Do you host your business site on your own servers....or go through another hosting service's service? Im talking about YOUR own site, not your clients (clients would obviously be on your servers).

Our own servers. :-D

Roj

Our own servers off course, why would you go to another provider if you're offering the service yourself :D

We use our own server but there are no clients on that server.

I'm currently hosting our main site + helpdesk + forum + billing on a ded server at fastservers.net. That's kept out of our 2 cabs in LA, so if there's network issues with either cab, we can still keep communications open. I shudder at some hosts who keep their main site in the same facility as their client servers. It's just not a good idea. :erm:

We keep our web site on our own servers, but we also run our own facility and have full control and responsibility when it comes to outage resolution.

We monitor our web site from outside our network (as well as inside) and when it goes down as viewed from three different locations around the country, we get paged by pager and cell phone so we know there is a network problem. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, we have the same motivation as our customers to get everything running again as quickly as possible. It does wonders for keeping that uptime high!

We have thought about setting up outside servers for communications during outages, but each time we entertained that thought, we kept coming back to the idea that it was more effective overall to improve our network to avoid any outages.

I have a server at theplanet that host our main site, forums, help desk and monitoring scripts.

Our customers servers are on our racks at GNAX if there is a network outage at GNAX we are still on line and keep all our customers up to date via our forums and help desk of what is going on.
They seem to appreciate the fact they can maintian contact and get regular up dates if there is a problem.

Main site on one of our servers that also houses selected clients. A separate hosting account on someone else's server for helpdesk and forum for support issues, in case the server with the main domain is down or unreachable. It's in a completely different DC from our regular hosting boxes.

We DO NOT house our website in the same datacenter as our cage.

Unfortuneatly, from time to time this leads to problems. Currently, we host our site at burstnet/nocster and their network is garbage. We're working on getting it out of there.

The purpose of hosting your site sperate from your main operations is to maintain site / support availability in the even of an outage. However, burstnet/nocster is down almost daily or experiences huge packet loss which makes customers think it's our facility.

So, the point is, even if you host your site elsewhere, make sure you choose a reputable provider (not burst/nocster) if you want uptime.

We have our site on our servers as well, but our network status and technical status are posted on a remote host. If there are any problems, customers can still communicate with us and see the network status via the remote site.

We have our static 5 page website on a business associate's server (no sense in putting 5 simple pages on a dedicated). But then, we have our support desk on one of our dedicated servers and our billing system on another of our dedicated servers and I believe there are a couple of other various aspects of our site that are on yet another server. Basically, we've split our AxisHOST account up as much as possible, at various geographic locations...with the really important stuff going on our own dedicated servers.

--Tina

We host ours on the same servers as our clients.

Own servers

currently we are on our own servers but I was just thinking of moving everything the other day. Idefinately would like to get this accomplished shortly...not the agonizing process of finding a host!

I'd probably shy away from a host if I knew their own website wasn't on their own servers. If they don't trust their network, then why should I? I think that if you could, you should definitely put your own site, billing, and support applications on a separate server that doesn't have any users. That way, if some have memory/CPU intensive things that affect the server, the core things to your business are still up. But again, as a customer, I wouldn't trust a host with my stuff if they didn't trust themselves.

it's not about trust it is about customer protections. This day and age you never know what can happen, who is to say the best protected datacenter on the planet doesn't have a meteor come flying on top of everyones server and destroys everything. that is why off site backups are so critical. Hosting the company website somewhere else is just another measure to keep communication lines open in case something tragic happens like that.

..........that is why off site backups are so critical. Hosting the company website somewhere else is just another measure to keep communication lines open in case something tragic happens like that.
I'd probably shy away from a host if I knew their own website wasn't on their own servers. If they don't trust their network, then why should I?

Both very good points. To answer the thread, on own servers yes, and backups are the best thing in the world, never never know what could happen.

I'd probably shy away from a host if I knew their own website wasn't on their own servers. If they don't trust their network, then why should I? I think that if you could, you should definitely put your own site, billing, and support applications on a separate server that doesn't have any users. That way, if some have memory/CPU intensive things that affect the server, the core things to your business are still up. But again, as a customer, I wouldn't trust a host with my stuff if they didn't trust themselves.
You've missed the point. It's not about trust. If there's network issues with your datacenter (and these will happen no matter how swanky the datacenter is), you need to keep the lines of communication open with your clients, through that network downtime.

