Boom! No web site for you!
June 2nd, 2008
Currently I've got two projects hosted on WebFaction servers. So far, I really like them. As managed hosts go, they're probably the best I've worked with, and they certainly make life very easy when building Django powered sites.
Today I got an email from one of the clients whose project is hosted on WebFaction saying that their site is down. So I checked it out, and while I was able to access it, it was extremely slow, to the point where a less forgiving browser/LAN setup might cause it to time out. So I fired off a support ticket to WebFaction, and within a couple minutes, not only was the site back up to speed, but I was provided with a very good explanation for why my server was having problems.
Apparently there was an explosion at one of WebFaction's data centers this weekend. It took out power to the data center, but fortunately no one was hurt and none of the servers were damaged. Obviously, there have been some interruptions in service for the servers in that data center (which includes both of my WebFaction projects), but they've already gotten a significant number of the servers back online (though only one of mine).
Amazingly, this is actually the second time I've had a server taken out by an explosion at a data center. The first time was with a hosted Microsoft Exchange server with a hosting company in London.
It really sucks having sites down, especially critical ones (fortunately only one of the projects I have hosted with them is critical, and it's the one that's back up already), but as reasons for downtime go, you have to admit that an explosion is a pretty good one.
Ross wrote:
on Tuesday, June 3rd 2008 at 10:54 p.m.
You can't protect against every catastrophe.
Ross
- http://www.hostdisciple.com
Josh wrote:
on Wednesday, June 4th 2008 at 12:20 a.m.
I couldn't agree more, which is why we're sticking with WebFaction for now, and the client who was most affected by the outage is actually adding two more hosting plans to his account.