Blog - Failover Hosting - Your Questions Answered

Failover Hosting - Your Questions Answered

Written On 18/09/2009 05:48 by Dan Thompson

Hi everyone, thanks for checking out the brand new D9 Hosting blog!

It will, hopefully, give us an informal way to communicate with all our Clients about anything and everything related to D9 Hosting. It will also allow you to give us instant feedback by leaving your comments on the posts.

So, with that in mind, here we go with our very first blog post... it's a follow up to a survey we sent out to all shared and reseller hosting customers regarding the possibility of us introducing a failover hosting addon.

We had a lot of responses and there seemed to be quite a bit of misunderstanding on how it could be implemented. This post aims to clear up a few of the concerns that were raised by you in the survey. We'll do our best to explain everything in as simple terms as possible, but if you are unclear on anything, or need clarification, please do feel free to leave a comment, or get in touch with us by the usual methods.

1. I don't want it, if you force this on me I'm leaving!

If we were to introduce a Failover service, it would be a totally optional addon. You could either choose to use the service, or stick with your current plan. It wouldn't be forced onto any existing, or new customers.

2. The uptime is currently excellent, why should we need it?

94% of you that answered the poll thought our uptime was either good or excellent - THANKYOU! :-)

But although our servers are already ultra reliable, there will be times when they go down. This isn't exclusive to us, no host in the world can claim to have a server that hasn't gone down at some point in it's lifespan.

When a server does go down it's usually only for a matter of minutes or hours, but within that time you'd have no site and email. For most of you, we accept this isn't a problem, but we do have users running mission critical sites, and businesses using our email services, so if they were without email for a couple of hours you can imagine the inconvenience this would cause.

A failover option would keep the downtime to a few minutes, rather than hours.

3. Why are you suddenly telling us this, is everything going to blow up tomorrow?

No :-)

As touched on above, this new service would have no effect on the current servers we run, their uptime would remain as high as you've come to expect. The failover service is designed for people with mission critical sites, that don't as yet have the budget to upgrade to their own dedicated failover system.

4. You should include it in the current price, other providers do this.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I've never come across a budget hosting provider (Under the $10pm range) that offers failover hosting as part of their standard packages.

With a failover setup the running costs would just about double, you use twice the amount of servers and twice the amount of power consumption. Neither we, nor any other budget provider could afford to offer this as part of the standard package and still run at a profit.

5. I shouldn't have to pay a premium for a backup option!

A failover service is NOT a backup storage system - we already have daily and weekly backups running on all our servers. So in the event of a drive failure, everything can be restored from the backups. We provide this service free of charge and always will do.

6. It would be too expensive for me at present

We understand that it could be hard to find a yearly lump sum, so if we did decide to go ahead with the service, we'd look to change the pricing structure, either to a lower yearly cost, or by offering you the option of paying in installments, rather than a lump sum each year.

We think this should have answered most of the concerns that were raised.

Apologies if the survey caught some of you off guard, we didn't mean to make you panic and think everything was suddenly going to start going down on a regular basis. Again, I can assure you that your existing plans and servers will run in the same way they always have done!

Thanks for reading, and please do let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Regards,
Dan & Paula

D9 Hosting

Comments (15)

On 18/09/2009 06:30 Vince Andrews Said:

Hi, Dan As always you are thinking of the future to continue the best hosting service around. Although i am one of those that do not require a spill over service at this present time, it is reassuring to know that it will be available if and when i need such a service. I have always known that your customers always come first and this is something that as carried through right from day one when i first became acquainted with you and the different services that you have supplied me with. May you continue to grow in the online world of supply the right service for your customers. All the best Vince

On 18/09/2009 06:54 Trish Findlay Said:

Hi Dan & Paula I'm in much the same position as Vince, not really needing any better service than I get from you now, but I can see the need for a failover system when things move along a bit & it's nice to know that there will be option to take it when I need it & not necessarily straight away. Thanks for all the good service I've received. Trish

On 18/09/2009 07:13 SImon Said:

Hi Dan Thank you so much for the excellent answers. It is pleasing to know that we are with a company that both cares and listens to its customers. Keep up the good work.

