I got this in my email today, can anybody tell me where they are moving too? another VDI server farm or somewhere else this is a big issue for me as VDI provides excellent speed:

Dear Valued Site5 Customer,

As you may have noticed, we experienced a major network outage today. This was not a problem which was caused by Site5, but rather our upstream bandwidth provider. They experienced technical difficulties with their main Internet router, which caused the entire network (approximately 70,000) websites to be inaccessible for nearly nine hours today. This outage affected over 350 different web hosting companies.

While we are not directly responsible for this network outage, we do understand that this type of downtime is not what our customers expect from Site5, and we apologize for any inconvenience that it may have caused you. We have elected to move to a new data center which will allow us to continue to provide you with the exceptional service that you have grown to expect from Site5. The preparations for this move are complete, and it is scheduled to happen at approximately 9:00 AM Pacific time Saturday March 17th. We will inform you if this schedule changes or the move is delayed.

This move will entail transferring all servers owned by Site5 to a new facility located approximately 25 miles away from the current one. We will send all customers information about the new data center once the transfer has been completed. Suffice to say that we are certain that this new data center will allow us to provide you with superior service and speed.

We already have the necessary racks and wiring prepared at the new facilities, and upon arrival the machines will be plugged into the new network. Our system administrators will immediately begin the second stage of the transfer process once the servers are online at the new facilities.

In addition, all sites will be assigned a new IP address once on the new network. We will email all customers a new IP address before the transfer takes place. This will allow you to monitor your site to see exactly when it comes back online.

We expect this transfer to last at least 2 hours, and possibly up to 10 depending on how quickly the new DNS settings are propagated. We would like to thank you in advance for your patience while we make this one-time transfer. Please understand that we do, as always, have your best interests in mind.

Please note that we will be taking the helpdesk offline until the transfer procedure has been completed. We will be replacing it with an informational page explaining the transfer process. Once we have completed this move, we will bring the helpdesk online once again so that you may notify us of any problems that you are experiencing.

Once again we would like to thank you for your support, patience and understanding.

Best Regards,
Site5 Executive Staff
management@site5.com

Site5 is on VDI right?

Geez, Alabanza last week, VDI this week. The net is a crappy place to be right now isn't it...

Greg Moore

Yes, it is a crappy place, and findind the "perfect' NOC is still harder that winning the Lottery

Well, I could have moved my site elsewhere just as easy, and I chose not to. I don't see what jumping ship is going to accomplish, other than more headaches for me, the customer.

I think I've been pretty damn tolerant thus far.

I'm not angry at anyone per se, including Site5. I just can't afford for this transition to impact my viewers any more than the problems at the end of this week already have. The limit has been reached.

I don't feel the need to give a big sentimental lecture on how important speed and reliability are. We all know downtime is unacceptable.

Sometimes fixing one problem only leads to bigger problems or the problem you thought you indentified was only a symptom of the real problem.

I guess I'll soon find out.

Site5's always appeared to be a fairly responsible host to me, just from reading this forum, so I don't think they'd have gone ahead with such a big move unless they thought it was serious enough to warrant it. Jumping ship 'virtually' just moving sites is hard enough. Doing it with hardware must be a nightmare :)

Matt from Site5 posts here a fair bit so hopefully he gets a chance to let you and everyone else involved how everything is going.

Greg Moore

Good news people the network center they are moving to was 10ms faster in a PING for me :-)

here is where we are moving too. has anybody had any experience with them?

http://www.nac.net

Can anybody tell me more details about nac.net please? Are they any good? What are they speedwise? Light a candle I'm in the dark...

Uhh, faster ping times does not mean a better NOC.

For those looking at NAC, I think this link bears consideration:

http://www.spamhaus.org/spammers.lasso?-database=spamhaus.fp3&-layout=list&-maxrecords=50&-response=spamhaus.lasso&-noresultserror=norecords.html&-operator=eq&upstream=%22NAC.NET%22&status=live&-sortfield=hosted_by&-search

And this one:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=nac.net&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rnum=4&seld=916513548&ic=1

Personally, I am not located at VDI, but I see little reason to throw this on VDI. They had two redundant connections fail at the same time. Rare, but seemed to have happen. You could easily go from bad to worse. It appears that NAC may be worse.

I think the move was planned, way before the outage. The outage just co-incided with it.

Is this the same noc that jason from pweb is using?

Originally posted by akashik
Site5 is on VDI right?

Geez, Alabanza last week, VDI this week. The net is a crappy place to be right now isn't it...

Greg Moore

Oh please, Alabanza's little problem last week was nothing like VDI's 9 hours of downtime.

I think Site5 is doing the right thing but I doubt they decided to move yesterday as a direct result of the downtime.

Greetings All,

I would just like to clear some things up. Our reasons for moving to a new data center are not at all based on the recent downtime that VDI experienced. We had desperately hoped that a thread like this would not come about, as it would lead to all sorts of unfounded speculation regarding our reasons for moving. Unfortunately I see that is not the case...