I'd love nothing more than to get a separate server racked in our LA cab and have our main site there. But that means if there's network issue in that facility, the lines of communication between us and our clients, are broken. Keeping the lines of communication open, during downtime, is totally essential, like breathing air.

Own servers, same facility but soon plan on moving the main web site to a different facility then what our customers are hosted on or host an emergency web site elsewhere.

.com in the facility
.net as an emergency web site elsewhere

We host our own web site on network. Our helpdesk and billing systems are hosted off network, however. Even the event of a total outage, we would be able to contact our customers through the helpdesk/billing systems.

FWIW, one of the main reasons we house our own web site on our own servers is because if our network is down, there isn't any way for us to update a remote site with news anyway.

It's kind of a catch 22. If the point of an outside location is customer communication during an outage, just how will you update that outside site with news? Snail mail a CD-ROM?:disagree: You had better hope any outage isn't *that* long! :pray: Maybe it is only a catch 22 for those of us using our own facility.

Those of you that host a communication site outside your network, how do you manage this? Can you get away with it because your customer servers are in a datacenter elsewhere than your admin office? What happens if your DSL/Cable/T1 goes down at your office and there is an outage at your customer server facility?

Our main site is hosted on our own server, but on a seperate server from the clients.

Our site is on our own server, it's good because you are continually evaluating the server against your own standards and you can see things from the customers point of view.

Currently, I am running all our websites on company's servers. But it isn't a bad idea to run company's website on someone else server. I like the idea... ;)


Blessed.

. . . Those of you that host a communication site outside your network, how do you manage this?
Easy. There's 3 separate locations. The (home) office is here in Australia, and the main site + helpdesk + billing + forum is on a ded server at HE.net facility, and our client servers are accross 2 cabs in LA. :)

What happens if your DSL/Cable/T1 goes down at your office and there is an outage at your customer server facility?
If my cable ever goes out and there is a problem with a server/datacenter I would switch to dialup to at least keep clients informed. Perhaps you should consider dialup as a last resort for your own situation.

I'm currently hosting our main site + helpdesk + forum + billing on a ded server at fastservers.net. That's kept out of our 2 cabs in LA, so if there's network issues with either cab, we can still keep communications open. I shudder at some hosts who keep their main site in the same facility as their client servers. It's just not a good idea. :erm:

I definately second that. I learnt this lesson the HARD way. If you dont want to go ahead and make the spend and get an entire dedicated server for your company website, at least put it on its on VPS by itself at a reputable provider like ServInt/Liquidweb.

Our own servers, if you can't believe in your product to host your own companies website, why would clients believe in your service ?

Interesting topic. Some feel it shows confidence in a product, while others (myself included) feel it shows forethought in case the unthinkable happens. An interesting read.

Our own servers, if you can't believe in your product to host your own companies website, why would clients believe in your service ?

So, are you saying that you expect to have 100% uptime 100% of the time?

--Tina

That is a ridiculous scenario, but why do you have different hosting for your main site. All I am saying is if you are going to sell a product or service that you don't personally use, how do you believe fully in your product ?

That is a ridiculous scenario, but why do you have different hosting for your main site. All I am saying is if you are going to sell a product or service that you don't personally use, how do you believe fully in your product ?

I absolutely believe in my product, which is customer service. Part of the service we provide is hosting websites...the bigger part of that product is making sure our customers' needs are taken care of. If one network suddenly becomes unavailable to the world, its our responsibility to make sure that our customers are informed. We do that by posting the news on our website, which is safely tucked away elsewhere. :)

We have all of our important stuff on our own dedicated servers. We have five individual static pages on another server, simply for the sake of it being on a completely different network...and it not being cost-effective to buy a whole server for five webpages.

--Tina

That is a ridiculous scenario, but why do you have different hosting for your main site. All I am saying is if you are going to sell a product or service that you don't personally use, how do you believe fully in your product ?
That's got to be the most rediculous and ignorant post I've read on WHT for a long time.

*shakes head*

We have five individual static pages on another server, simply for the sake of it being on a completely different network...and it not being cost-effective to buy a whole server for five webpages.
Come now Tina. We all know you've probably got Counter Strike on that server too. :D :uzi:

































Just kidding :nuts:

Just kidding


*whew* :P

--Tina

Okay bob lol

That is a ridiculous scenario, but why do you have different hosting for your main site. All I am saying is if you are going to sell a product or service that you don't personally use, how do you believe fully in your product ?

