Anyone having problem with burstnet network problem as I speak now??

For some odd reason. I can't reach my server. Also can't reach burstnet's main page!! I just want to know if it is my local ISP problem. But I try to run a trace through http://www.network-tools.com and http://alertsite.com/index.html. Both can't reach burst.net

I can reach their webpage. It is up. I can't get anybody to react to my e-mail/phone calls

Anton

We were rebooting the router.

It is impossible to answer 100+ calls at one time. If you see the network down, please wait atleast 5 minutes before you start calling.


Addition: As it turns out, our network was being flooded. We thought it was a router problem at first, but it reached higher than that. Regardless, the whole situation was resolved in a matter of minutes. Network atacks happen, it is part of the business. We feel this situation was dealt with, and our response to the incident, was better than excellent.

Sean R.
BurstNET

Sean,

Why do you answer to this post in minutes and I am still waiting on an answer about my server order?

Anton

Everything back to normal now.:)

However prefer you guyz at least send out a notification or something before making such modification.
Even 10 minutes downtime. We still receive complaints from our clients.

The cause of the few minutes of downtime was that we were receiving a network flood.

No notification could be given.

Sean R.
BurstNET

<< Why do you answer to this post in minutes and I am still waiting on an answer about my server order? >>

You have been told several times via support ticket and telephone that your order would be completed sometime Friday or Saturday.

It is still Saturday...the server will be completed today.

Not sure why you are still asking the same question again and again...


Sean R.
BurstNET

Hey Sean,

You had someone fully consume all 90 Mbps? Do tell :)

I once had someone who consumed around 200 Megs.

Sean...

You make me look the bad guy in this. I am just a customer that likes to receive an answer and an honest one to a e-mail and/or phone call in a decent amount of time.

I can understand that you have delays for reasons like above, but do inform your customers about that. Makes them happier.

Anton

<< I am just a customer that likes to receive an answer >>

5-6 times?

I feel bad about acting like this towards a new client, but come on...how many times are you going to ask the same question over and over again, after we keep giving you the same answer?

Once again...your server will be ready tonight...I don't care if I personally have to stay here to finish it until 4AM.

Sean R.
BurstNET

Then is that techinally saturday, or is that sunday?

common guys, give sean R - a break he is right this time.

Originally posted by BurstNET
[...] and our response to the incident, was better than excellent.

Sean R.
BurstNET

Well Sean even if it's true -I'm not discussing this-, it's not for you to say.

:D :rolleyes: :stickout

Originally posted by cyansmoker


Well Sean even if it's true -I'm not discussing this-, it's not for you to say.

:D :rolleyes: :stickout

well, said cyansmoker

:blush: :laugh: :agree:

<< it's not for you to say >>

Actually it is.
I'm the one responsible for making sure things run well at BurstNET.
If admins take an hour to fix a problem that could have been fixed in 5 minutes, thus causing 55 minutues unwarrented downtme, I am the one they have to answer to.
I found our staff's response time on this issue to be beyond excellent...and am quite pleased with their performance.

Sean R.
BurstNET

Originally posted by BurstNET
<< it's not for you to say >>

Actually it is.
I'm the one responsible for making sure things run well at BurstNET.
If admins take an hour to fix a problem that could have been fixed in 5 minutes, thus causing 55 minutues unwarrented downtme, I am the one they have to answer to.
I found our staff's response time on this issue to be beyond excellent...and am quite pleased with their performance.

Sean R.
BurstNET

Hmm..what I mean is let them know, not us. Facts speak for themselves, don't they?

Lets see :

Flood !!!
DOS !!

who tripped on that black wire that connects the router and Dmarc..

You mean that yellow thin wire thingy was the Fiber? sorry.

What do you mean I binded someones elses ips addresses.

Err the drunk driver really hit the pole pretty hard, good thing fiber stretches :)

No water, coffee and kids in the server room please.

you mean when i did ping -f , i took the network down ?

What do you mean, you lost the router config ?

You lost the password to the what ??

whoa that was kewl , errr that did what.......

