448 replies to this topic

[Sharon]

My website is down.  Is the Zeta server down?

[Yapluka]

You can check the server status here and yes, zeta seems to be down ATM...

[-ASO- Tim]

Epsilon is too. It appears that the company we're getting them through is going out of business or something. This is *not* good. I'm going to look around and see if there's someone I can pay to get it back up...

[ben_b]

Who do you host Zeta and Epsilon through?

[Danrarbc641]

Is there anything stopping you from buying servers yourselves and working directly with data centers now, cutting out the middlemen?

I know you guys have grown a lot

[Yapluka]

I read from old posts that Tim bought his first 2 or 3 servers from this company then get now them directly with the DC.

I wish you good luck, Tim... this matter seems really bad    

[NEO]

This is crazy! what is going on here???

[-ASO- Tim]

Is there anything stopping you from buying servers yourselves and working directly with data centers now, cutting out the middlemen?

I know you guys have grown a lot

We do that with our other servers. Unfortunately, this other company is turning out to be a horrible business decision so far. We're unable to pay the DC directly to get this back up and running, and I'm still seeing about getting the server up for at least long enough to grab the backups and get out while we can....

[Bass Nutz]

this other company is turning out to be a horrible business decision so far.

Very bad indeed. It questions my decision as well, did I choose the right company?

[-ASO- Tim]

We're fine. We're going away from this company as soon as things are up and I can get servers at our Dallas datacenter ready. Unfortunately, we end up looking bad because of someone else's mistakes. If we were a bad decision, I wouldn't even have been posting here  

[NEO]

Tim a couple questions:

1. Have you heard anything about getting backups on the sites?
2. Are you able to put these sites on your other servers till the new servers are ready at the Dallas datacenter?
3. What time frame are we talking here?

[-ASO- Tim]

1) I've read of some people being able to, but my own pleadings aren't working. I suspect too many people have already asked to let it go by.

2) I'll start transferring as soon as I get things back up and running. DNS is going to be the trickiest part, but it will be do-able (just a bit annoying).

3) It all depends on when zeta and epsilon come back up. As soon as they do, the process begins. I would expect a few days to get everything squared away. Some sites may be a little more difficult to work out, especially those with custom nameservers.

[Bass Nutz]

I don't mean to sound negative. It's just that within the 4 months I've been with ASO, my site has been down several times. No, I don't expect 100% uptime, just a little more reliability. It's tough to run a site when it's down. And tough to have to tell your members that there is nothing I can do.

It's just a little disappointing.

[Sharon]

Very bad indeed. It questions my decision as well, did I choose the right company?

There are two schools of thought on what Tim is doing.  One is that when his organization is having problems, he should keep it hushed and try to resolve it without getting his customers involved.  I have to laugh at this one, since it is our websites that are 'down' when his wholesalers are causing him problems.

The other school is that he does exactly what he does - be honest and treat us like the grownups that we are.

I gotta tell you, my last hosting company was of the first school.  No matter what happened, they did not explain it.  They just acted like nothing happened.  Man, did that make me worry on a daily basis.  When enough customers got sick and tired of this company treating us like idiots, and the lack of service, support, and honesty got to be too much; people started moving out.

Most of us that operate websites are 'big kids'.  We know that everything doesn't hum along without glitches, because we have our own glitches to deal with.  Of course, we don't like either our glitches or ASO's.  But they are a fact of life.

Tim's job is to find the most stable bulk hosting, at the best price, with a lot of service and support.  I don't know about anyone else here, but I would not want his job.  And I am smart enough to figure out that in order for him to keep the price down, he is running 'lean'.  I prefer a hosting company that HONESTLY lets me know what is going on when things go wrong.  It is a whole lot better than the BS I used to hear from my old host.

Tim, I am hoping that you find a reliable wholesaler, within your operating budget; and I pray, for my cancer kids, that it is soon.  

[colonel k]

I hope you can get backups Tim.

This must be really infuriating for yourself.  

[edhoro]

If I had no problems with not getting the backups and data for my site, would it be possible to be moved to a different server? I have all of the important pages and files that I will need to get going again.

[Danrarbc641]

If I had no problems with not getting the backups and data for my site, would it be possible to be moved to a different server? I have all of the important pages and files that I will need to get going again.

Ditto.

With the exception of my Coppermine database and my calendar database, I haven't made a recent backup of those (there's also the issue of the pictures, but I didn't have many so I could just ask people to re-upload those few)

[-ASO- Tim]

lamda.asmallorange.com has been ordered at the Dallas datacenter, so that's where everyone on these two servers are headed. Oh, and don't worry about overload, as a few sites will end up on kappa and the Dual Xeons can handle the load of two Athlon servers quite easily, I've found.

They just have to get these other servers up...

[NEO]

Tim thats good to hear what about the site backups are you able to get them?

[ben_b]

Tim thats good to hear what about the site backups are you able to get them?

From what Tim said it sounds like he can't get to them yet...

They just have to get these other servers up...