This is a classic example of why I left dreamhost for (mt).
Since only one of our three data centers is losing power, not all servers will be shut down. Unfortunately, our core routers and our upstream providers are in that data center, so there will be no network to any servers during the window. #
Despite the on-going problems with unexpected router and network issues, taking large numbers of their hosting systems out, Dreamhost still don’t get that the above is a real problem that needs a real solution.
Why? Because whilst this is a ‘known’ outage (albeit at very short notice) it still highlights their complete lack of redundancy and inability to learn from past events and forward plan to avoid repeat instances.
They don’t even understand or acknowledge how sub-standard that really is in the outage notice comments - that any “total outage” of any length is not, I repeat not cool. People don’t pay for webhosting that may, or may not be available, at any time, simply because there is a power outage. Web hosting companies are supposed to plan for the impossible, assume it’s possible and find a solution to stop it happening.
The same problems kept occuring, the exact same issues over and over and over again. Nothing changes.. no leasons learned. And the typical dh response to the usual gamut of issues?
“Oh, wow, like something fully broke, just like it’s done 5 times already.. anyway, we fixed it again, I think.. don’t really know why it keeps happening hey, don’t really think it’s that important.” ~ the happy hippy half stoned dream team.
I left dreamhost because, quite frankly, they don’t dream about how to make things better, they just day dream.. and being asleep at the wheel has never been considered a good quality in any business.
≡ This is a journal entry relating to the topics of dreamhost, ethos, mt, web.
Brendan Borlase is a Systems and Network Administrator living in Adelaide, Australia, having lived, worked and breathed Information Technology for over 12 years. Learn more.
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Feb 24th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
I also jumped ship this weekend. The constant downtime really wasn’t what drove me away; it was mainly the terrible load times. I think the MySQL on my server, “whopper” was at its limit and having a very simple page take 6+ seconds to load was not only frustrating but downright embarrassing.
I’m sure (mt) is like night and day.
Feb 25th, 2007 at 2:13 am
(mt) kicks ass.
When something fails - they fix it, permanently. When something slows down, they beef it up. When they have outage issues - they change entire data centers.
Sure, I pay a little more - but the attitude is what sold me. (mt) actually give a shit when something goes wrong and they throw a lot of iron at it till it starts working again.
Night and Day? Try ‘Dark Ages’ and ‘Star Trek’. It’s just that different.
Mar 1st, 2007 at 9:40 am
I initially had some issues with mt but now everything seems to work fine. Mt seems like the best host for the price as long as they stay on top of things.