Partial transcript of communications with M6.net

It has been an "interesting" period since switching to M6.net as a host for Delphiforfun.org.  Here are a few of the messages  and replies regarding site reliability during this first month.        

 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Clayton Shears (M6 Sales)" <sales@m6.net>
To: <...
Sent: November 08, 2001 4:48 PM
Subject: RE: Feedback on M6.net:
 Hi Gary,
 Firstly welcome on board and congratulations on choosing M6.
 Secondly Have been successful in signing your new account?
 Take care,

 Clayton

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Your Support Request...
Request: Outage
Type: CRITICAL
Status: To-Do
Date: 11/24/2001 1:36:40 PM
delphiforfun.org seems to have been down for at least the past 30 minutes.  Is the server down? 

11/24/2001 : 7:30 PM  

Response:
Hi,

We have a client running a script that literally pulls the server down. They are sending out a lot of email messages using a database and an ASP script. It is timing out and using all the resources of the server. We are tracking down the problem site and will shut it down.

We will resolve this problem by Monday

thank you
Michael

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Support Query: 
COMPLETE - Type:CRITICAL : Status: To-Do  Date Requested: 11/25/2001 1:35:27 AM 

Request: Down again
Darn it guys, site is down again! Talk to me - what is going on?

Answer:
RE:Down again Hi,

We have a client running a script that literally pulls the server down. They are sending out a lot of email messages using a database and an ASP script. It is timing out and using all the resources of the server. We are tracking down the problem site and will shut it down.

We will resolve this problem by Monday

thank you
Michael
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Support Query: 
COMPLETE - Type:CRITICAL : Status: To-Do  Date Requested: 11/27/2001 4:06:53 AM 

Request: Site Outage
Another day - another outage. (out for about an hour now). This is just not going to be acceptable. Can I pay more and get transferred to a more reliable server? Any other alternatives beside looking for another host?

Answer:
RE:Site Outage 

HI there:

As you already aware that the web server hosting your site was down today.

We have been advised from our Network Operations Centre, that a thunder strike hit the network cable running into the NOC which has sent an enormous amount of electricity through the network cable and destroyed some of our network cards. The strike also caused problems with some routers and other equipment causing instability on the network.

We worked closely with our NOC to reinstall new network cards on the server today to restore the network connection as quickly as we possibly good.

Thank you for your understanding and support in our difficult situation.

Best Regards
Mike Huang
Network Administrator

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Support Query: 
COMPLETE - Type:CRITICAL : Status: To-Do  Date Requested: 12/7/2001 2:52:32 PM 

Request: Outage
I guess you already know this, but I can't get to my website this morning.

Answer:
RE:OutageDear Gary,

As you know, your web server has been down. Please accept our apology for the delay and inconvenience.

The problem is with the hardware, in particular, the motherboard. We have been in constant contact with our technicians. They have been working hard at our Network Operations Center to fix this problem as quickly as possible.

If you have any further queries, please feel free to contact us.

Regards,
Shehdeen
M6 Support Staff

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-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Darby
Sent: Saturday, 8 December 2001 5:47 PM
To: Clayton Shears (M6 Sales)
Subject: Re: Feedback on M6.net:


Clayton,

 Just an update.  It's been about a month since I signed up with you guys.
My site as been down for close to 24 hrs now; "hardware problems" they say.
This is the 4th or 5th day with 2 hours or more outage in my first month,
(first 2 weeks, really, since when I transferred the domain).

If you were me, would you stick around?

Gary

Dear Gary,
Thank you for your email. No I would not.... but I would like to ask you to
stay with us for a while longer so we can prove ourselves... we have many
thousands of clients and thousands of compliments every month from happy
people... unfortunately as most in this industry, we have had an unlucky
couple of weeks, what with increases of email traffic from the Nimda virus
affecting other computers around the world.... (not ours), and third party
hardware.

We have introduced a 24hour service Mon to Fri; and 8 human hours Sat and
Sun, with the rest of the time protected by a server monitoring system. The
main goal of the weekend staff is to keep the servers up and running.

Out of the blue when everything had been running nice, we had a motherboard
failure last night, and we had people working all night to rebuild the
server, replace the motherboard... and test and run it.

We had the first problem earlier which was a server registry corruption, as
I believe, and when it was up fine, then came the motherboard.

Server monitoring had let us know of a problem straight away, but then we
had to search the server for the original problem.

I am sorry for the inconvenience, and I know it is, we have a headache
ourselves at the moment with all the extra complaints, but please be assured
we are fighting our way through it, as we usually do.

Also, on Monday we will be launching the new control panel, where the
customer gets over 90% control of their account, leaving support able to
concentrate on more crucial matters. This new panel is to die for with an
online manual and many helps everywhere.

Sorry again for the problem Gary, but if you stick with us you will see we
really are bloody good.

Yours most sincerely
Alec Ellis
M6.net