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  1. #1

    Question Is there a way to guarantee NO DOWNTIME

    I am starting a reseller hosting company. I am very much concerned about the downtime and want that it doesn't happen for a second also.

    Is there a way to host my websites with two different hosting providers of separate geographical locations? Can I use nameservers of two hosting providers so that if one goes down, another works? If this does not work, can someone tell me any other way of having No Downtime?

  2. #2
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    Actually there is no guarantee.No one can guarantee that.
    They can only guarantee a refund if a downtime occures.

    only use nameservers of two providers when changing your host which would let you have very minimal downtime instead of waiting your nameservers get propagated in 1,2 days.

    i think using them always would let you have more dowtimes.
    Think like that.while using a providers namservers your domain name points those ips.Every isp's dns cache are updated so that they know your domain points to a ip.If your host gets down then your domain would point to the other name server.Its ok but what about all the isp's dns cache?? you have to wait their dns cache get updated again so that your domain name points to the new nameserver.This would cause downtime.

    Hope i could be clear


  3. #3
    There is no way to guarantee zero downtime without diluting the definition of uptime so badly that it's laughable.

    Aim for zero downtime but don't be surprised when it doesn't happen. There are too many factors that are out of your control.
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  4. #4
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    You can get a few machines and have them as failsafes... so if one goes down another will be there. Sorta how RAID does with hard disks, only you're doing it with your data.

    Can you gaurantee it? No, can you make it where it'd have as high of a chance as an earthquake hitting ? Yes, but it costs a lot of money.
    What does one host say to the other? "(HostA) Want to go see a movie?" "(HostB) Sure, can your parents drive?"

    I'm premium, and no, I did not have to pay $6 a month to figure that out.

  5. #5
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    Is there a way to guarantee NO DOWNTIME?

    Good question, this is also my very firsy question I asked when I first learned TCP/IP networking stuff.

    Downtime can be minimized, but can't be guarantee that it wouldn't happen.

    As DarktidesNET said, you probably have to spend quite a lot of money to minimize your downtime to almost zero. Servers for load balancing, connection from different carriers, and you need a router that never died.

  6. #6
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    Governments, banks and finance companies spend MILLIONS just making sure their hardware never goes down... yet it still does.

    I know one bank where their expected downtime was about 5 minutes downtime every 20 years or something that sounded rediculous. I also know it went down for 11 minutes once and the head sysadmin lost his job (very high paying) over it.
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  7. #7
    Originally posted by ice53ltd
    Governments, banks and finance companies spend MILLIONS just making sure their hardware never goes down... yet it still does.

    I know one bank where their expected downtime was about 5 minutes downtime every 20 years or something that sounded rediculous. I also know it went down for 11 minutes once and the head sysadmin lost his job (very high paying) over it.
    interesting story
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  8. #8
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    Aim for 100% uptime, just don't expect it or lead your customers to expect it. There are thousands of variables in situations that can result in downtime, and no way to defend against everything.

  9. #9
    Greetings:

    100% "server" up time can be extremely expensive.

    99.999% is more doable especially when you get into hardware load balancing at a premium data center.

    Take care.
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  10. #10
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    I think that neokumar is thinking of redundancy rather than 100% absolute uptime.

    To do that with a single website is quite practical and cost effective, with one nameserver pointed to one server and another nameserver pointed to another server so that a failure on one server results in redirection of traffic to another server. Mirroring would keep dynamic websites synchronized. To be extra cautious, one would have a site on one server at a data center at one end of the country and the other site on a server at a data center at the other end of the country, to avoid yesterday's NAC problem.

    You would not expect both servers to be down at the same time, hardly ever. That would be "no downtime" in the common sense, if not in the absolute sense (for example, simultaneous disasters at both data centers).

    You could be even more cautious and have a third nameserver and third server in a data center in another country. Fourth. Fifth. Etc., etc.

    Could this be done automatically for resold accounts? Sure. It would be more costly and labor-intensive to set up than plain vanilla reseller accounts, and one would charge accordingly.

    Possible clients would include businesses with mission critical server needs, especially email -- law firms, doctors' offices, etc., etc. Perhaps real estate firms that would pay extra so as not to lose or delay a single sale due to server downtime.

    I think it's doable.

  11. #11
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    is it rackspace 100% guarantee ?
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  12. #12
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    Cove, true, true, but I don't think he wants to spend many thousands of dollars on that

  13. #13
    I like cove's suggestion. How practical is it?

  14. #14
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    Originally posted by TalonKarrde
    Cove, true, true, but I don't think he wants to spend many thousands of dollars on that
    The cost isn't all that much. Basically, just double the cost for one redundant backup, triple the cost for two, etc. A little extra for IP addresses and data transfer for mirroring. All is passed along to clients that can afford the redundancy and you profit accordingly.

    The $10/month client website goes to, say, $25/month or $35/month.