UPS does not mean United parcel service!!

Thank god for generators :)

keep a baseball bat availible in case a backhoe is outside digging..

What do you mean then network is down ?

The server will be here thursday, "i hope this month"

what is an uplink :)

ok more ??

Sean:

If you order food in a restaurant and you pay for in advance, wouldn't you like to get it as soon as you possibly can? If the cook says well takes about 30 and the 30 minutes go by, you won't ask where your meal is?

Then the cook says, well in another 30 minutes. After 29 minutes you still don't hear anything, you do know what is going on in the kitchen, you wouldn't ask again? And if you don't get an answer, you would ask again? The manage, the server whoever could give you an answer. Come on.....

You give the impression that you are above the client...... Not a good thing.

Anton

Originally posted by addaction
Sean:

If you order food in a restaurant and you pay for in advance, wouldn't you like to get it as soon as you possibly can? If the cook says well takes about 30 and the 30 minutes go by, you won't ask where your meal is?

Then the cook says, well in another 30 minutes. After 29 minutes you still don't hear anything, you do know what is going on in the kitchen, you wouldn't ask again? And if you don't get an answer, you would ask again? The manage, the server whoever could give you an answer. Come on.....

You give the impression that you are above the client...... Not a good thing.

Anton

I hate to butt in here, but give Sean a break!
Taking your analogy into account, what if you ordered a steak and were told it would take 30 mins, and you tell them it HAS to be in 30mins.
Then 30mins was up and the steak still wasn't cooked - would you want them to still give it to you or would you want them to keep on cooking it?

At the end of they day, setup times are usually done via WORKING BUSINESS DAYS. Once you get the server it will be fine, but have patience.

Yes, I am waiting for a server from MultipleImage which should be up Monday - I will probably ask for a status on it, but if they say it will take a little longer, then so be it.

--James

I guess I am not expressing myself correctly. I did not care how long it would take as long as they would inform me of the ETA. If they cannot make that ETA, let me know... i am a very understanding man. It is the communication I am complaining about not the delay in service.

Anton

I agree communication is often the number one thing that is neglected between web hosts and their clients. One other thing to think about is if they notified everyone on their network each time there was a short-term or small problem, they would receive hundreds of calls/emails from clients who do not understand what the problem means, even though it may already be past and only a handful of people even noticed.

With 1000's of clients, you cannot mass email everyone for everything, as the support requests go through the roof. I have seen it before.

Maybe a news page or network status webpage to describe these type of probems, but communicating every problem to every customer does not work well.

Just MHO.

<< And if you don't get an answer, you would ask again? >>

<< I did not care how long it would take as long as they would inform me of the ETA >>


OK, now I am getting a little annoyed at this situation. My nice-ness is starting to wear very thin here...

HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU WANT US TO TELL YOU THE SAME ANSWER OVER AND OVER AGAIN?

HOW EXACTLY ARE WE NOT REPONDING TO YOUR INQUIRIES, WHEN WE GAVE YOU THE SAME ANSWER MANY TIMES VIA EMAIL AND PHONE?

HOW EXACTLY DID YOU "NOT GET AN ANSWER"?

HOW MANY TIMES DOES IT TAKE FOR US TO TELL YOU THE SAME ANSWER BEFORE YOU ARE "INFORMED OF THE SITUATION"? 10? 20? 50? 100?

SHOULD WE SEND YOU A TELEGRAM AS WELL? OR HOW ABOUT CERTIFIED MAIL?...

Yes, the caps ARE intentional.

I am not saying that the client does not have a right to be concerned that setup took an extra couple days...but the claims of non-responsiveness in this situation, and not being informed, he is contradicting himself with.


Sean R.
BurstNET


4-5 day setup time in my opinion is more than reasonable as well.

Sean, I can appreciate where you are coming from, and indeed a 4-5 day setup is pretty damn good going, but I can also see it from the customers POV too.

One thing that I don't like is the attitude shown towards this new client. This may well be the first time he has got a dedicated server before, so first impressions count.

