Question about longterm stability

[eN0ch]

Unlike some other threads on here, this is in no sense a complaint. Basically I think x10 is just A1, and I think it's amazing what's provided for us free account holders.

So not a complaint, but certainly a question ... I've been with x10 now for about 2 and a half years. I've hardly ever needed to request support, because it all just works beautifully most of the time. But to my best memory I'd say there've been maybe 2 or 3 major server (or whatever?) upgrades which have disrupted service on and off for periods of some weeks. So this current server relocation etc is number 3 or 4 in my time. The general picture I've been given each time is that the current upgrade is an unavoidable tsunami on an otherwise placid sea, and that once we get through this upgrade all will be plain sailing ahead. The way each one has been described has given me the impression that once this is done no further upgrades will be needed for a very long time (like years, maybe?). So I think "that's fine, once this is over it'll be back to normal with no significant disruptions for a couple of years at least ... " But then there's another major upgrade a year later or less. And so it seems to go ...

That's just the way it's seemed to me anecdotally. So I'd be interested in a comment or two on this from one of the x10 honchos at some point. Have the past 3 years just been unusually tumultuous, or is this frequency of significant disruption just a normal hazard in free hosting? Are major upgrades / disruptions likely to happen with that kind of frequency in the future? Or if not, what frequency is likely? As I said, definitely not a complaint. And I'm a total noob as far as this hosting stuff goes anyway. But it would help to know how "normal" the past 2 or 3 years have been, and what we might expect up ahead.

Thanks in anticipation

 

[Anna]

I have been around a while as well using free hosting (although I currently do not use a free account) and I recall there being 2 major changes causing issues like this in the time I have been around (bit over 2 yrs), one of which did involve the move to the Dallas data center we are now leaving (which was when my account was still very young, so i guess roughly two years ago). The other were just hardware upgrades and were done with far less hassle then the move was as I recall it.

This might hold some information about the plans to avoid these kinds of issues in the future. I added some bold and color to the most important part.

So what are we currently doing? With roughly 90% of our paid services moved over to Chicago including our own website we have started the free hosting migrations. Unfortunately there is no easy way to move 50,000+ accounts. The second we start moving accounts the host server usually chokes and starts spitting out errors. Again, this is mostly due to the fact the software we use such as cPanel is not meant to handle this many accounts. It's either that or no free hosting with cPanel though . Luckily we rarely have to move data centers, and if for some reason we ever had to again I think we'll pay to ship the hard drives instead of migrating accounts. For this migration it is not currently an option available to us though. Everyone keeps asking for an estimate on when we will be done transferring accounts and when things will go back to normal. Well, this is very hard to do. When transferring an account there are so many variables involved that an account that takes 1 minute to move right now may take 5 tomorrow.

These past few months has been a bit more of an hassle then expected for various reasons. A lot of the changes done now is to make it easier to grow in the future without causing inconveniences for the users.

The plan of course is to make the service as stable as possible, other then that I do not hold any more information about the over all plans for the future though.

 

[xav0989]

Also, the passed downtimes were due to, as Corey said, live testing of different ways to implement a system to manage and setup all the free servers. After the testing, one layout/system was chosen, and all the servers were moved to it. Soon after, there were issues with the DC, and a move was necessary. This means that the accounts have to be moved again, and the servers, reconfigured. However, this new system/layout will help prevent future problems, by various means put in place by the admins.

 

[eN0ch]

Guys,

Thanks for the replies so far. Can I take it as implied that this latest move could reasonably be expected to ensure minimal disruption to free accounts from here on? .. Or is it not that simple?

 

[x10thebest]

I agree

 

[xav0989]

Yeah, the upgrades and moves currently done right now are done so that there could be minimal disruption of service down the line, later on.

 

[Corey]

The problem lies within how fast we are growing and how technology changes. I remember the first time we made a 'big move' we were getting maybe 50 sign-ups per day. So we adjusted things for it, figured out the best way to handle that amount of sign-ups. That increased to 200\day and we went through this process again. We've tried virtualization, clustering, clouds, etc... The problem with free hosting is that it's not popular, I can't go out there on the internet and learn from what other people have done. With normal web hosting I can find TONS of information on the best setup, the best software, the best way to do it all. With free hosting it's pretty much guess and test, so inherently this causes problems as not every guess turns into a good test . Also with free hosting you do not have the capital that you have with a normal profitable business to plan for future growth because of the slim profit margins on it. This also makes it difficult when you come to migrations like we have right now. When we do a migration the monthly cost of free hosting for us doubles for the interim because we have to have servers online at two places. Right now there is a double of every free hosting server we have, one at the old DC, one at the new DC but we pay for both.

Will we have to do this again in the future? I hope not. We've grown a lot from the 100 sign-up days, we quite often go over 1,000 in a single day. I believe we have done the absolute best we could have in figuring out this final plan to carry us well into the future. I can easily see our new setup handling 5,000 sign-ups a day. We have our own dedicated hardware now such as private switches for just our servers and being a 'larger' customer we get extra perks which makes it easier for us to expand and try new things where as in the past it wasn't so easy. There is also all the knowledge we've gained over the past 6 years now on how things work, and how to make them work the way we need them to.

Hopefully that answers your question ;P