14 replies to this topic

[Sal Collaziano]

Okay. I signed up for a server a few days ago and my first official day was on Tuesday. That went fine. Yesterday I had a lot of trouble accessing the site on the server or web hosting manager. The reason for this was there was another server on the same switch that was using up quite a bit of bandwidth and saturating the shared pipe. Today, I'm experiencing the same type of problem. Is that site taking up all the bandwidth again? I need some type of resolve to this or there's no way I can stay with A Small Orange...

[NyteOwl]

This sort of problem will get the best response if you file a ticket with support. Support will only see it here whenever someone happens to be perusing the forum and the other forum members can't see your server details.

[Sal Collaziano]

I hear ya. I have a ticket in. I just wanted to see what discussion will drum up of my issues. I'm kinda surprised there's no phone support. Oh well. I have a feeling this is going to be a short lived experience.

[Sal Collaziano]

Annnnnd we're about ready to close this one up... Adios.

[brewerfan]

a small orange has a small pipe?

[Sal Collaziano]

Quite possibly. 2 out of my 3 days so far I've had my server go down due to DDoS attacks to a site/server on the same pipeline. My first day was fine, my second and third were terrible. Let's see how my fourth day is going to turn out.

brewerfan, on 10 November 2011 - 10:47 PM, said:

a small orange has a small pipe?

[IBBoard]

To be fair, a DDoS is quite difficult to successfully defend against to the extent that you get zero problems. In all the years I've been at ASO, I've only been on a server that got DDoSed once and the guys did a good job of fending it off and null-routing the traffic where they could to lower the load. Unfortunately, the whole point of a DDoS is that it is so big and distributed that most defences are overrun.

As for phone support, I'm glad ASO don't have it. a) they've got international customers, and we can't all call numbers in the States, b) phones make people expect someone to be instantly on the case, which would push them above tickets, where as tickets are sent and dealt with in order and c) phones tend to waste the time of the techs - I'd rather they were fixing problems than chatting to people (since a not is "type and send" where as a conversation inherently seems to wander).

[NyteOwl]

Kudos to ASO if they can manage to deflect any of a DDoS considering such attacks have in the past taken down network segments of hosting giants like Akami.

[Sal Collaziano]

IBBoard, on 11 November 2011 - 02:04 PM, said:

As for phone support, I'm glad ASO don't have it. a) they've got international customers, and we can't all call numbers in the States, b) phones make people expect someone to be instantly on the case, which would push them above tickets, where as tickets are sent and dealt with in order and c) phones tend to waste the time of the techs - I'd rather they were fixing problems than chatting to people (since a not is "type and send" where as a conversation inherently seems to wander).

They should have phone support for those customers who want it. Options are never a bad thing.

[IBBoard]

Sal: Would you pay extra for phone support? Because ASO would either have to take techs away from normal duties or they'd have to hire more techs just to answer phones. The other alternative is that they out-source it to India and get them to just submit the ticket on your behalf, but that defeats the point of phone support and just ends up adding more lag and confusion

NyteOwl: They've been able to null-route some traffic before when I've talked to them about it, but that's just the router dropping it and not handing it to a server. It'll improve the server, but I guess most DDoSes would still flood out the switch. It's what the military would call "asymmetric warfare" - the attacker (the DDoSer) puts in little effort and gets a huge attack with massive effect.

[Sal Collaziano]

If it were my business, I'd seriously consider offering a package with an extra fee to have tech support available via phone. I pay extra for this type of service at other server companies. I've been using dedicated servers since Latisys was named Ventures Online many years ago. I came here because I'm working on a political project that I don't want associated with my other websites. A dedicated server from Latisys would be overkill to host a single website. If A Small Orange has a good amount of customers, I'm sure a small fee spread across all those customers would pay for a small staff to get started.

IBBoard, on 11 November 2011 - 03:57 PM, said:

Sal: Would you pay extra for phone support? Because ASO would either have to take techs away from normal duties or they'd have to hire more techs just to answer phones. The other alternative is that they out-source it to India and get them to just submit the ticket on your behalf, but that defeats the point of phone support and just ends up adding more lag and confusion

[IBBoard]

Fair enough, if you're happy to pay. I've seen a number of people come and expect phone support at the current cost. Personally, I think the ticketing system is far more effective ASO did have live support at one point (during office hours, IIRC) but I've not needed it so I didn't pay attention to what happened to it. Also, IM-style communication with the techs just seems slower and stilted to me.

[Sal Collaziano]

...I meant to say that if they had enough customers who wanted phone support available - if and when the need arrives - it shouldn't be too difficult to get them to pay a little extra to pay for the customer service department. I don't expect ALL the plans to go up in price to cover those who want phone support. In all the years I've been using dedicated hosting services, I've only needed to get on the phone 3 times. It's not something one frequently needs but the peace of mind knowing the service is available is worth the extra money. And it would certainly bring more customers to the table for A Small Orange. I do strategic conceptual business development so I probably think a little differently than most...

Sal C.

[-ASO- Doug]

Sal,

The problem you are experiencing is a problem with the datacenter where we have our dedicated servers and their networking. This is isolated to dedicated servers, but I know that doesn't make it any better. We are working with the datacenter to get our customers off of that switch and make sure the traffic coming to another server that isn't even related to A Small Orange or our customers does not affect us.

For some perspective, this is one of the first times we've ever experienced this; the company has traditionally had a rock solid network. We co-located with them for a couple of years with virtually no network issues over that time. These sorts of things happen to all datacenters, but it is definitely frustrating during that time.

We do offer live chat support 24 hours a day Monday through Friday. We have plans to expand that to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the near future. Phone support might come after that and it is something we could consider offering for an additional fee or only with certain plans.

I will be following up with you via PM just so you have my contact details and talking to our team to make sure the datacenter is doing what they should. When I have more information, I will follow up on this post as well.

[-ASO- Doug]

Our tech team tells me that these problems should be resolved. They weren't occurring yesterday either. We'll obviously continue to monitor and we are also having discussions with the datacenter about the network topology there to ensure we're as isolated as possible from other issues that might occur. Thanks everyone for their patience and feel free to reach out to me personally if you continue to have issues.