24 South Prospect St
Suite 104
Amherst MA 01002
413-367-6448
info[at]rvtc.us
Server Uptime: Clients sometimes ask us about the Server Uptime. Here are some thoughts on it.
Clients sometimes ask us about the Server Uptime. Here are some thoughts on it.
99.9% uptime allows for 8 hours a year of downtime.
So we have not hit below that point yet in any year (4 years now 3 on our own private servers with M5Hosting and about 1 with dreamhost).
Consider too this is not just about servers it is about data centers etc.
The only real way to do %100 uptime is to have 2 servers running images of Virtual machines they are synchronized daily so if one goes down the other takes over.
They would have to be in 2 different data centers in different parts of the country.
This is done at the kernel level and has nothing to do with drupal etc.
For RVTC to offer this we would have to own 6 servers 3 in one are 3 an another and use a provider like Dreamhost or Media Template or Rackspace to host those servers.
Then we would have to make sure they had hardware on hand to replace the hardware when/if it fails (if it is not just a software issue like this one)
So in the long run this is viable. And if more clients join RVTC at the contract rates of Level 2 we can offer this since at that rate we can put a bit more money and focus into building that infrustructure. But for some clients at hosting rates of $10 a month that is not an option almost anywhere to really get %100. If they say %100 that does now include downtime for security updates to apache, php, drupal or just the linux kernel. Our clients are welcome to sign up with the big hosts like Media Temple etc to run their drupal installs and RVTC can manage them there too. But unless the provider is doing the above then %99.9 is all they can offer due to the inherent limitations in hardware and the security patches that need to happen quite often.
So in time we might scale like this BUT no matter who we subhost with ie a Private server or Virtual Private server it is hard to offer more then 99.9% up time.
Consider these stories as well
Gmail Down
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10014389-2.html
Facebook Down
http://mashable.com/2009/11/23/facebook-down-4/
and again last week due to a power outage.
Wordpress down
http://www.centernetworks.com/wordpress-down-power-outage
Faceted Search
Share this page
Author Profile
Not counting my Commodore 64 years, I began my IT career when Windows 95 hit the scene and Google was just a glimmer on the Californian horizon. I discovered Drupal four years ago when it was giving Joomla a run for its money.
At the time, I was working as the IT manager at the National Priorities Project (NPP). We were using Joolma and getting about 200,000 visitors a month and the site was not scaling well. I saw the limits of Joomla and the promise of Drupal 4 with its taxonomy system, clean urls, and security features. I converted NPP to Drupal and migrated their main database, http://nationalpriorities.org/nppdatabase_tool, from webobjects to a Drupal-friendly structure in MySQL. Still not satisfied, I moved NPP’s constituent data (including their 25,000 member email list) out of the expensive Raiser's Edge and into the free and open source CiviCRM 1.8, saving the company money that it was spending on their desktop software.
Thus began my commitment to supporting non-profits by creating affordable, custom-built content management systems in Drupal and CiviCRM. I founded River Valley Tech Collective as a collaborative team of other like-minded techies to provide Drupal-driven sites to a wider range of non-profits, educational institutions and local community organizations.
Add comment