If your data center has a fiber cut, blows a router or just goes down, and it does happen and has happened to the best of the best how do you intend to communicate with your clients?
Carrier pigeon? Or do you think it is OK to leave them in the dark about what is going on and when they can expect their web sties back on line?

The up time of the server my help desk and site is on has nothing to do with the customers up time. In fact sorry to say they have better up time, GNAX has had better uptime than theplanet over the last year.
But if GNAX has an outage I am on the phone to them I find out what is going on what the status is ETA etc and post it for my clients so they know and they are not thinking I have made my millions and ran for the hills.

Not to mention I pay a couple hundred a month for a server to host my sites and monitoring scripts which if I wanted to host on my own server would save me about 2 grand a year, but I pay it for my customers peace of mind.
I agree with Bob that is silly statement and one that is not very well thought out.

Okay bob lol
Maybe one day you'll understand the reasoning behind keeping your main site off network? I guess experience will teach you that eventually.

Well I appreciate your opinion as well as Bob's, everyone has their own way of running a business, hosting company, dealing with problems, and the inevitable issue of downtime. I am not here to argue or debate with anyone the issues relating. I was simply stating my opinion as 15 other people did in this forum. Go back to page 1 and there is 3 other people with the same 'opinion' as I. Anyway Techark that is very thought out, do you and Bob put together these scenarios in your spare time ? hehe cheers !

. . . Anyway Techark that is very thought out, do you and Bob put together these scenarios in your spare time ? hehe cheers !
Ah no. It's called common sense and many years of experience in this business.

Got it BOB !

Got it BOB !

If not now, you will eventually. ;)

--Tina

When is the firing squad taking place, haha you guys are great. Go batter up some of the page 1 folks. lol

I shudder at some hosts who keep their main site in the same facility as their client servers. It's just not a good idea. :erm:

Same facility shouldn't be a problem as long as the server is on a different router and different power source.

Same facility shouldn't be a problem as long as the server is on a different router and different power source.
Now what happens when that freak (earthquake/tornado/tsunami/hurricane/volcano) hits the data center and knocks everything out? What will the clients do? You have to have some way to tell them that their data is (in the center of the earth/embedded in a tree somewhere/all washed up/stuck in a stadium/molten).:smash:

So, are you saying that you expect to have 100% uptime 100% of the time?

--Tina
A truly redundant network will achieve 100% uptime. Yes, that's right, it will.

But it's rather rare for a "wht - data center" to offer such a network. So I can understand why you haven't ever seen this.

Thanks,

A truly redundant network will achieve 100% uptime. Yes, that's right, it will.

A 100% reliable network with 100% reliable servers...point me in that direction, please. I don't think such a beast exists. I'm not talking about a 100% guarantee or SLA...I'm talking 100% uptime all the time. Unless your site is on this magical providers network/servers, you better have a contingency plan.

--Tina

A 100% reliable network with 100% reliable servers...point me in that direction, please. I don't think such a beast exists. I'm not talking about a 100% guarantee or SLA...I'm talking 100% uptime all the time. Unless your site is on this magical providers network/servers, you better have a contingency plan.

--Tina
Google?

(ThisIs10)

Google?

(ThisIs10)

Google isn't a datacenter. ;)

But, lets say they are (which they aren't)...they've had downtime.

--Tina

Own Servers

A truly redundant network will achieve 100% uptime. Yes, that's right, it will.

But it's rather rare for a "wht - data center" to offer such a network. So I can understand why you haven't ever seen this.

Thanks,

Not true.

Please, tell me if a nuke is dropped on the DC, because it has a redundant network, it will stay up....

You never said you were looking for a data center that had that, you just said "I don't think such a beast with 100% uptime exists."

I was just correcting you :D And for the most part, I would say that Google & MSN are probably the two sites with the highest uptime rating. Maybe MySpace too?

You never said you were looking for a data center that had that, you just said "I don't think such a beast with 100% uptime exists."

I was just correcting you :D And for the most part, I would say that Google & MSN are probably the two sites with the highest uptime rating. Maybe MySpace too?

I said "A 100% reliable network with 100% reliable servers...point me in that direction, please. I don't think such a beast exists."

Yes, big corporate sites like Google and MSN have high uptime. That's not the same as 100%.

--Tina

Google has absolutely had downtime. I think it was last summer. For hours. But I think they were having major trouble when shifting servers or something so you can't really chalk it up to network redundancy (or lack thereof).

