I do feel that maybe we need to put some perspective on the event.
For some background info, our company use reseller hosting i.e. getting hosting from guys like HN and we also do dedicated hosting i.e. where we are responsible for our own servers (in other words we are similar to HN).
From that perspective I can tell you that in the end, no matter what we do, we are ALL at the mercy of the FHC (“fallible human creation”) called a computer and by extension the Data Center at which the server resides. By “all” I mean, reseller hosting and dedicated hosting providers.
So how it works is:
The end-client (the person whom the website belongs to) is at the mercy of: You, Your Hosting Provider, Your Hosting Provider’s Data Center and ultimately The FHC (in this case the computer is a server)
The Reseller provider (you) is at the mercy of: Your Hosting Provider, Your Hosting Provider’s Data Center and ultimately The FHC (i.e. the server)
The Dedicated Provider (HN) is at the mercy of: The Data Center and ultimately The FHC (i.e. the server)
(Oh and somewhere in between all this there is the DNS provider as well and the Telecom provider, more FHC’s called routers and off course, the ever ominous presence of malicious hackers, but that’s a subject for another discussion alltogether)
There are a few Data Centers across the World, but if you investigate further, you will find the country that has the most roads to it is USA. What I mean by this is, you may be visiting a domain .tw (Taiwan), trace it back to it’s origins, and you will discover the Server that site is hosted on is in a DC (data center) in the USA, Administered by a hosting provider in Australia wihich outsources the Server Admin to a MCSE in Pakistan and a reseller provider residing in Taiwan… something to that effect. The country next on my list is the UK which is also renowned for having excellent DC’s, but somehow things are just much more affordable in USA.
Anyway, with this background info, I come to the point I want to make. (Sorry for the long, but necessary intro…)
When the FHC (fallible human creation) fails for some reason or the other, which happens to computers on a daily basis across the planet, the Hosting Provider (in this case HN Staff) has to work via/with the Data Center to get things fixed. The Hosting provider’s Techie can’t just get in his/her car, drive over and fix the server. In a perfect world this would be ideal. But it just doesn’t work like that.
So what happens in a case like this? Well, the Hosting provider, in this case HostNexus, has to 1) establish if the server is still functional or not 2a) if it is functional, i.e. a software problem, establish what the heck went wrong then work systematically to fix the problem with patches etc. 2b) if it is not functional i.e. a hard ware problem, establish what will be needed to get it functional and get the Data Center to replace the faulty hardware 3) in the case of 2b where a server’s hard drive failed once the server is up, reload, reconfigure all software and in the case of Lepton, this means the OS, Plesk, MS SQL, MySQL, ColdFusion, Email, Webmail, ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, Perl and a myriad others 4) restore the client data from the backup 5) Check, test, re-check, re-test, fix reported errors.
Throughout this whole process, the Hosting Provider staff has to not only Fix the problem ASAP but keep communicating the progress to the clients. From my experience the latter is by far the most taxing and contributes to 90% of the stress. If I can use an analogy, it is like taking a road trip where you have about 1000 miles to complete and getting stopped by a policeman every 2nd mile to report in detail on the last two miles.
Having said all that, I don’t think we are being fair to HN by demanding even a full 1 month deduction/refund of the hosting fee since the server was down for MAX 3 days. I think a more fair compensation would be to calculate your total cost paid to HN for a month’s service, and then calculate the worth of 3 days. This is what we do and if more compensation is required we will add additional disk space (or bandwidth) or enable more services. HN doesn’t have a 100% uptime guarantee, and we all agreed to their terms and conditions when we bought our reseller hosting from then.
If we were not aware of all the risks of reseller hosting prior to this, I feel we can’t blame HN for this nor expect them to compensate us for our own lack of understanding the business we entered into. As a hosting provider ourselves, we have this subject extensively covered in our terms and conditions. In addition, we remind Clients regularly that we are all working with Fallible Human Creations.
I for one fully comprehend the hell HN Staff had to endure during this period, and they have my complete sympathy and understanding even though we also suffered the (sometimes inevitable) Exodus. We have been with HostNexus since I think 2005 and we can only speak good of their service and support.
In closing, prior to us signing up with HostNexus, there must have been something that made us choose them above the million others… I think we need to revisit the thought of that decision to regain perspective. Speaking from experience, they are one of the better providers to team up with as their staff are skilled and above all, they have a sense of responsibility… which in this fickle business we are in, is worth its weight in gold.
I apologize in advance if I have treaded on any toes, it was not my intention.
Warm Regards
Last edited by webfreak; 06-04-2008 at 04:59 AM.
|
Linear Mode