Yes, clients can be annoying at times but to answer like that just isn't right :(

James

"annoying" I can deal with, asking hundreds of questions, well that is our job :)...no problem there at all...
BUT
Saying that we "did not respond to his inquiries" when we clearly did MANY times, it what has me angry. He contradicts himself, saying we told him one thing, then updated and said Fri/Sat...how exactly are we telling him these things if we are not responding?
I am waiting for his response to his statement on how we "did not respond"

No, I do not like reacting this way to a new client either...but a point has to be made here that we did NOTHING WRONG.

Sean R.
BurstNET

Sean;

If you have so many statements about me, why don't you give me a call so we can talk about this in stead of trying to save your face all the time, making false statements about my actions and your replies.

Anton

You have my phone number on the voicemail.

I can't believe this conversation is being carried out in public :confused:

I agree...this should not be here, and is completely off-topic for this thread. This thread is about a minor network incident that occured, not other matters.

MODS - Please delete off-topic posts in this thread, including my own responses to them.


Sean R.
BurstNET

sean
you really need to stop blowing up on your clients/customers..
it is not professional

Well, I think Sean is professional. But Sean seems to be a bit hot(:angry: ) headed. :)

I think he is too, but... he is not gaining anything by blowing up on everyone like that..

need to learn to keep your cool sean

I've been good lately ;-)
Years ago, during True Hosting fiasco, I was alot more hot-headed...
...been behaving lately though :-)

I'm an extremely nice guy, and will bend over backwards to help clients out...

I just hate when things go like this...


I have no choice but to stand up for BurstNET in situations like this however...

BurstNET may have had it's downtimes in the past due to prior co-lo facility issues, and support problems of our own fault, but most of it has been cleared up since we opened our new facility and hired all of out new staff. We have done everything we can to overcome short-comings of the past, and reach the levels of service our customers demanded. We are up to 15 employees as of Thursday this week! We are well over 300 servers in our facility now, so obviously we are doing something right.
We really do provide an excellent service here...
Dealing with thousands of clients, you are going to have some cases where things do not go exctly as they should :-(
Our service may not be for everybody, but the huge majority of our clients are very happy.

Warm Regards,
Sean R.
BurstNET

Guys, give Sean a break. There was an issue that caused downtime, but as he said its been resolved now. Instead of flaming and 'fighting' in this thread, go back to work :)

Sean,

regardless of how much you have bent over backwards for your customres, people in any group tend to look at the bad things instead of the good.

Remember back in school, how one kid ruined it for the rest, sorta the same here, People see you blowing up, and they tend to post negitave replies and posts about Burst.

If you are so happy to be apart of Burst, just remember your the sales person and when it comes to public forums, its your responsiblity to show Burst as a professional company, regardless of how many people are bad mouthing you

Originally posted by BurstNET
I've been good lately ;-)
Years ago, during True Hosting fiasco, I was alot more hot-headed...


Sean, just a matter of curiosity, maybe debatable in a different thread/forum: since you mention True Hosting, would it be possible to know exactly what happened, back then?

I'm a former TH client and, back then, did not know about forums such as this one, and of course I was assuming that it may all be my fault somehow, if I was unhappy with my host :stickout ...

So, just because this bad incident is now part of the Internet history, and for the sake of historic curiosity, what happened?
And don't forget: reading about TH will make all the hosts who are currently being flamed by unhappy users look GOOD :D

Originally posted by BurstNET
I agree...this should not be here, and is completely off-topic for this thread. This thread is about a minor network incident that occured, not other matters.

MODS - Please delete off-topic posts in this thread, including my own responses to them.


Sean R.
BurstNET

Mods, please leave this thread intact. Discussions like this help people choose hosts.

Hmmm... just went down again for about 20 minutes... Each time this happens I get hundreds of emails from my customers asking why they can't get their mail. :(

What happened? Another flood? How do other hosts handle this? At Rackspace I didn't have an outage for 2 years, so I figure that there must be things that can be done... or is it just that they're big enough to handle whatever gets thrown at them?