Where are the aussie's when the real stream comes.

And for the most part, I would say that Google & MSN are probably the two sites with the highest uptime rating. Maybe MySpace too?

Please do research before making uneducated statements. Google and MSN have had downtime in the past. They keep it to a minimum by using geographical load balancing, because downtime at individual datacenters can and does happen quite frequently.

MySpace? That site is up and down more than a yo-yo.

I agree with others here, such as Bob and Tina, whom understand the importance of having a communications channel offsite. It has nothing to do with confidence... just good planning.

Please do research before making uneducated statements. Google and MSN have had downtime in the past. They keep it to a minimum by using geographical load balancing, because downtime at individual datacenters can and does happen quite frequently.

MySpace? That site is up and down more than a yo-yo.

I agree with others here, such as Bob and Tina, whom understand the importance of having a communications channel offsite. It has nothing to do with confidence... just good planning.


If has everything to do with how much you value your business and your customers. The rest of you with your "opinion" about how great your services are.... I'm sure we'll see a thread in the downtime forum "My site is gone and I can't get to xx*********** to open a ticket"

A 100% reliable network with 100% reliable servers...point me in that direction, please. I don't think such a beast exists. I'm not talking about a 100% guarantee or SLA...I'm talking 100% uptime all the time. Unless your site is on this magical providers network/servers, you better have a contingency plan.

--Tina
Trust me. It's possible and it surely exists.

The way to do this would be to build out your network twice. Yes, that means setting up two identical networks - meaning you'd have two gigabit/fast ethernets going to each server. If you deploy some extreme (D)DoS protection along with some very high capacity routers (Juniper M320s ;)), then you can even withstand some of the largest (D)DoS attacks, too.

The servers part is rather simple, too, just simply cluster them ;) (with everything redundant of course).

You could even build this all underground, if you're paranoid of a nuke hitting the data center.

Heck, if you really want you can build out your network 3 times ;-).

Please do not try to tell me there is no such thing as a 100% uptime network. I can definitely say that it is possible.

You cannot guarantee that your inbound routes will be 100%, but you can guarantee your outbound.

Thanks,

You cannot guarantee that your inbound routes will be 100%, but you can guarantee your outbound.
What good is outbound without inbound? You need both to communicate.

You cannot guarantee that your inbound routes will be 100%, but you can guarantee your outbound.

And there's your reason right there... some things are just out of your control, and thus you can't guarantee 100% uptime. Banks and large corporations spend millions of dollars to achieve 99.999% uptime, and even then they don't expect "100%".

Trust me. It's possible and it surely exists.

Please do not try to tell me there is no such thing as a 100% uptime network. I can definitely say that it is possible.


There's a difference between it being possible...and it actually existing.

--Tina

When is the firing squad taking place, haha you guys are great. Go batter up some of the page 1 folks. lol
There's no firing squad here. This is a discussion, and if you listened, you might learn something new. AH-Tina and Techark have enormous hosting experience and success, so when they speak, you'd do well to listen. :)

what is the correct answer to win the 1.52 Million $$$ :D

We host our site within our clients servers!

We host our site within our clients servers!


How do you contact your clients when the server is down, to let them know why they are down?

--Tina

How do you contact your clients when the server is down, to let them know why they are down?

--Tina

We have dynamic DNS failover, and primary site hosted in two different servers ;)

Anyway Techark that is very thought out, do you and Bob put together these scenarios in your spare time ? hehe cheers !

Yes we do, any good business person would and does.

I think about possible downtime I think about backups strategies I think about disaster recovery I think about my own death, I try and think of all the things that can affect my business and my customers web sites.

I do not get it right all the time I make mistakes, but I learn from those mistakes and reformulate my plans and change them. It is an ever evolving thing, and I also take hints from people that have been in this business and are running successful hosting operations like Bob and Tina. When they speak I listen.

That is the beauty of WHT it is a place to learn from some of the best and the worst in the industry.

There is an old saying "The price of knowledge is free if you learn from others but can be very costly to gain from your own mistakes."

Cheers:lovewht:

<low crawl, ducking, M16 on safe>

If you've never run your own facility with multiple routers, multiple paths to and through your network, BGP, intelligent route control, redundant internal power, fully fault tolerant battery backup system, generators, and wired and wireless backbones, how can you "experienced" hosters claim that your way is better?

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Until you've experienced both ways, how can you judge, though?