VDI remains to be and always has been an outstanding provider. Please realize that the internet is not yet perfect, and problems do arise. Fortunately their able staff is always able to resolve them quickly. I would like to take this time to publicly thank everyone at VDI for all the hard work and dedication they have shown.

Everyone here needs to realize that these outages were NOT what caused us to plan this move. We have been negotiating with and researching this new NOC for nearly two months now, and had already signed contracts to complete the move BEFORE these outages occurred.

Once again... VDI is an exceptional co-location provider (I really do mean that). However... that does not mean that they are the best provider for every hosing company in existence. Diversity is what makes the Internet so interesting. Site5's needs at this time are simply different from many other hosting companies, and you must trust that we have well-founded reasons for switching data centers.

I'd like to thank everyone for their support. It is greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Matt Lightner
mlightner@site5.com

[Edited by Site5-Matt on 03-17-2001 at 12:37 PM]

Matt, I didn't mean to cause a big forum, just wanted to find out about our new NOC room :-)

Oh please, Alabanza's little problem last week was nothing like VDI's 9 hours of downtime.
[/B]

I agree - we're on Alabanza ourselves. My light hearted statement was merely in reaction to the general state of the connectiveness of the net in the States right now.

Greg Moore

and you must trust that we have well-founded reasons for switching data centers.


Matt,

I don't think you have to worry about that too much. I'm sure I speak for most of the people here when I say you've always struck me personally as a responsible, level headed type. :) I just read my second post in this thread and it may have seemed to presume the move was 'outage related'. It wasn't my intention, and I apologie if it sounded that way.

Greg Moore

This is not intended to relate to Site5's move, but for others that are looking at alternatives, I would like to hear comments on the two links I posted that indicate that NAC is a spam haven. Newsgroup searchs also show that 50 percent of the posts about them are complaints about spam coming from that NOC.

In nac once a spammer is located they are turned off immediatly and the box is shipped back to them. Spammers are short lived.

Nac.net? Hmm when I was at another hosting firm no name needed we had a few servers at Nac.net with Jay and they had a 6 hour down time there selfs ths is not to say nac is bad or Jay but it just goes to show it can happen any place you go.

Ok .. so if I plug that cable modem into port 1, order another calble modem and plug it into port 2, somehow combine the speed ... and ...

hummmmm ... the RegoNOC ... where "You only slow down when my wife gets her email" (tons of SPAM)

If the move wasn't directly related to VDI's problem, why include the subject of moving in the SAME paragraph talking about the outage?

Of course customers are going to presume the two events are related. That's the way Site5 constructed the notice. If that wasn't what Site5 wanted customers to believe, Site5 should have explicitly said different.

I signed up with Site5 to be at VDI. Not NAC. So, you didn't hear me gripe when VDI had problems because it was my choice. This move, well...

Paul,

I dont' recall at anytime we had downtime for 6 hours while you were with us. We have every bit of network downtime, on record and at no time in the last 2 months where we down for more than 10 or 15 min because of one provider or so we had to turn off provider connection or two at times for a period of time. But the other 14 or so connections were still up and happy.

Well I know it was.. the servers where moved back to VDI after that down time with you. I did not keep the record of it but I am sure you recall it.

Like I said in my other post I did not say you had a bad NOC or nothing just makeing the point it can happen at any NOC.

Actually they were moved back to VDI, because cpanel was still $200 a license outside of VDI and the costs per server thus was too high. NOt because of downtime. The servers weren't even operational while they were with us.

so jason, your company operates inside the nac.net right? so do you own hardware in their noc or how does it work?

We have our own routers, switchs, staff, and such inside nac.net, we buy connectivity from nac, and we will soon be multihomed off of nac and another provider shortly. Pretty much we are a step above standard colocation but a step below our own noc. In about a month or so we will be building out our own room in the same building as nac. (Our current offices are across the hall from NACs NOC, so I walk out my office door, I walk right into the NOC).

Nac themselves have over 15 diverse providers, right now.

Very impressive...

I would like to think so. Soon for our future high bandwidth customrs we are developing a second network based off of qwest and level3 and an emergency fail over to nac. For 5 Meg plus customers with pricing hopefully starting at $325 a meg and going down.
Most likely the price will be more like $275 per meg and going down.

Those spam complaints that marty mentioned. If you try to ping them they are no longer online or active and have not been active since 2000. Those records need to be updated.

Jay i notice you use chat1-2-1 vs humanclick or livehelper, do you find i better? I'm trying to decided, so far I like livehelper, what do you think of chat1-2-1?

This really isnt that big of a deal, smaller size hosting companies switch around NOC's to try and save money fairly often. From what I heard Site5 only has like 5-6 servers. This isn't like its VDI's flagship hosting company bailing out.

It is better for us, because we use linux workstation for our UNIX dept. This enables them to field questions, instead of being bound to a win machiens like some of hte ohters.

