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What to Do When Your Web Host Starts Sucking

Posted on May 2, 2007, under Databases, Web Hosting.

I originally started writing this because a friend is franticly starting jump ship from a falling Web Host. It turns out that for the last several months my hosting provider, HostMySite, has been falling in quality. With any hosting provider support is the key. You need to have smart, savvy support technicians that are available. If I ask one support person one question, I should get the same answer from another support technician. Lately with HostMySite every time I call up about a ticket that’s been open for an issue that’s been two weeks outstanding, it’s like starting all over again. Just recently I found out that the VPS’s were just upgraded and that older, loyal customers are stuck with the old resource limits. There was even an upgrade in MySQL to MySQL 5, which older customers are not allowed to get unless we want to sign up for a new VPS plan and convert stuff over to the new VPS setup. The whole benefit of VPS is being able to tweak these limits and modules with the click of a button. All this leads to an end, where I am back looking to move hosting companies. My recently findings with Mosso had me hold off on signing up. After some more research and talking with some of the people over at Mosso I am again looking to signup and move things over. So what do you do when a web host starts sucking?

Work with your current provider: Every hosting company has its problems, and the grass may be greener on the other side but it’s not weed free. Working with your current solution is always bet. If you are like me where you have reached the point where you are spending way too much time dealing with issues the Hosting provider should be dealing with, and you must jump ship… plan ahead.
Talk to Higher Ups: Talk to managers, explain to them your support ticket history and the loyalty you have shown to the company. Managers can usually get fires going under people, and start to get problems solved.
Do not frantically start jumping ship immediately: There is nothing worse than trying to go out and find a new hosting provider under pressure and starting over with newer, different problems.
Slowly Move Sites: Do not just spend an evening moving everything over, this is bad for several reasons. Once you cancel your old account, your data is usually gone. Additionally move one or two sites over as a trial period for the new host, monitor the uptime and and issues you come across before you move everything over.
Backup, Backup, Backup: As touched upon above, once you cancel your old hosting account you date is most likely gone. Maybe keeping your old hosting solution setup for a month after the move is complete is a good idea for you as well.

I am looking to apply these tactics as I once again start looking and doing research on my options.

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My Move to Mosso and GMail: Part One

Posted on April 11, 2007, under Blogging, Databases, Development, Email, Networking, Web Hosting.

I have used many web hosting companies in the past, and always used Plesk as my choice of a control panel. It seems the same thing happens every time with a new web hosting company: at first the service is great and the resources are fast and responsive. Over time, quality degrades as resources are spread thin. Then the inevitable happens where the hosting company wants to up sell me on my current solution. There is always a point where one needs upgrade a web server, but there are also times when you have to ask “if you can’t manage my current solution, how do you expect to sell me on a bigger and more powerful solution.” I have reached these cross roads with my current hosting provider, and have not been impressed with the way they have handled major problems over the last several months so I am once again switching providers.

I have always wanted to be in control of my hosting solution, a nice balance between an easy to use control panel and the back end scripting to optimize things. Lately my time has been too pressed and too valuable to continue taking on the “server management” roll as well as wear many other hats. Sure, I could pay someone that knows 100 times more than me in the area of server management, but that’s more expenses on top of the actual box that I am already paying the hosting company to keep up and chugging.

So I have reached the point where it’s time to outsource. My plan is to move the many sites of mine, and the ones for friends and family, over to a new scalable solution that I need to have very little hands on work to make it… well work. The same goes for email, I am sick of tweaking spam filters and managing quotas for in boxes and worrying about uptime and downtime. So what’s the answer? Well for me, the plan is to migrate my web sites over to Mosso and my email over to GMail for your domain. Shouldn’t be too hard right? Well, we will see.

So why did I choose these solutions? Here is a little break down.

Mosso:

Mosso has an interesting approach to web hosting. For $100 you get a an all-in-one, scalable, flexible, hosting solution, for an unlimited number of domains. Sounds goods so far, but not unique. Well not so fast, Mosso takes the guess work out of the Linux vs. Microsoft debate and choice that one has to make when choosing a host. I have always preferred Linux servers for my own reasons, but I have freelanced on projects for a Microsoft shop that I need a real work test environment and have had to lease a server for a month or two at a time. Mosso has it all, and in one package. Furthermore any site can use PHP4, PHP5, ASP, or Python under one domain name… yup that’s right the ability to run multiple scripting languages and database back-ends under one site. Mosso has built a multi million dollar, and very unique solution giving you choices. The cherry on the cake is the very slick, powerful, and easy to use control panel that will make it easy to manage it all. There are some set backs however: You do not have SSH access, you do not have access to cron jobs, and no support for Ruby on Rails yet. These are minor set backs for me, and I have already researched work-arounds. While kicking the tires of the Mosso service over the last several months, I have learned that the support staff is friendly, hel, and fast to respond.. a big plus. Add on their service level agreement, that’s just about all I need.

GMail for Your Domain:

This one is easy: it’s Google, Gmail, it’s free, and my domain. There is really nothing more that needs to be said. I have yet to come across a scalable web mail solution, and am tired of bringing down IMAP servers with the large amount of mail I have. Add in GMail’s spam filtering features, and again… done deal.

Conclusion for Part On:

I am hoping that this move will go smooth, and for Mosso it could be the best real world client story and review yet. I have HyperSpin setup to monitor the performance and uptime of the new web host, and it should line up nicely with the re-launch of BlueCrestStudios and NetGrid. Stay tuned for further developments…

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