NT26 and NT27 up and down all day

[tkraffty]

Hi - I've been watching NT26 and NT27 go up and down all day. I know these two machines have been having stability issues for a while, but I thought they had been resolved in the past few days...

My best customers happen to be hosted on those two machines, so I'm wondering if you could post a status-update on these servers? These stability issues are literally jeopardizing a third of my business revenue.

Thanks

[Vixen]

If you are having an issue, I would recommend submitting a support ticket. Brad has been out of the office, in a meeting, most of the afternoon so he has not been checking the forum.

[antic]

I really don't see what all this discussion is about. The path seems very clear to me considering the about of trouble and grief this is causing for resellers, their clients and Vortech themselves, whom I have the greatest respect for as a concientious service provider.

But PLEASE - at least consider this suggestion as the path ahead from here.

1. Set up a new Win2000 server and copy all sites across from NT 26 & 27 and let it run temporarily. There should be minimal downtime.

2. Whichever machine (26 or 27) is having the LEAST problems - reload this one with Win2000 and then move some sites over from the other 2000 server. Now you have 2 Win2000 servers in place of the original two Win2003 ones.

3. What you have left is the Win2003 server which had the MOST problems. Make a Ghost or something of it in it's current state. Send this to Microsoft with a letter saying "FIX IT". At the same time, run tests, patches, whatever, on this most troublesome of servers until you find something or MS comes back with a solution.

I am very troubled with what's going on, as ALL of my clients (including my service domain) are on 26 and 27. This is my suggestion for resolving the PROBLEM.

BIG HEADS UP - The "problem" is DOWN-TIME FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS. The problem is **NOT** Windows 2003. Don't get caught up in the technical ins-and-outs when there is at least one clear path ahead for your customers.

Us resellers will stand by you, because you're good to us and run a great service; I have the HIGHEST respect for Vortech as a hosting provider. But resellers without clients won't be reselling for very long.

[admin]

Originally Posted by antic

1. Set up a new Win2000 server and copy all sites across from NT 26 & 27 and let it run temporarily. There should be minimal downtime.

A: No way to do this as there is no way to have the same IP on 2 systems. We have to move the users stuff and set it backup in the new system for any thing to work. Meaning down time for each site till H-Sphere recreats it in IIS.

Originally Posted by antic

2. Whichever machine (26 or 27) is having the LEAST problems - reload this one with Win2000 and then move some sites over from the other 2000 server. Now you have 2 Win2000 servers in place of the original two Win2003 ones.

A: We will be setting up 2 new systems with win2k, pull a drive out of NT26 and start the setup from H-Sphere once its done we start on NT27. NT26 has the most problems so it would be the first one todo.

Originally Posted by antic

3. What you have left is the Win2003 server which had the MOST problems. Make a Ghost or something of it in it's current state. Send this to Microsoft with a letter saying "FIX IT". At the same time, run tests, patches, whatever, on this most troublesome of servers until you find something or MS comes back with a solution.

A: I can't do this for 2 reasons, MS would not take it I have tried that before to make them fix something. The other is it would not fully work right with out send every ones sits and I think that would be a bad idea.. Plus with out any load on the system from the sites it may not crash at all..

Originally Posted by antic

I am very troubled with what's going on, as ALL of my clients (including my service domain) are on 26 and 27. This is my suggestion for resolving the PROBLEM.

BIG HEADS UP - The "problem" is DOWN-TIME FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS. The problem is **NOT** Windows 2003. Don't get caught up in the technical ins-and-outs when there is at least one clear path ahead for your customers.

Us resellers will stand by you, because you're good to us and run a great service; I have the HIGHEST respect for Vortech as a hosting provider. But resellers without clients won't be reselling for very long.

Why thanks, we did try very hard to make the new OS work as it would speed up support on our end a bit because of some of the new things in win2k. But if it does not work as it should it ends up making more support for us.. Not a good trade off for us or you guys..

I think the win2k path is looking really good to me and I will do my best to make it as fast as I can in the switch?

[nabsUK]

I'm all for getting it done asap. Our main client's sites are on NT26 so the sooner the better for us.