My "experience" has been different. I've been doing this for 10 years now (yes, really, hosting since 1996 and large scale since 1998) and I've been failed over and over by DSL providers (can't post to any outside location), dial-up providers, phone companies, colocation providers, hosting companies, and you name-it, we've been let down by it. For my money, I **know** we can do it better than all those temp employee toting, big corporate, don't-give-a-hoot-about-what-you-think vendors that everyone seems to glorify. We spend a fortune in time and money on uptime in our facility and our customers are willing to pay for it. Go try to find a post by one of our customers who couldn't get ahold of us because of an outage. You may see one or two that might appear that way, but really they stem from the customer's Internet access being down (not us), they were calling outside business hours, and didn't bother to try the off-hours support. If our approach was wrong, you'd find at least one founded complaint at some point in the last 10 years, but you can't. And yet, WHT is filled with complaints about companies that split their hosting servers and communication platform between different servers. Go figure.

Think people! Putting your servers somewhere you aren't doesn't make them or you any safer. Statistically, you just have more outages to deal with because you have to concern yourself with the uptime of multiple networks and multiple facilities. If your office gets nuked, burnt, blown away, and etc. you're still unable to communicate with customers and you haven't gained anything. Your servers in a major datacenter aren't at any less risk of those major events. You just have less control over the risk factors for such events. Now, if you live in a hurricane/tornado alley, you'd be an idiot to put your servers at your location or anywhere near and in that case there might be something to be gained from putting your servers somewhere else.

For my money, I'd rather not dilute my efforts and instead focus all energy into making sure my customers don't experience downtime in the first place.

Oh no! You can't communicate during an outage! Bullhorky. Get a phone (a real one, not VOIP) and make damn sure you don't have an outage in the first place. Your customers that care will save your phone number somewhere so that they don't have to go look at your web site. Trust me, they will.

As to 100% uptime, it is very tough to achieve for any length of time more than 6 months, but it can be done with proper planning. To say otherwise is pure ignorance.

I have a phone, a real one.
But I am not going to put the onus on my customers to have to remember that number during an outage. Nor am I going to have to worry about several hundred customers calling at one time and getting a busy signal during an outage. Nor am I going to force my customer to use a off hours number different from the day time number since outages can happen anytime day or night.
Instead I am going to have a forum they can read and get updates and a help desk that they can access 24x7 .

And just for the record I am in a data center that provides multiple routers, multiple paths to and through the network, BGP, intelligent route control, redundant internal power, fully fault tolerant battery backup system, and generators.
In that data center sit my racks with some very nice Cisco switches APC backup power packs.

Every host in the end has to decide what is best for them and their clients, if yours are happy and you are happy, then more power to you.

For me and my clients I think communication is king and I want to make that communication as painless for my clients as I can, so I put my main server on another network in case something happens.

Personally it is not worth arguing over to each their own, I however do take exception to those that claim I must be trying to hide something or that I do not trust the network I put my clients on because I choose to put my communications server else where. I think my clients servers are in one of the best data centers around or they would not be there. My main server is where it is because I want my clients to be able to contact me in their worst moments and see I am there facing the music along side them.

. . . Oh no! You can't communicate during an outage! Bullhorky. Get a phone . . .
Good luck with thousands of clients trying to ring that in an outage. But wait, you're safe, because your phone number is only on your site, which is down. :D

I remember when NAC had an incident with a fire (if memory serves me correct), and the fire department shut down the power to their DC while they sorted it. These things do happen, but it was damn nice knowing that we could communicate this issue to our clients, because we were hosted elsewhere. So during that incident, the channels of communication were still open, between us and our clients. The clients were grateful to be kept in the loop, during this outage, and appreciated our off-network approach to our support system.

But hey, let's not argue about common sense. :peace:

Now what happens when that freak (earthquake/tornado/tsunami/hurricane/volcano) hits the data center and knocks everything out? What will the clients do? You have to have some way to tell them that their data is (in the center of the earth/embedded in a tree somewhere/all washed up/stuck in a stadium/molten).:smash:

Yeah, but what if the sun explodes? Maybe we should keep our backups on Mars? :smash:

Yeah, but what if the sun explodes? Maybe we should keep our backups on Mars? :smash:

Mars actually isnt far enough away....

Our own websites (as in sales/promo) on our regular servers. For our support website and infrastructure (announcements, helpdesk, etc) this is all on a different server colo'd elsewhere.