    What is the greatest cost of a website/email? Downtime. That's how you market your services to the niche of clients that really cannot afford downtime. For lots of professional offices and ecommerce sites the cost is peanuts.

  15. #15
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    Hi
    Cove's option is the one that I was thinking about.

    I'm a reseller, 7 days a go, after 1 year of reasonably good server uptime, I had 48Hr downtime.... all went nuts!!, I couldn't sleep...
    It was something about a router(Network Issue) said my Hoster.
    ... your company practically stops, it didn't exist for 48Hrs.
    Thank God didn't lose any customers, some of them even paid for some invoices they had due thinking that I was suspending their service

    So That make me think/look for a way of reducting downtime problem.

    Now, I'm just a simple No Network skills reseller, but I have no problem in signing up for a Secondary hoster if that gives more Uptime.
    The thing is that, as far as I've read this forum, there are issues about having 3rd and 4rt NameServer...

    My question is:
    Does somebody knows How can I do the follwing:
    Have same resellold accounts working in 2 Hosters(diferrent DataCenter), in such a way that, if the Main Hoster went down, the secondary just keeps working..., so the customers just keep using e-mails and websites not knowing that the "Emergency account" has taking charge.
    therefore again.. this bring up other issues, I don't know if is about Mirroring, Replica, etc. but I think it would need to be some mechanism of reflecting all the things that are done in the main server to the Secondary(If the customer creates a new email account, etc.).

    So, I think you get the idea of my obective, I don't know what would be the way but...
    Have someOne done this? with simple reseller accounts?

    I don't mind if there are some thing that I would need to do manually, as far they were minimal or managable.

    Thank you

    Jagarco

  16. #16
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    Ah, Cove, I misinterpreted your post, was last night and I was tired, lots of work to do before summer. I read over it more carefully this time and understand what you meant.

    Good suggestion, I think I might try that and offer the services at a premium.

  17. #17

    Cool

    Here is one host that guarantees 100% uptime and the pricing isn't to extreme.
    Don't know if their uptime is really 100%, haven't use them.

    http://www.spiralhost.com

  18. #18
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    Originally posted by thelegend
    Here is one host that guarantees 100% uptime and the pricing isn't to extreme.
    Don't know if their uptime is really 100%, haven't use them.

    http://www.spiralhost.com
    A guarantee of uptime does NOT mean that there will be uptime. It merely means that in the event of downtime there is some consequence, usually a trivial refund of hosting fees. Most of us don't want the refund. We want uptime. Take jagarco's 48 hours of downtime. A pro-rated refund would be 2/30ths (6.66%) of a month's hosting fee per website. But the customers don't want a refund of 6.66% of a month's hosting fee. They want uptime or they will go elsewhere.

    That is why I really don't give a rat's patootie about any guarantees. It's uptime that counts. That's why I really like hosts that publicize Alertra stats.

    Here is the guarantee that spiralhost offers:

    6. SpiralHost Obligations

    6.1 100% Network Uptime Guarantee - SpiralHost will provide 100% uninterrupted transit to the Internet to all hosting customers who have purchased said service from SpiralHost. Should transit to the Internet become unavailable for a cumulative period up to one hour in any one calendar month, Customer will receive a refund equivalent to one day of Customer's pro-rated Recurring Monthly Fees for that month.

    Customer will receive an additional refund of one day of the pro-rated Recurring Monthly Fees for each additional hour, or portion thereof, of unavailability. All refund calculations will be based on unavailability in one-hour increments. This agreement does not cover outages caused by server component failure, equipment and/or events outside our facility. This Service Level Agreement does not cover outages due to scheduled or emergency network and/or facility maintenance, which will be broadcast to all customers in advance.

    Any and all refunds to Customer will not exceed 50% of the Customer's Recurring Monthly Fees for the month in which the refund is paid.

    6.2 Performance Guarantee - SpiralHost will maintain its network in such a manner as to provide to all customers the best possible performance to the Internet. In order to achieve this SpiralHost makes the following guarantees to all paying customers:
    100% guaranteed uninterrupted transit to the Internet
    Zero packet loss internal to SpiralHost network
    In addition to the above performance guarantees, SpiralHost will take all possible measures to insure all Customer traffic reaches its destination in a timely fashion comparable and within reason to any other carrier in the area. These measures include the manipulation of routing tables so as to direct traffic to the Internet using its best possible upstream link.

    6.3 Temporary Suspension - The Customer agrees that it may be necessary for SpiralHost to temporarily suspend Services for technical reasons or to maintain the SpiralHost network, the Equipment or any other facilities, the timing of which will be as determined by SpiralHost. Such suspension of the Services will not be an "interruption" of the SpiralHost Services for the purpose of calculating network availability or the Customer's entitlement to credit for network interruption.

