Results 1 to 10 of 10
  1. #1

    * Getting deperate. Need server management for a medium traffic server.

    Well, as the title says - I'm getting desperate.

    We have gone through three service providers now to manage 3 dedicated servers/VPS.

    The first had response times of 4 hours on critical incidents.

    The second was great first, then service detoriated. After complaining they apologized saying that "most of their sysadmins were on holiday." No kidding.

    Now we are on the third. Presales was excellent. Setup was great. The helpdesk system works. But they just can't manage to keep servers up. Actually, they email us to reboot the server when it's down.

    Is it me who has unrealistic expectations? I have managed an outsourced support organization for the past 5 years. I don't think I demand too much.

    What we need is:
    - A reaction time of 15 minutes on critical incidents. This pretty much everyone can handle.
    - Service level monitoring that notifies us as well. Okay for everyone.
    - A decent helpdesk system where I don't have to enter passwords and IPs each time I open a ticket. 30% fail on this.
    - An ACK once they start working on a problem. Otherwise we don't know if they are actually working on something or not. Another 50% fail on this.
    - Defined update intervals on critical incidents (like every 20 minutes for first hour, then hourly). At least this is how I run my organization.
    - Root cause analysis after critical incidents. I don't need to pay a sysadmin to reboot a server when it's down. The underlying problems need to be fixed.
    - If the server is at capacity, I need some intelligent suggestions on upgrades, and not just "the server needs more memory".

    BTW, these are standard LAMP servers. I can't have managed servers because they need to be in certain locations where no managed service is available.

    Can you give any recommendations and also advice what kind of budgets I should factor in for good service?

    It would be much appreciated because I'm starting to loose my hair over this!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    Orlando, FL
    Posts
    1,063
    How many "critical" incidents have you had? Do you have something very customized? If things are setup correctly you shouldn't have any major problems.

    Your title says "need server management" but later you say, " I can't have managed servers because they need to be in certain locations where no managed service is available."

    Are you saying you are looking for a 3rd party to manage the servers you already have?

  3. #3
    Sorry for the misunderstanding - I meant to say: We can't have the servers managed by the datacenter because they are in locations where only unmanaged servers are available. That's why we need outsourced server management.

    In the last 3 days we had each day downtimes of 10-15 minutes (the time it took US to notice the downtime and reboot).

    These are plain LAMP configurations with Drupal sites.

  4. #4
    Try Cliff Support. They have a guaranteed 30 minute response time, but usually within 15 minutes.
    IcyBlueHost
    Home of the average 15 minute response time!
    Rvskins - Sitebuilder - Resell Reseller Accounts

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Posts
    652
    Have you tried contacting Rack911 (www.rack911.com) for management solutions?

  6. #6
    It sounds like the people you're dealing with don't have great support. How much are you paying for your solution? You mention at the end of your post that you'd like a suggestion for your budget, and you've probably hit on the problem here, which is that you may simply not be paying enough money to get a decent managed service. If you've gone through 3 suppliers and none of them met your requirements then this seems likely.

    You really do get what you pay for with Managed Hosting. The most important thing is the SLA, so always go through this very carefully when looking at working with a new provider. This is what you pay for more than the technology, storage, bandwidth and all the other technical aspects.

    Good luck.

  7. #7
    Hello,
    welcome
    I advise you to Company Laswa Technologies for server management (laswatech.com)Company very cooperative and Distinctive and wonderful and I had some problems a while ago, the problems solution
    Company also quick responses to solve problems and the price is cheap,
    Was a great experience and even now my relationship that I'm great, although from an country Arab I have no relationship

  8. #8
    Budget is key for this, I'd expect $100 per server or there abouts.

    What type of critical incidents were they ?

    What OS ?

    What control panel if any ?
    Data Republic - UK Managed Servers - Server Management - Managed Backup/R1Soft
    Follow us on Twitter to get exclusive sales & updates.
    R1Soft Agents Monthly !

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    1,431
    Are your downtimes always that frequent ? it seems pretty unstable if they are.

    You may want to look at tuning your servers to see if that stops the downtimes.

    It may just boil down to a tweak here and optimize there.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Netherlands
    Posts
    1,435
    Quote Originally Posted by LiquidBlueX View Post
    Try Cliff Support. They have a guaranteed 30 minute response time, but usually within 15 minutes.
    You couldn't go wrong with these guys. I can vouch for David and his team.

    I'm sure you can get a customized solution at the rate of 100 USD/server/month. If you are budget is lower than this, then your expecting something that is not available in this world.

Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 0
    Last Post: 12-24-2007, 06:12 AM
  2. 1 Hardcore server or 2 medium servers? For heavy traffic site
    By viettechorg in forum Dedicated Server
    Replies: 14
    Last Post: 10-19-2007, 01:20 PM
  3. Replies: 0
    Last Post: 10-13-2007, 02:27 AM
  4. Medium Sized/Medium Traffic, multi-site host?
    By tertius in forum Web Hosting
    Replies: 13
    Last Post: 07-06-2006, 10:29 AM
  5. AcuNett, LLC Server Management | The Standard in Server Management
    By AcuNett in forum Other Web Hosting Related Offers
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 04-27-2006, 03:21 AM

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •