Suggestion: Create a "Venting" sub forum...

[Big Tom]

... just because I have to vent....
The support right now flat out sucks. I know they all try hard, but sometimes it takes some management commitment to improve things. I do not believe the the lack of support responsiveness is something the admins are responsible for.

Having said that, a server (boron) has been down / unusable for almost 20 hours now and the technicians still try to fix it. Well, that does not help me with the calls I get from the site owners, nor does it give me any comfort level that there will be an end to the story soon. There is no "plan B", e.g, restoring the sites to a new server from backups - yes, there might be some data loss, but we are not running ERP systems here, but most likely servers that will be fine with some data loss.

Now, coming back to the management issue - there have been promises over and over again that the support would improve. All I see is that it is getting worse each time there is a more severe problem. Where is the commitment to improvement and how do you try to measure it? What about the operations? Having a server unusable for so long in simply not acceptable - and it is not the admins that cause the problem because the cannot fix it, it is you, the management that does not have a plan in place to go down a "plan B" path after x hours of outage. There is not even a plan for a more timely communication - at least I have not seen anything like that. If a system is down and has been down for a while, I as a customer expect technical details, timely updates and an overview what the next steps will be to get things resolved. A root cause would also be a great idea - and do not be afraid that it would be too technical... most of your customers will be able to understand it.

Lastly - if a ticket "system down" is being opened, and for more than an hour, nobody even looks at the ticket, it stinks. It stinks that there is no process in place that these tickets get automatically escalated and that even with escalations, it is continuously being ignored. That is why customers look for and move to new service providers - to get the attention that you may think you still deliver to your customers. Let me rest assure you - you don't.

Enough venting... closing on a positve note: If the systems are up, they perform fine.

[Ron]

I don't think we need a subforum, you've done just fine! ;-)

Sorry your server is down. If you need a "site under maintenance" page, I can give you a cpanel account. If it helps. But if you're running DNS on the down vps, it might not make a lot of difference.

I think it would be a really really nice touch (but surely would be underappreciated by the "victims" at the time) would be if JAG would offer such a thing on their own.

[Big Tom]

Ron, Thanks for the offer - I am running DNS on the box as well, so the domains do not even resolve at all right now.

Hey, if we had such a subforum, they could move my post right into it - just in case nobody else would ever want to post there :-)

If the admins in my data center would work in such an uncoordinated/unstructured way (just my -potentially incorrect- interpretation), I would have fired my operations manager by now. But then, we also do not host VPSs and have real painful SLAs with our customers...

[JPC-Sabrina]

The management team and all of the staff here at JaguarPC are very committed to making changes that will only enhance and improve our service. These changes are occurring daily and the improvements have been dramatic even if it isn't apparent at the time. We do currently have a high volume of customers that need assistance and we apologize to each of you for the current wait. Extra staff has been dispatched to diminish the wait times. JaguarPC is committed to providing all of our clients with the best service possible. We are always aware of your issues and concerns although sometimes it is truly impossible to always rectify them as quickly as you and JaguarPC would like.

The following thread is providing updates on the current status of boron. We are furnishing as much information possible at the time. The information may not be as detailed as you would like to see but it is what we are able to supply at this time.
Maintenance - boron.nocdirect.com

Even the best top of the line machines will fail sometimes. We ask that all of our clients to have some form of backup. Many events which are out of our control and yours can occur and lead to data loss.

Finally, JaguarPC never ignores tickets or clients. It might take some extra time to properly address the problem and direct it to the best qualified technician. We really do understand your frustration and we are making every effort to get boron stable and performing properly.

Thanks for acknowledging that when we are not having problems with a server then our performance is good. Again, we are sorry that our efforts to restore boron have not been effective today. Our technicians are performing all of the necessary operations to bring it back online.

JaguarPC is endeavoring to address all of the issues that you have outlined and it may take some more time to get there but we are moving forward daily.

[Ron]

Good Lord...

[Ron]

Tom,
I think it's really too bad that Jag can't do something as 'simple' as pointing all the IPs of a machine that is down to a maintenance page. Would you want that rather than a timeout?