I noticed alot of service outages with them?

Were you reading the netwok updates pages. Those aren't outages you are reading them wrong. For instace on feb 15 2001. They aren't down, traffic was rerouted of a another linkup. Just that link was down, not nac. That was the only day in feb with any real network latency, not down. And if you look in janurary, there was only 2 days, where there was network latency, and NOT downtime. We havn't had any "downtime" in a year or so. But there is and always will be latency at times due to fiber problems, routers, and DoS attacks. But very very little downtime.

ascender445

Actually site5 is paying more with us than at VDI.

Site 5 was not a VDI client :)

jayglate Wrote:


Were you reading the netwok updates pages. Those aren't outages you are reading them wrong. For instace on feb 15 2001. They aren't down, traffic was rerouted of a another linkup. Just that link was down, not nac. That was the only day in feb with any real network latency, not down. And if you look in janurary, there was only 2 days, where there was network latency, and NOT downtime. We havn't had any "downtime" in a year or so. But there is and always will be latency at times due to fiber problems, routers, and DoS attacks. But very very little downtime.


There will not always be latency. Latency is based on your backbone being oversubscribed and there peering network.

If you have a non-oversubscribed backbone, latency does not exist.

Originally posted by William
Site 5 was not a VDI client :)

So you are saying Site5 was never with VDI?

No, site 5 was hosting under another company. Site5 was not paying VDI for it`s services, They were paying another company here. I`m very upset that site5 has left, but i was not informed till the day of the move.

I personly care about every client here in the VDI NOC, and if anyone is unhappy, feel free to scream our way.

wjensen@vdi.net is always the best please to send any issues.

[Edited by William on 03-18-2001 at 10:01 PM]

I think this illustrates something else about the move. That is, they weren't directly collocated with VDI, but a company on VDI (a middle man). So, with this move, it appears to me, that they are moving up (so to speak) in how the server is hosted -- and directly dealing with the data center, rather than a company that's hosted on a data center and going through them. (I don't see why anyone would go through a hosting company on a NOC anyway, when they can just collocate at directly the NOC themselves anyway, why add to possible problems?).

So, they are improving their service by the move, not because the other NOC is better per se, but because they are in a better position for themselves with this difference. I'd suggest people looking to collocate at VDI, do just that and collocate at VDI, not a company within and on VDI's network. You'd likely save more money and definitely have less hassle. Unless, of course, you need someone to set up and run the server for you, in which case you likely have no business running a hosting service. I say, get the most out of your money and service, and cut out the middle man. :-)

William, you are not the only one.

Site 5 was not a VDI client

This is correct. We were actually co-located through http://www.liquidweb.com/ (In a somewhat strange arrangement). At any rate, we received excellent pricing from them. This could be due to the fact that we have our own system administrators, however we still highly recommend them as a co-location/dedicated provider.

Tim: Site5 appreciates the fact that you referred to us as a "them" instead of a "he". ;)

Regards,
Matt Lightner


[Edited by Site5-Matt on 03-18-2001 at 09:57 PM]

Originally posted by Site5-Matt

Tim: Site5 appreciates the fact that you referred to us as a "them" instead of a "he". ;)

Regards,
Matt Lightner


Jokes on you, Matt! I even refer to myself as "them" and "us" and "we". I bet you didn't know that about us? :-) I'm a man of few words, but many personalities, do the math.

We don't find that very funny guys. :D

Matt

Originally posted by Site5-Matt
We don't find that very funny guys. :D

Matt

Would you like to hear our theory on potatoes and the universal key to existence? I have other vegetable tales too. If you only heard my lemon theory, you'd live life differently, I promise you.

[In my best super hero voice] Behold my power! For, I am Off-Topic man!

BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Play nicely everyone...!!!!!!!

BAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by jayglate
BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Play nicely everyone...!!!!!!!

BAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, looks like *someone* is jealous that he doesn't have the constant voices as a companion.

Holy bad idea, Batman! Do you think it's a good idea to have things next to people's names that indicate they are better or less experienced with web hosting, based on how many posts they submit? I went from a Wanna-be hosting guru, to a web board addict, and my next step up, is a Junior Web hosting "guru"? Maybe I should post 3,000+ nonsense posts, like I am now, and look really qualified? Any ideas on how to reset this counter? Maybe I can break into WHT's database, delete all of Dan's posts and make myself the master of the WHT universe? Oh, wait... (Now, THAT is a conversation starter!!)

Originally posted by Site5-Matt

Site 5 was not a VDI client

This is correct. We were actually co-located through http://www.liquidweb.com/ (In a somewhat strange arrangement). At any rate, we received excellent pricing from them. This could be due to the fact that we have our own system administrators, however we still highly recommend them as a co-location/dedicated provider.

Tim: Site5 appreciates the fact that you referred to us as a "them" instead of a "he". ;)

Regards,
Matt Lightner


[Edited by Site5-Matt on 03-18-2001 at 09:57 PM]

Interesting....