I'm not in the slightest bit interested in playing the blame game--all I care about is maximising the uptime for my customers. Any suggestions on approaches to mitigating this problem? Sean, is Burst.Net putting anything in place which may reduce these outages in the future?

Thanks in advance for any ideas :)

Originally posted by node9
I think he is too, but... he is not gaining anything by blowing up on everyone like that..

need to learn to keep your cool sean
he is like that only. :D

Originally posted by jp_howard
Hmmm... just went down again for about 20 minutes... Each time this happens I get hundreds of emails from my customers asking why they can't get their mail. :(

What happened? Another flood? How do other hosts handle this? At Rackspace I didn't have an outage for 2 years, so I figure that there must be things that can be done... or is it just that they're big enough to handle whatever gets thrown at them?

I'm not in the slightest bit interested in playing the blame game--all I care about is maximising the uptime for my customers. Any suggestions on approaches to mitigating this problem? Sean, is Burst.Net putting anything in place which may reduce these outages in the future?

Thanks in advance for any ideas :)

hey, i am also experiencing this. may be it is just with my server or burst have some problems :confused:

Originally posted by mahinder
hey, i am also experiencing this. may be it is just with my server or burst have some problems :confused: It's not our servers. I can tell because I can't get to http://www.burst.net when this happens. And it's not my local link because I can get to other sites in the US just fine, and the traceroute shows that the problem occurs at BurstNet's router.

We are being flooded again...
Someone does not like us very much this weekend.
We are in the middle of putting up a flood box, so we can track this, and find out who is doinng this, and block them from our network.
There really is no way to stop it...all we can do is deal with the situation once it occurs.


Sean R.
BurstNET

And now this gets posted to our forum:I'm thinking I jumped in a little early for routing all pop mail through your excellent service, since I have been experiencing noticable outages every day now and my livelihood (college professor) is now largely dependent on e-mails.Please Sean, tell us exactly what is causing the problems, and exactly what contingencies are being put in place. I chose Burst.Net because I understood that it was very reliable, and the week I chose to monitor your network it was very good. But I can't afford another of these outages... :(

Originally posted by BurstNET
We are in the middle of putting up a flood box, so we can track this, and find out who is doinng this, and block them from our network.Fantastic. Sorry about my last post--you and I posted at the same time so I didn't see this. Will the flood box be up in a matter of hours, days, or weeks? I'll pass this information on to my customers through our forums and then I'll leave you alone so that you can get this important job done faster.

Will the flood box largely remove this problem?

Originally posted by BurstNET
We are being flooded again...
Someone does not like us very much this weekend.


Sean, sorry to hear (read) that. We all know all you can do is cope with this kind of annoyance hoping it won't take too many servers down.

Even though I don't agree with you getting all excited here, I hope that everyone understands Burstnet is not responsible for this and your top priority is to stop it, and then only, to inform your clients.

Box is already in place now, and it is fully functional as of about an hour ago. We had already written a software program to handle this earlier today, in response to our first flood....but had not had a chance to install it before the second flood hit.
What it does...is take a sampling of all packets passing thru our network, over our main switch, and shows what servers and ips are being utilized the most, as well as where the most traffic to and from the network is coming from. Now when/if we get flooded again, we just look at that monitor box, see the IP being targeted, and where the flood is coming from, and we blocks them at the router level.

Sean R.
BurstNET
System Administration

Sorry to post this as it seems the thread is moving forward and I truly hope people can read *past* this and continue this flow...

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=186882#post186882

Thanks for the update, Sean. I'll copy this post in our forum so our customers know where they stand. Given that this isn't automated I assume that if this happens again we'll be looking at 5-10 minutes downtime before it's dealt with--does that sound right to you? (I don't want to make any false promises to my customers, but it helps to make a guess... I wouldn't have thought that this would be a problem--it's only when outages hit around 15-20 mins that I see the complaints roll in.)

PS: I guess you've been distracted by all this from getting the remote reboot/paging form up and running. Any ETA on that? :)

We had a denial of service attack this weekend too, and we got busy blocking the IP's that it was coming from. After blocking a /24 network, a /16 network, and about 20 other hosts, we realized that the source addresses were probably being spoofed.