[Bell thorpe]

[Big Tom]

Sabrina,
I never questioned the good will. I question the effectiveness of the measures to improve things and especially the operational approach in regards to troubleshooting. "Extra resources" have been required in the last at least 1 year and management apparently decided not to hire enough resources to deal with the day to day business (again, I agree that hardware failure is a pretty common thing and should not require bringing in "additional" resources).

It is not about the hardware failure, it is about the process. After 12 hours of downtime, there probably should be a concern around "Hey, what do we do if this troubleshooting thing drags forever?" Maybe preparing a new server and starting a restore (I assume you actually have the backups that are part of the service?) would be a good idea. That way you could give your customers at least some kind of perspective besides "we have no clue what it is and when it will be fixed".

[gohighvoltage]

pointing all the IPs of a machine that is down to a maintenance page

That is actually a pretty damn good idea.

[the_ancient]

Even the best top of the line machines will fail sometimes. We ask that all of our clients to have some form of backup. Many events which are out of our control and yours can occur and lead to data loss.

.

Not with "The Cloud"

Further, since VPS tie the DNS and Web services to the same server it removes the possibility of a quick move. Backups are irrelevant if they can not be put to use

Further still "When we are not having problems the service is good" well DUH!!!! the measure ANY COMPANY is how they handle PROBLEMS not how everything works, when it works. By your standards Comcast would be the Best company in the world, because when their stuff works it works. But they are routinely voted the worst company in the world because when something go wrong they are WORTHLESS in proper response and customer service

[the_ancient]

That is actually a pretty damn good idea.

Good luck with that, I have been Suggesting that, even as a Paid Addon, for 5 years,

[Ron]

You can always manually point your registrar to another DNS server, or even better a jag system that would point registered dns IPs to a dns server. That registration could easily be handled in "nixcore" by the customer, or by sales when they set up the vps. Whatever. If it doesn't fail everyone over it was better than nothing.

This is not rocket science, and it is not expensive. It just takes a commitment to customer service and a willingness to do this kind of thing. Kaizen was the word back in the day.

[gohighvoltage]

You can always manually point your registrar to another DNS server, or even better a jag system that would point registered dns IPs to a dns server. That registration could easily be handled in "nixcore" by the customer, or by sales when they set up the vps. Whatever. If it doesn't fail everyone over it was better than nothing.

This is not rocket science, and it is not expensive. It just takes a commitment to customer service and a willingness to do this kind of thing. Kaizen was the word back in the day.

I have my domains registered through a 3rd party. If my server went down, I can go to this 3rd party and easily change the DNS to point to another server, or even point it to a parked page. Maybe this is something to consider in order to have some sort of emergency course of action if a server problem occurs?

[the_ancient]

You can always manually point your registrar to another DNS server, or even better a jag system that would point registered dns IPs to a dns server. That registration could easily be handled in "nixcore" by the customer, or by sales when they set up the vps. Whatever. If it doesn't fail everyone over it was better than nothing.

This is not rocket science, and it is not expensive. It just takes a commitment to customer service and a willingness to do this kind of thing. Kaizen was the word back in the day.

Changing Name servers is not a good Failover Plan, Propagation is a killer.

Further most people set the Default DNS TTL to be longer because there is no need to put extra load on the DNS server needlessly, So if you have a 4-5hr TTL (or longer) then it will be 4 or 5 hours before anyone will see your fail page. Plus there is ZERO garuntee that the ISP's will honor TTL's many major ISP ignore them and use their own Cache Settings


Reliable External Failover DNS is not Cheap (key here is RELIABLE, sure there are cheap ones, but they go down more than the JPC server so that is not an option either) I have been looking at Route 53 from AWS, and Rack Spaces Cloud DNS services to get it off my VPS, but I will have to write a plugin for the control panel before I can make that move,

[the_ancient]

I have my domains registered through a 3rd party. If my server went down, I can go to this 3rd party and easily change the DNS to point to another server, or even point it to a parked page. Maybe this is something to consider in order to have some sort of emergency course of action if a server problem occurs?

You have standard TTL's

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;gohighvoltage.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
gohighvoltage.com. 14400 IN A 69.73.171.200

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
gohighvoltage.com. 86400 IN NS ns1.gohighvoltage.com.
gohighvoltage.com. 86400 IN NS ns2.gohighvoltage.com.

Changes to the A Record will take up to 4 hours before they are live
Changed to your NS Record will take up to 24 hours before they are live