Thanks

[admin]

Yea more issues with good old MS.. We fixed the new issue with them today. It seems if MS SMTP can't send email it crashes IIS, I don't mean it can't send mail to anyone, but to just one user or domain. It does not seem to handle that very well it seems and is crashing IIS.

It took a little time to find this issue, once we matched up the times IIS crashed and logs we started seeing a pattern in the logs and times.

We fixed this issue by using the Smart host in MS SMTP to just foward its mail to anther system to send out ( a windows 2000 server ) that does not have this issue like MS SMTP does in windows 2003.

We also found that if the main DNS server drops or restarts IIS will crash.. We fixed this issue by just switching it to NS3 and NS4.

We also found a script we run to clean up the systems every night had a small issue on NT26 and NT27 for some odd reason.. Sharond fixed that already today so that should be taken care of as well.

So tonight will be the test to see how they go now.. Hope there is nothing else.. I think I summed up what has happend with these 2 systems... Good news is NT28 is online and is running Win2k with CF MX..

[Silverbug]

heh, maybe all this crashing and unstability is a sign brad the servers way of saying move us back to win2k

[Brangwyn]

Cool thanks Brad, probably a question you don't want to hear, but whats going to be the story on Credits for this month, I think it's safe to say those two servers have had a faily large amount of downtime last 30 days.

[admin]

Yea they have for sure had there share of issues..

Being that so far everything has been bugs in the OS its self kind of out of hands, let me think about and see what we can do.. The other issue is most users have had great uptime on all other systems.. Meaning 90% of there domains could of had 100% uptime and less on NT26 and NT27 due to MS bugs..

But let me think about it tonight and see what we can do on the issue. By policy it would be no since its not really "our" fault. But I am not big on that policy when it comes to things like this..

[Brangwyn]

No wurries.

One thing to perhaps consider though is you may have been able to reduce the downtime by just giving in and moving the content to a W2k box instead of persisting with trying to get the 2k3 boxes stable. Not saying you should have done that, but I think you may have had options to reduce the downtime that weren't taken which to me means there is some acountablity not only to MS but Vortech as well.

Perhaps I'm wrong though, maybe shifting user content wasn't strictly an option.

[newmem]

Originally Posted by admin

Good news is NT28 is online and is running Win2k with CF MX..

(1) How do I take my site from NT27 to NT28? I don't wanna be on the 27 anymore if the downtime still continues.......

(2) Are you sure you won't convert NT28 also into Win2003 as you had previously stated that if nt26/27 become stable you will be converting all to win2003?

[admin]

Originally Posted by newmem

(1) How do I take my site from NT27 to NT28? I don't wanna be on the 27 anymore if the downtime still continues.......

(2) Are you sure you won't convert NT28 also into Win2003 as you had previously stated that if nt26/27 become stable you will be converting all to win2003?

I am not switching any thing to win2k3.. Not sure when I said that but no, I am not messing with any of the older servers and all new ones will be win2k that are more then stable..

To move it you have to delete the account the site is under and resign up. It will put you on the new NT28 box. There would be a little downtime in doing this but it would be less then if you wait for us to install the box maybe. Just a DNS IP change.. As long as your mail is on mail3 now it will stay there so you would only lose about 10 to 15 min of mail till you set it back up.

[newmem]

Brad, how about putting NT28 and NS3 on the server monitor screen? Didn't find them there......

and for moving to 28: I have to login as reseller-admin and delete the windows account I had created...that will automatically delete the domain that has signed up under that account? But that will delete all my pages from FTP, rite? So I should backup first?

(2) Next, I create a new windows plan and sign-up there with the same domain.

Let me know if I am on the right track...

What's that with the DNS IP change?

[newmem]

Originally Posted by newmem

Brad, how about putting NT28 and NS3 on the server monitor screen? Didn't find them there......

and for moving to 28: I have to login as reseller-admin and delete the windows account I had created...that will automatically delete the domain that has signed up under that account? But that will delete all my pages from FTP, rite? So I should backup first?

(2) Next, I create a new windows plan and sign-up there with the same domain.

Let me know if I am on the right track...

What's that with the DNS IP change?

Brad? pls. reply.......

[admin]

VOTE HERE http://www.matrixreseller.com/forum/...&threadid=6397