On 18/09/2009 08:15 Stuart Turnbull Said:

Hi Dan/Paula Let me congratulate you on the quality of your customer service, in my experience it is second to none. As you know Your recent server down time did cost me sales as it happened right in the middle of a product launch so I can appreciate the need for failover hosting. Would I be prepared to pay more for it? Yes, but it would have to be priced very competitively. Best wishes Stuart

On 18/09/2009 08:36 Pat Graham Said:

Hi...like many others, my present needs for hosting protection do not go much beyond reliable email and your occasional down times don't cause me that much stress...just a few words Paula won't let me use in public. But, I have been totally infected with the marketing bug and have several projects working that might change all that. As far as I am concerned, you hosting service has always been more than you promised and I am totally satisfied with it. But, I can see why I would need your Failover Hosting service when I am actively trying to become an Internet millionaire. You both always seem to come up with something new that I will need before I know it. Which one of you reads minds? I don't think your suggested price of $120 is outrageous for the peace of mind and reliable uptime. A payment plan would be handy in today's economy and I am sure you will develop one that most can afford. Keep up the good work. The Internet needs more service providers like you two! Pat

On 18/09/2009 11:59 Steve Said:

Hi Paula & Dan The blog is a great idea. Personally I am still in my early days of IM, but recognise I may need this service in the future so now I understand what it is :) it's good to know it'll be available. Also I'd just like to echo the previous comments and say thanks for the excellent service...I never think about going elsewhere. cheers Steve

On 18/09/2009 21:02 Judith Said:

Thanks Dan & Paula for the simple explanations. Keep up the great work. I'm thankful that I stumbled upon your service and I agree with every one else that you guys are outstanding.

On 19/09/2009 05:36 Steve Said:

Just to echo the others, your service has always been outstanding, and the failover service wasn't too bad a suggested price. When the business has grown a little it would be a worthwhile option. Thanks for the explanations!

On 20/09/2009 16:43 Alan Said:

I'm 'sorry' to be another Mister Sir Echo, but, your service is truly outstanding, going beyond overdelivering. At the moment, my site is in it's infancy, so I'm not in the market at present. Fingers crossed, I hope I soon will be, and I'd appreciate this extra dimension of service!

On 22/09/2009 23:31 Jasper Said:

Hi, instead of a complete failover solution could another option be just a simple custom maintance page which asks customers to try again later instead of the ugly page not found error which looks like the site has dissapiared :(

On 23/09/2009 03:28 D9Dan Said:

Hi Jasper, that wouldn't be a worthwhile solution. It would mean changing the nameserver IP's to point to a new server, which would take upto 24 hours to propagate, so by the time the holding page were to show the old server would most likely be back online.

On 07/11/2009 22:10 Paddy Said:

Hi guys, as a newy to your service I have not yet experienced any problems YET. However nowing that there will be a provision for the failover addon option I would certainly consider the change should the need be warranted.

On 19/01/2010 18:55 Thomas Lang Said:

I'm hunting for the cPanel and found the blog, backup is always good and becomes critical as your business grows. The fact that the customer can opt in when its needed makes it even better.

On 06/04/2010 04:11 Donald MacLeod Said:

Dan and Paula, What can I say but you are an inspiration to all marketers. Keep up the good work. Paula, I have tried leaving a message on your blog but it would not let me. I said to Dan. Hey, that's not a bad comment. You have a good blog. Anyway, you can send me an e mail. I'm getting used to using FTP, but very slowly. Donald

On 10/11/2010 16:51 Darren Todd Said:

To Dan and Paula Thank you for the help and support this evening. I was pulling my hair out earlier, struggling with it all but the advice and help you have both given me has been great. Thanks once again, Jane (as Darren is still asleep)??

Blog - Failover Hosting - Your Questions Answered

Failover Hosting - Your Questions Answered

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