I have a fondness for my hosting company. They are not only affordable, they give hands on service.
And no, it’s not just the promise on the label. It’s real.
Back in the days when we were putting together Creative Latitude, Conor from Hands-on Web Hosting was right there answering questions. Right there on the phone. Once he even sorted out pressing problems while driving down the highway. How great is that?
Hands-on has grown so we now depend mostly on online tickets (it’s the only way they can keep track of so many customers), with the occasional email on the side.
And even with tickets, we get a real person on the other end answering questions. People we know.
In the past I’ve only had one main problem where I didn’t get a reply within minutes. Totally understandable really, as it was during an awful snowstorm.
So while I was sitting here in sunny Bangkok fretting, my buddy Velda from Hands-on was sitting with her nose in a snow drift, trying to get unstuck.
Which brings me to now.
On Sunday, as usual, I woke up and came to DWB to start my posts for the week. Only, there wasn’t a DWB. And there wasn’t a hosting company either.
And if you were trying to see DWB, you’d have noticed the lack too.
Shooting over an to Hands-on there was nadda. Not a peep.
Now, after being with Hands-on for years I know it takes something serious for them to be a total no show. I just couldn’t imagine what it could be. And I certainly didn’t expect this …
Texas-Based Server Provider Explosion Affects 9,000 Servers, 7,500 Customers.
According to The Planet’s website, at about 5 p.m. Saturday electrical gear shorted, creating an explosion and fire that knocked down three walls surrounding their electrical equipment room.
I guess it’s time to take down that ad for All New and Smoking Hot Dedicated Servers. Right Conor? ;-)
As soon as Velda could get a minute she emailed to explain what was going on. Amongst it all was a bit about how hosting companies work. It was pretty interesting really. And most I didn’t realise.
I didn’t know how HUGE those machines are (she sent over photos). And instead of operating out of a garage or lockup or some such, Hands-on leases their machines from The Planet.
I can only imagine what it’s like in The Planet’s offices at the moment. And the same goes for Hands-on, as about 600 of Hands-on’s customers were affected.
Btw – it’s still going on so PLEASE be patient if DWB flitters around here and there.
And my sincere sympathies goes to the gang at Hands-on. With 600 customers fussing around, it has GOT to be a logistical nightmare.
Now, I don’t know about you all, but (like I said), I have a fondness for my hosting company. And truthfully, it’s going to take a lot more than exploding walls to get me to shift my business.
I sure hope others are thinking along the same lines, because honestly, you just don’t get excellent hands on service these days.
Smoking Hot Dedicated Servers, yes. But real hands on service? No, it’s not as common. Not in my experience anyway.
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Yikes! Scary stuff. But you’re right, first class hands on customer service is worth its weight in gold… and pays off at times like this. You’ve got loyal customers who’ll stick by you… and write posts to explain why.
Joanna
It must have been panic city for everyone on the hosting end.
I just hope http://www.classmates.com and http://www.familyreunion.com and http://www.tigerdirect.com feel the same way I do as we were all down together.
Hey Cat – great article, and thanks for the support.
As you can imagine, we’re still trying to sort through the aftermath and dealing with hundreds of support tickets. While we attempted to keep everyone updated regarding the issue, we found that some people from parts of the world couldn’t get to our web site. We had news posted on the main page, and in the support area, and we also tried to be online as much as possible.
Personally I’ve now just had a total of 8 hours of sleep since the incident first started at approx 4:30pm PST on Saturday. Velda, Eva and Chris (the other main folk that make up Hands-on) have also been working double and triple overtime with our clients. Unfortuantely in this sort of event our hands are tied. :(
We’re grateful for the customers/friends that we have hosting with us. I never liked calling people customers or clients as they’re more like family. We have a relationship with almost all our clients on a personal level and that’s one of the key things that set us apart from other companies.
I am hopeful that in the next few days things will settle down and business will return to usual (whatever that is). For now, please know that we are working extra hard to keep things operational, and the people at The Planet are going through a rough time, but surviving. I do not know of any other data center (or business) that could suffer such as disaster and within 55 hours have everything fully operational again as if nothing had happened! Truly amazing stuff!
Thanks for the support,
Conor
Heheh, yeah that ad has some unfortunate wording now doesn’t it? Thanks for still having kind words to say about us despite the last few days of craziness!
Conor – I’ll bet you are more than ready for a holiday after this! It really must be a nightmare to handle these problems on top of your regular schedule. I keep trying to wrap my head around 600 customers and just can’t imagine what it’d take to sort it all out.
But I believe them knowing that there are real people behind the Hands-on sign is an added plus. Sure, it’s taken a ton of extra time for you all to work this way (I know how much time you take with me), but it’s the glue that holds HO together.
Velda – well, it’s been way crazier for you than me for sure! I’ve just been goofing off, waiting for things to right. And I guess I really needed this (short) time off too.
Now about that needed vacation … ;-)
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Wow I can’t believe that happened… I just backed up all my databases after reading this.
Hopefully the company is able to sort out most of the cases for its clients. I would hate to be in their position.
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Yeah. It was just one of those freak accidents that make you think. I have my databases set to back up weekly so I’m not on too bad of a position if it does happen. I tried out the daily but it got to be too much hassle.
Well it took a few days to resolve, but everything was restored. We actually had 9 of the 15 computers back online the following day, and the other computers were resolved the next day. There was another outage on those again, but everything is fully resolved at this point.
Backups, as you can imagine, are a HUGE concern. Nobody really does the backups until it’s too late. There’s a number of places that offer online backup service that are fairly cheap too.
For us, we didn’t have any data loss. No hardware loss. And limited customer loss. We were lucky. I have a buddy of mine also in the hosting business and 3 of his servers were offline. Unfortunately he’s only now getting established, and for this sort of hit, he’ll likely face a huge turnover rate. I’m very grateful to all the people hosting with Hands-on who not only understood what was going on, but also the offers of what they could do to help us. Customer loyalty at it’s best!
We’ll be launching our backup portion of Hands-on here shortly (working on it over this weekend actually). There were 3 major projects supposed to happen last week, but it looks like THIS week we’ll get them hammered out (including that Hands-on Blog you had been looking for Cat ;) )
Vacation sounds nice – a cold drink on a comfy couch sounds better right now ;)
Conor Treacy
Hands-on Web Hosting
“For us, we didn’t have any data loss. No hardware loss. And limited customer loss.”
Conor, that is SO good to hear! Communication is so key in these situations, yes?
Backing up a WP blog is dead easy and automatic. I’m surprised when people don’t put it in place. And for the web files, it’s really just a matter of keeping a copy together on your hd.
“including that Hands-on Blog you had been looking for Cat”
Yeah! I’ll be looking forward to reading it. I wasn’t sure how I’d find reading about hosting and such, but Velda’s patient descriptions were very interesting so I would advise people to visit.
“Vacation sounds nice ….”
Can you hold out until October? The dates are set … the condos are a waiting …
I’ve been leasing servers since the dawn of the internet era (in the mid-’90s) with dozens of firm and have never been more satisfied with the service and reliability at The Planet. This accident, though a fluke, was a difficult experience for us at FamilyReunion.com but a nightmare for the administration and staff at The Planet. I felt empathy more than anything else and am relieved for all of us that they quickly recovered.
I can imagine it must have been awful for The Planet. As well as those having to explain to their clients. I hope you didn’t lose anyone with FamilyReunion.com?
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