We had no choice but to block all traffic going to the IP address that was being attacked until it ended.

Investigating an attack like this and fighting it takes some time, and is sometimes only noticed when traffic or resources start hitting critical levels. Network latency or complete downtime can't be prevented. Because of that, you have to expect to have downtime, or at least some network latency due to an attack.

It sounds like sean knows what he's doing and that it was handled better than if it were going on at most any other ISP. And it was handled WAY better than if you were hosting the server yourself. You should only expect to have uptime related to these kinds of attacks guaranteed if you are paying extra for some type of high availability solution such as a live mirror at another location.

Same goes with server hardware failure. It's inevitable. I only expect that if it happens that the server and the data will be restored faster than most. You should only expect to have uptime related to the server hardware guaranteed if again, you are paying for some type of high availability solution such as a live mirror.

IMHO.

<< Thanks for the update, Sean. I'll copy this post in our forum so our customers know where they stand. Given that this isn't automated I assume that if this happens again we'll be looking at 5-10 minutes downtime before it's dealt with--does that sound right to you? >>>

Assuming everything goes according to plan now for such situations, 5-10 minutes sounds about right.
That is assuming an identical situation.
Keep in mind that other situations may occur that take alot longer, like attacks from multiple IPs, or bouncing around from different IPs...etc...
Hopefully this will be a rarety...I know we have gone about 6 months until now without any noticeable attacks (those that cause downtime) in our NOC...so hopefully this was a freak occurance...

<<< PS: I guess you've been distracted by all this from getting the remote reboot/paging form up and running. Any ETA on that? >>>

Such is the case.
As soon as we get caught up with everything we will be turning our attention back to that.

Sean R.
BurstNET

At the prices people are paying for hosting and for dedicated servers, , I don't think they can expect 99.9% uptime.


For that kind of uptime, you need to start thinking about mirrored servers, hot failovers etc.

Last time i checked around, 100% uptime was going to cost thousand of dollars a month.

I've explained this to my customers who say they must have 100% uptime. Once they see what the cost is..they change their minds. My hosting plans range from 19.95 or 29.95 a month.

We strive for 99.5% uptime and have done quite well over the past couple of years till last month where we had some major troubles. Actually over that horrible month period, about 200 sites were down from a day to two days.

No customers left...the reason being we kept them informed. And they also knew if they wanted 100% uptime..they would be paying a lot more than 19.95 a month. If their business depends on the net..they should invest in the infrastructure necessary to support that business.

I imagine many in these forums have decided to enter the hosting "commodity" market and charge much less. Do people really think for 4.95 a month they should expect 99% uptime?? We pay much more to the phone company for our service.

I also wanted to mention that one of my colos is in a ..top notch data center that handles many big banks and stock exchange servers. Even so, when one of their backbone providers went down, it took 45 minutes to get everything switched on their nationwide network.
When nimda hit the net..they got infected internally and pulled the plug to the internet to the whole facilitiy..not for 1 hour or 2 hours but for 11 hours!!!

Bottom line, stuff happens, no one has complete control over the delivery of hosting, there are a lot of third parties involved from isps, telcos, root servers, plus hardware and more. Frankly, I think it is amazing uptimes are as high as they are!

Given the above, I think that communicating the good and the bad is most improtant thing and that goes much further with me in deciding where to place my business.

Well, I hope this did not stray into offtopic.
Deja

Its nice to see Burst.net man is here ... i'm a previous customer for interserver and i left them because of support delay ..

i just get my new server with burst.net .. i get it after 3 days of ordering and this is very good.

i accessed the server for first time .. enabled quota and name servers . but i found proftpd down and i cant restart it from WHM or from the command line !

i sent to support since 8 hours .. no response

i dont want to have the same support speed of interserver or let me back to them .. its cheaper at least

<<Please call/contact them either off forum or via PM/Email through the forum>>

thank you and dont let me move again