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Techy: Server downtime

Yesterday (8th November), my main server in London went ‘down’ around 6.30am. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice until around 5.30pm (on a Friday night!) and instantly sent my hosting provider an email via their web-feedback form to ask them to re-boot my server to try and bring it back online. I send them a proper email at 6.38pm as well (just in case). I can’t sleep so at 9am, I try calling them on the telephone. No response. At 10am, I send an email CC’ing to their sales address (and, this time, get an automatic acknowledgement). Around midday, I get a very apologetic phone call saying that they had moved all their dedicated servers to another part of their hosting facility, but somehow mine had got lost behind.

I’ve worked in server rooms before, so I know how when re-arranging things little items can get left behind – but an entire rack-mounted server?!? – plus, according to the logs, it was still powered up (so add a power cable). But since they had moved the routers/hubs to the other location, it had no network connectivity – not a good thing to happen to a server.

Anyway, at 4.42pm – more than 24hrs later – everything came back up again. No data loss or anything – which is a good thing – just a lot of downtime. Ok, so this is the first time I’ve had any real problems with my hosting provider (I’ve been with them 2yrs+) and they have told me that my account manager (’cause I’m an important customer of theirs you see 🙂 ) will give me a call on Monday to arrange compensation: but it’s still infuriating. If I knew nothing about servers, I might be more accepting – but… *grr*.

Well, that’s *my* excuse for not updating my journal/blog/diary yesterday and I’m sticking to it 🙂

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