    6.4 Emergency Suspension - SpiralHost may interrupt the SpiralHost Services at any time for any duration of time, without penalty or liability for any claim by Customer, where necessary to prevent improper or unlawful use of the SpiralHost Services, SpiralHost's service facilities or connections or SpiralHost's network.


    You can decide for yourself whether this guarantee (or any host's guarantee) meets your expectations.

    The thrust of the thread starter's post is a goal of achieving actual uptime as opposed to guaranteed uptime (despite the title of the thread).
    Last edited by cove; 06-01-2003 at 12:31 AM.

  19. #19
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    Originally posted by jagarco
    My question is:
    Does somebody knows How can I do the follwing:
    Have same resellold accounts working in 2 Hosters(diferrent DataCenter), in such a way that, if the Main Hoster went down, the secondary just keeps working..., so the customers just keep using e-mails and websites not knowing that the "Emergency account" has taking charge.
    therefore again.. this bring up other issues, I don't know if is about Mirroring, Replica, etc. but I think it would need to be some mechanism of reflecting all the things that are done in the main server to the Secondary(If the customer creates a new email account, etc.).

    So, I think you get the idea of my obective, I don't know what would be the way but...
    Have someOne done this? with simple reseller accounts?

    I don't mind if there are some thing that I would need to do manually, as far they were minimal or managable.
    I would also be interested in learning how to setup some kind of operation like this.
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  20. #20
    Originally posted by cove
    I think that neokumar is thinking of redundancy rather than 100% absolute uptime.
    To do that with a single website is quite practical and cost effective, with one nameserver pointed to one server and another nameserver pointed to another server so that a failure on one server results in redirection of traffic to another server.
    Too bad nameserver data gets cached alot, 4 to 12 hours is pretty normal.

    So you site will only be down for like 4-12 hours till it switches to the backup servers, great .

    Nameservers aren't ment to do what your telling.
    Multiple nameservers are suppose to serve the same data, just when 1 dies, the domain will still be up and pointing to the correct ip.
    To have redundancy you will need a load balancer or some kind of fail-over machine, which will switch the data to a server which is working.

    You won't offer 10gb/m $10 packages with that equipment if you know what i mean.

  21. #21
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    Originally posted by EgoH
    Too bad nameserver data gets cached alot, 4 to 12 hours is pretty normal.

    So you site will only be down for like 4-12 hours till it switches to the backup servers, great .

    Nameservers aren't ment to do what your telling.
    Multiple nameservers are suppose to serve the same data, just when 1 dies, the domain will still be up and pointing to the correct ip.
    To have redundancy you will need a load balancer or some kind of fail-over machine, which will switch the data to a server which is working.
    I'm open to an education, as always. However, if NS1 was at, say, NAC in NJ, pointing to IP1 for your primary website at, say, NAC, and NS2 was at DC2, say, in HE in CA, pointing to IP2 at your backup website at HE, and NAC went down, taking NS1 and your primary website (and IP1) down with it, wouldn't NS2 at HE be kicked in and route traffic to the backup server (and IP2) in HE? (Said, differently, although usually NS1 and NS2 point to the same place, under this scheme, they wouldn't. That being the whole point.) (In the real world, you would have ns1 and ns2 at NAC and ns3 and ns4 at HE.)

    You won't offer 10gb/m $10 packages with that equipment if you know what i mean.
    Yes, I know what you mean. This whole thread is predicated on premium webhosting fees commensurate with the cost, rather than bargain webhosting fees.
    Last edited by cove; 06-01-2003 at 05:45 PM.

  22. #22
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    I think this sort of redundancy is contemplated by this post:

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...75#post1186375

  23. #23
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    well
    as I've been read...

    If we where using NS1,NS2 on DataCenter and NS3,NS4 on another DC...
    When a user refers/enters the sitedomain.com, it gets the geographically neasrest NameServers OR it intercalates between the four Nameservers(First access goes to NS1 then NS3, then NS1... etc.) .
    That would be OK if the TOTAL REPLICA mechanism was applied.
    But if there's no replica mechanism going on, a user might get to the First server(NS1,NS2) and another to the other server(NS3,NS4)...."know yo see your e-mail, NOW you Don't, Now you do, now you don't...".

    So maybe I would be able to accept NO Replica system if it only I get the user accessing ALWAYS the first server(NS1,NS2) and if something occurs, the NS3 and NS4, as ment to be I guess, would take charge even If need to create again my customer's e-mails account, etc.
    At least I would have the service working.

    This last opton I metioned, I think I'm able to do a test with an account, just signing up with a second Hoster, giving that account the NS3 and NS4... and see how behaves...
    then terminating the account on the first Hoster... and see if the second one keeps giving the service.

    Any working methods would be apreciated
    Thank you

    JAGARCO

  24. #24
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    It is impossible to guarantee no downtime. I have been a victim of this myself
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  25. #25
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    FYI, I think we made a bit more progress on this subject in this thread:

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...hreadid=151441

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