Why? For the same reason we have full RAID + backups to local HDD + backups to off server NAS (which some would class as overkill)... one can never take too many precations when it comes to data backup and disaster planning.

Unfortunately I've not had time to read the full thread but in the 50% I have read I'm in full agreement with Bob and Techark - in times of trouble, however rare they may be, it's made 100 times worse both for clients and at our side if the lines of communication are down also.

Yes we do, any good business person would and does.

I think about possible downtime I think about backups strategies I think about disaster recovery I think about my own death, I try and think of all the things that can affect my business and my customers web sites.

I do not get it right all the time I make mistakes, but I learn from those mistakes and reformulate my plans and change them. It is an ever evolving thing, and I also take hints from people that have been in this business and are running successful hosting operations like Bob and Tina. When they speak I listen.
Like you, I've found that I spend much of my time dreaming up scenarios and how to mitigate them. I feel it is my job to think and worry about these things in order to provide my customers piece of mind.

After much thought I realized that it was impossible for me to control every aspect of my operation as the nature of the internet requires you to rely on others. Even if I had the money, talent and desire to build my own datacenter, I would have to rely on Tier 1 providers as I certainly will never have my own fiber spanning the globe. So how can I offer solutions I don't really trust - since I don't have full control of them? Well I use datacenters I'm comfortable with but use our own custom software to reduce downtime - even if a whole datacenter is out. It is similar to Google's approach of using ordinary boxes and building redundancy in the software (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112891,00.asp). Therefore, at the end I'm offering our platform and our services and not a given server or even network.

In the internet you have to rely on other companies’ services. It is out job to worry about possible problems and have contingency plans. I feel it is wise to have your main site in another datacenter - who owns the network and even server is not an issue.
That is the beauty of WHT it is a place to learn from some of the best and the worst in the industry.

There is an old saying "The price of knowledge is free if you learn from others but can be very costly to gain from your own mistakes."
Totally agree. As an example, how many of you use the same domain name for your primary and secondary DNS (i.e. - ns1.yourcompany.com, ns1.yourcompany.com)? It was here that I learned of a whole datacenter going out because there was some problem with the host and the registrar. I have noted the possibility of this happening and plan on using different domain names with different registrars for DNS in the future.

There's a difference between it being possible...and it actually existing.

--Tina
Well RackSpace seems to have constructed an infastructure close to that of what I described . . .

And just for the record I am in a data center that provides multiple routers, multiple paths to and through the network, BGP, intelligent route control, redundant internal power, fully fault tolerant battery backup system, and generators.
In that data center sit my racks with some very nice Cisco switches APC backup power packs.


I'm sorry to rain on your little parade here, but I guarantee you that there is at least one SPOF in GNAX's network.

It is not redundant.

Well RackSpace seems to have constructed an infastructure close to that of what I described . . .
Even so, I'd still want an off-network server for support. But that's just me. :peace:

Well RackSpace seems to have constructed an infastructure close to that of what I described . . .


So? Close to 100% uptime across networks/servers is NOT 100% uptime.

--Tina

So? Close to 100% uptime across networks/servers is NOT 100% uptime.

--Tina
RackSpace claims to have 100% uptime for over 4 years.

When I said 'close' I did not mean that they were only 'close' to the uptime (100%), I meant that their infastructure was close to what I described (if not even more extravagant).

Even so, I'd still want an off-network server for support. But that's just me. :peace:
Of course, I never said this should not be the case, but I still believe 100% uptime is possible on the network side.

Of course, I never said this should not be the case, but I still believe 100% uptime is possible on the network side.

You're completely missing or avoiding the whole point of this conversation. This conversation isn't about how to build an "almost 100%" network or how you can have "really close to 100% uptime", etc.

The point is, its irresponsible not to have a way to contact your customers if the server/network that their accounts are on fails. If you put your own site/email on the same server/network as your customers and it fails, that's going to leave a whole lot of worried customers wondering what the heck happened...and you with no way to contact them.

--Tina

Well RackSpace seems to have constructed an infastructure close to that of what I described . . .
The thread has slowly been shifting from "servers" (per the OP), to servers and network, to just network.

I've dealt with Rackspace before and they do seem to have a solid network. However, it is interesting to note that they generally guarantee only their network with a one to two hour replacement on hardware counting from the time hardware failure is confirmed (which is standard for dedicated server providers). However, if you want them to guarantee higher uptime, they do offer up to 99.9% SLA on their network, hardware and even the application. But you must have servers in at least two of their three datacenters and it is very expensive. I believe they now even have a 100% on the network and hardware, but I've not asked about it.

