Notification of Problems

[Roger B]

Hey Team,

This could be a question and/or request, since I haven't been through this before with you guys.  If your servers are going to be down for any length of time, is there some way we (your clients) are notified?  This because you don't have telephone support.  Here's my reasoning.  I realize that things happen, sometimes beyond your control, where the system is down for a length of time.  But as a reseller the moment the servers are down for more than 15-30 minutes my clients are on the phone with me.  Not so much for the website, but when e-mail is down many times my clients just cannot function.

Case in point with another host I was with at one time.  Construction workers outside the data center happened to cut the "pipe" into the building.  Obviously everything was down; web, e-mail, everything.  No connection, no internet.  As it turned out they were down for over a day while this was being fixed.  I (and my clients) realize that things happen, and this was certainly no fault of the hosting company.  But, what do I tell my clients when they start calling?  I can't just say "the server is down", they obviously already know this.  All they want to know is what's happening and, best estimate, when will things be back up.

So, all I'm asking, or suggesting, is that when the servers are going to be down for any length, that people are notified of the situation.  Even non-resellers I'm sure want to know what's going on and, more importantly, when will things be fixed.  Obviously posting here is of no value since, if the servers are down, we can't get to these forums.

There are 2 ways that a couple of other hosts have responded to this.
1.  All clients have on file with you an alternate e-mail address that is outside of the servers (personal e-mail, etc).  Then a blanket e-mail can be sent from some source with notification to these alternate e-mail addresses.
2.  They have another server set up in a data center pretty far away from their own servers, or have a separate, small account/website set up with a host where the data center is, again, a good distance from their own.  Clients can at any time go to this alternate website to check on the status of the servers, what's happening when they are down, expected time to be back up, etc.

Again, people are reasonable and understanding.  They just want to be kept informed.  And believe me, as a reseller, my clients are all over me wanting to know when they're going to be back up

Hope you have a blessed weekend.

Roger B

[AlphaWolf]

Good questions

The likelihood of our data center being incommunicado, with over 18 pipes to the backbone, is next to none.

We provide our Customer Access Panel on two domains on two different servers on two different LAN segments within the data center.  The odds of two diffferent LAN segments going down is miniscule, though slightly higher than the entire data center going out.  In CAP, we always post an announcement if any of the servers has gone down, or we know that maintenance is planned for a particular server, (or even LAN segment), as much in advance as we know. 

In your acct access email you are given both URLs for the two CAPs.  Our tech support center is in a completely different data center in a different area of the country - and if you can get to CAP, you can log in to the tech center to submit tickets.  Unless 2 LAN segments are down (or both servers for some reason nose dive at the same time), or the data center is completely shut off from the internet, (would probably take complete devastation of the data center), you can get to CAP and to the Tech Support Center.

Unfortunately sometimes even an onsite tech can't give an estimate to repair time.  But understand that if it is even only a cold reboot that is needed, rebooting the system and restarting all services takes about 15-30 mins.  So between the DRAC paging us and one of us logging in to it and having it do a cold reboot of the system, you could be talking 45 minutes.

E-mail...well we have seen what a joke that is with the server move.  About 20% of emails to contact email addresses bounced as undeliverable...repeatedly.  About 5% of customers contacted us, finally, saying they didnt understand the emails we sent so they ignored them...until suddenly their site was down.  And there is a lot of maintenance involved in keeping a current alternate email address.  Everyone is told that they should NOT use an email address we host as their contact email for CPanel.  Many don't listen.

This set up - dual CAPs, outside data center for tech support center - was carefully thought through to reduce the statistical probability of the situation you describe from ever occuring.  In fact, I don't know a single other host out there who has done anything even close to this.  We did this because it made ME nuts waiting to hear from the data center on ETA for a sick server and I at least had a source of information.  Had I been one of our customers who had to either call, and face busy signals or voice maiil, it would have made me even more insane.

peace

Wolf