With the steep competition on businesses including on the website hosting industry, almost all of these web hosting companies are now promising 99% website up-time to entice possible clients. This guarantee might be proven true due to the fact that we are now on a very technologically advanced environment. You could never really expect that the 1% differential could happen.
Why is it that web hosts cannot guarantee 100% uptime? What do they foresee happening? Do they have a psychic on board letting them know that things could go awry at any moment?
Explaining further, they may have the best of technological equipments in town and may be assured of a very reliable web hosting system most of the time but, they might not be prepared of any fortuitous events that may happen prospectively.
You may still be skeptical. But you may read the following instances and incidents that have truly proven that the 1% could really happen anytime.
1 – Truck that may give out the difference
Early in the year 2007, the leading web hosting provider that is capable of guaranteeing 100% operation of its clients’ websites is the RockSpace Company. They are the major player in the hosting industry that they held most of the preferred accounts in the market including that of Motorola. They have been doing well due to their most high tech equipments that are rarely available yet in the market.
The notion that there is no 100% uptime has challenged this great company. It happened in a specific day were most of their generators do not have yet their cooling capacities. A transport truck accidentally hit the power transformer of the company which eventually caused power overload from those backup generators. Without the required cooling system, the backup generators also malfunctioned due to overheating. The websites of their clients were massively down.
In this particular situation, we have seen that no matter how technologically advance is a company’s programs, personnel and equipments maybe, there’s always that external factor that might have been taken for granted that could strike anytime. Well, you might start thinking of moving your servers away from those unpredictable highways and freeways.
2 – Mother Nature’s Way of Preventing Hosting
In the above example, of course it is hard to know when a possible accident would try to hit your resources, but there are probably few things that you can do as a precaution. You may start building up barricades all around your servers to protect them from external harm. Though you might be contented with this measure, you might be surprise that the problem can make its own different way.
Most of the servers of the Server Beach Company is very well protected and that the company personnel that mother nature could attack in another manner. It was a stormy whether all throughout Virginia at that time. Clouds roar with thunder and striking and powerful lightning storms were released from the sky. All of a sudden, power was out in Virginia. Well, the company is pretty much prepared of power shortages by just using their backup generators. What the company did not expect is that those backup generators would fail due to the same reason of RockSpace’s, that there were no effective cooling systems thereby shutting down the whole server operations.
3- Liar, Liar Pants on Fire
3 – Web Hosting Caught on Fire
One day things got extra hot when generators started to catch fire in the Dreamhost data server center. Who would have known that websites start to crash and go down when a fire breaks out?
One day of surprise came that the power generators of this company caught fire that have crawled up to its server rooms. Well basically it’s another case of accident caused by a malfunctioning backup generator that eventually shut down most of its clients’ website.
Dream Host did not easily ran away from the public’s eyes and memory since the incident happened. Most of their clients’ websites were not running and these clients demanded from the company their respective refund. Although gone through the problematic stages, the company now is back on its feet again doing some more business.
On the topic of fires, things got pretty steamy in the Houston data centre for major web hosting company The Planet. There was an intense explosion of an electrical transformer which actually led to a number of walls being knocked down and close to 10,000 servers being affected. The company made an official statement that the back up generators could not be fired up, pardon the pun, due to a number of fire concerns and a very large amount of clients were left without service.
When it gets to the fire topic, one could relatively note the case of The Planet web hosting company who has its servers installed at the Houston data center that in a sudden turn of event, the power transformers have blown up and then afterwards affecting the 10,000 servers due to a porous rampage. The company had made the public believe that the incident was not caused by faulty generators that they have.
The Planet has not disclosed the full details of the problem to its clients unlike the move of RockSpace, thereby saving some of its clients. They have given out notifications of what is going on, and how are they making it up to solve the problem. Surely it is a better strategy that they have used.
5 – The Host Destructive Hurricane
On the top of the list is probably the most controversial web hosting company misfortune that happened back in 2004 involving Fox Link network. At that time it is one of the reputable pioneers in the hosting industry. But suddenly, its entire server system and major technical equipment were destroyed by a hurricane that stroke Florida.
What seems to be the big news with this incident? Well, instead of trying to keep its clients by providing solutions and communicating with them, the company just totally shut down and made even to them. Thus, the company has left its customers in desperate agony. Fox Link did not ever try of coming back in the business again.
Certainly, there are NO Guaranties in Life
As we have already learned in our life, there are always possibilities that in everything we do, we could not totally expect a positive outcome. This is also true with web hosting; there can be no guarantees of a 100% full running site.Possibilities of a truck hitting the servers and hurricanes ruining the companies’ workplaces can be evident. These can happen anywhere and anytime regardless of the hosting company.In a sudden turn out of events, things might come differently, and the 99% might not come wholly. Let us just appreciate that there are now a lot of companies that we could rely on and would willingly aid us in terms of our hosting problems unlike the misfortune that was experienced by Fox Link’s clients.
Tired of unreliable and expensive web hosting? As CEO of top Web Hosting Provider, HostNexus, Laurence Flynn is helping thousands of webmasters achieve online success.
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