Stress of a Server Move
One of the reasons for the lack of posts this month is down to moving my main site - Heritage Gifts, onto a new server. In the run up to xmas, the site slowed dramatically due to the shear volume of seasonal traffic it was generating. I am sure this must have had a fair impact on sales but given that we were flat out with order processing at the time, there wasnt alot I could do about it. In fact, it was probably no bad thing that we didnt recieve any extra orders.
Since xmas, things have calmed down alot, but there was still enough traffic to slow the site. This was down to three main factors, traffic, a large mysql database (both with cutomer info and products) and shoddy code - well, maybe not shoddy but certainly my cart has been modified extensively, over a period of time and with plenty of contributions added over the top of each other.
The upshot, I had to move the site onto better hosting and now is the time of year to do it. As I posted before, I am more than happy with my current web hosts and after speaking with them, they offered me a tailor made package on a "shared dedicated server". Great.
The problems I had with the move came in two stages. The first attempt ended up with the site being moved to a new server but there were big problems with the server in question. There were large load spikes being caused by one of the sites on the server. Consequently, my site was pretty much down for a period of about 48 hours. Costly. Lost a good few orders and a lot of sleep!
The hosting company moved my site back to its original server, and after consultation, agreed to set me up on a better server, with a couple of days to test the site before actually moving it. I duly set up an exact copy of my site, tested it thoroughly on the new, better server and was already to go ahead with the move. As the hosts had offered to move the site for me, when it came time for the actual move, I figured it would make sense for them to copy the site across afresh, just in case I had missed something. Man, disaster struck again - For some reason, the mysql database became corrupted. No idea why, it still remains a complete mystery. However, because of this, another day of trading was lost.
The other thing that was lost was my rag! I got pretty shirty with the support team. I was under alot of pressure - to lose three days of sales in a month is not good. The main thing though was their apparent lack of concern in with their replies in the support ticket. I have since learnt of how hard they were working to try and resolve the problem but due to their comments in the ticket, it just wasnt apparent to me at the time.
The issue was finally resolved very late on in the evening, nearly 24 hours after the move and it was resolved by reinstating a backup from the original server to the new one. Why this should work when transferring all the same files and database didnt? Well, only him upstairs knows the answer to that one!
The reason for posting about this however is not to convey my excuses for not blogging but to mention how I feel about the hosting company now. After having 2 trouble free years with them before the move (including accomodating the site before xmas when it was using more than its fair share of server load), they have gone out of their way to set me up a personal hosting solution, the server my site is now hosted on is lightening fast (despite the mixed up code and large database!) and after explaining my problems with the way that the support ticket was handled, they have already implemented changes to how they deal with server moves and support tickets.
You cant really argue with that can you? Sure I lost three days takings but if you stand back and take this over two years of hosting...... Well, I reckon I will recover the takings over the next few months due to the speed of the site on its new home.
After having recently read a couple of other bloggers posts about a couple of the large UK hosting companies, I reckon my site is in pretty safe hands.
Since xmas, things have calmed down alot, but there was still enough traffic to slow the site. This was down to three main factors, traffic, a large mysql database (both with cutomer info and products) and shoddy code - well, maybe not shoddy but certainly my cart has been modified extensively, over a period of time and with plenty of contributions added over the top of each other.
The upshot, I had to move the site onto better hosting and now is the time of year to do it. As I posted before, I am more than happy with my current web hosts and after speaking with them, they offered me a tailor made package on a "shared dedicated server". Great.
The problems I had with the move came in two stages. The first attempt ended up with the site being moved to a new server but there were big problems with the server in question. There were large load spikes being caused by one of the sites on the server. Consequently, my site was pretty much down for a period of about 48 hours. Costly. Lost a good few orders and a lot of sleep!
The hosting company moved my site back to its original server, and after consultation, agreed to set me up on a better server, with a couple of days to test the site before actually moving it. I duly set up an exact copy of my site, tested it thoroughly on the new, better server and was already to go ahead with the move. As the hosts had offered to move the site for me, when it came time for the actual move, I figured it would make sense for them to copy the site across afresh, just in case I had missed something. Man, disaster struck again - For some reason, the mysql database became corrupted. No idea why, it still remains a complete mystery. However, because of this, another day of trading was lost.
The other thing that was lost was my rag! I got pretty shirty with the support team. I was under alot of pressure - to lose three days of sales in a month is not good. The main thing though was their apparent lack of concern in with their replies in the support ticket. I have since learnt of how hard they were working to try and resolve the problem but due to their comments in the ticket, it just wasnt apparent to me at the time.
The issue was finally resolved very late on in the evening, nearly 24 hours after the move and it was resolved by reinstating a backup from the original server to the new one. Why this should work when transferring all the same files and database didnt? Well, only him upstairs knows the answer to that one!
The reason for posting about this however is not to convey my excuses for not blogging but to mention how I feel about the hosting company now. After having 2 trouble free years with them before the move (including accomodating the site before xmas when it was using more than its fair share of server load), they have gone out of their way to set me up a personal hosting solution, the server my site is now hosted on is lightening fast (despite the mixed up code and large database!) and after explaining my problems with the way that the support ticket was handled, they have already implemented changes to how they deal with server moves and support tickets.
You cant really argue with that can you? Sure I lost three days takings but if you stand back and take this over two years of hosting...... Well, I reckon I will recover the takings over the next few months due to the speed of the site on its new home.
After having recently read a couple of other bloggers posts about a couple of the large UK hosting companies, I reckon my site is in pretty safe hands.
posted by richandzhaoyan | 11:54 PM
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