Also note that it is just an SLA (Service Level Agreement). In the event that they do not meet the level of service they agreed upon they start giving you money back. They cannot guarantee that your site will be up regardless what happens.

The point is that this highly reputed company with a solid network still realizes that things can go wrong and recommends the use of several datacenters for high availability.

Sources: http://www.rackspace.com/solutions/managedsla.php and various quotes for projects I've worked on.

Of course, I never said this should not be the case, but I still believe 100% uptime is possible on the network side.
Even if 100% network uptime existed (and IMO it can't), I still wouldn't risk it.

Techark said it best -
Personally it is not worth arguing over to each their own, I however do take exception to those that claim I must be trying to hide something or that I do not trust the network I put my clients on because I choose to put my communications server else where.
Bold by me

Yup. It all boils down to whether or not you want to put all of your eggs in one basket. Personally, I do not.

--Tina

The thread has slowly been shifting from "servers" (per the OP), to servers and network, to just network.

I've dealt with Rackspace before and they do seem to have a solid network. However, it is interesting to note that they generally guarantee only their network with a one to two hour replacement on hardware counting from the time hardware failure is confirmed (which is standard for dedicated server providers). However, if you want them to guarantee higher uptime, they do offer up to 99.9% SLA on their network, hardware and even the application. But you must have servers in at least two of their three datacenters and it is very expensive. I believe they now even have a 100% on the network and hardware, but I've not asked about it.

Also note that it is just an SLA (Service Level Agreement). In the event that they do not meet the level of service they agreed upon they start giving you money back. They cannot guarantee that your site will be up regardless what happens.

The point is that this highly reputed company with a solid network still realizes that things can go wrong and recommends the use of several datacenters for high availability.

Sources: http://www.rackspace.com/solutions/managedsla.php and various quotes for projects I've worked on.
If you get a clustered setup from RackSpace geared towards maximum uptime, you should never have a problem.

The point is, its irresponsible not to have a way to contact your customers if the server/network that their accounts are on fails. If you put your own site/email on the same server/network as your customers and it fails, that's going to leave a whole lot of worried customers wondering what the heck happened...and you with no way to contact them.

--Tina
If your network is setup in such a way that it never fails, then such a case will not even happen.

Now your all worrying about not being able to contact your customers; I don't want to go off-thread here but I've seen some good methods implemented by some companies.

My old host used to have an IRC channel and on the rare occassion they had a network problem the channel would be swarmed with people and live updates would be pasted to the channel by the owners/admins. If you join a bigger network such as quakenet you can be ensured of uptime from the ammount of servers networked (from eu to usa).

Another idea would be to keep some of your more important clients on msn, or even all of them if you have a dedicated address; it is very rare a high profile company such as msn to take downtime.

Now your all worrying about not being able to contact your customers; I don't want to go off-thread here but I've seen some good methods implemented by some companies.

My old host used to have an IRC channel and on the rare occassion they had a network problem the channel would be swarmed with people and live updates would be pasted to the channel by the owners/admins. If you join a bigger network such as quakenet you can be ensured of uptime from the ammount of servers networked (from eu to usa).

Another idea would be to keep some of your more important clients on msn, or even all of them if you have a dedicated address; it is very rare a high profile company such as msn to take downtime.


Yes, an off-site/off-network IRC server is one method and would be separated from your own server/network in the event of an outage. That can go hand-in-hand with having your own site/email hosted off-site/off-network as well. Both excellent methods.

MSN isn't practical if you have 1000s of customers. Heck, I can't even keep up with chatting with 10 people at a time...let alone 1000s! :D

--Tina

Our own servers, why would you go with another host if you are a provider yourself? Our website is on a totally different network to our clients, which means if ever the event of downtime, we would still be contactable online.

Our own servers, why would you go with another host if you are a provider yourself? Our website is on a totally different network to our clients, which means if ever the event of downtime, we would still be contactable online.

The testimonial on your website, from a customer, and your domain are both on the same network/netblock. Not trying to be rude, just was curious to see which 2 networks you use and noticed that.

--Tina

We chose to host on servers that we don't own. Web Hosting isn't at the moment our largest venture and the sites that we host on our servers are low bandwidth. The primary use of the servers are for Gaming Servers. So I supose there is a reason for this.