03/25/2004: cp.hsphere.cc

[gmullins]

Okay - I am new to this hosting company - but I am having a difficult time getting anything to work. I have timed out on most every task I have attempted. How long has this problem been going on? Is it common? What is the ETA on resolution? I cannot afford to have a hosting environment that is this slow or this flakey. Is this problem effecting hosted accounts as well as the admin accounts? (I.E> are sites being hosted here running this slow as well?)

Throw me a bone - I am having second thoughts on using this to host my sites.

Gary

[Vixen]

This issue does not affect the sites just the CP. I understand the frustration because as are all frustrated because this is the exact same control panel that we use.

We are working with the developer (Psoft) to get the issues resolved as soon as possible. Since this has never happened to us or them before, it is taking a little longer than expected.

[gmullins]

Okay Vixen - thanks. I guess I'll take a break and come back to it later. Hopefully it will be resolved.

Gary

PSoft has never had anyone with a cluster this big... Thats kinda the problem. Our servers are all split, so the system database is one physical box, the control panel server (web server for control panels) is another physical box... so we shouldn't have a huge problem. We're just super busy..

When its fixed htough it should be really fast... I notice than when its fast, its much faster than it was before... We just need Psoft to examine it and determine why it slows down to a crawl... I think thats an issue that they will find soon.

[mfennell]

Originally Posted by gmullins

Okay - I am new to this hosting company - but I am having a difficult time getting anything to work. I have timed out on most every task I have attempted. How long has this problem been going on? Is it common? What is the ETA on resolution? I cannot afford to have a hosting environment that is this slow or this flakey. Is this problem effecting hosted accounts as well as the admin accounts? (I.E> are sites being hosted here running this slow as well?)

Throw me a bone - I am having second thoughts on using this to host my sites.

Gary

The control panel is on a different machine than the webservers so your clients wouldn't be effected unless they wanted to log into the control panel.

Normally the control panel is pretty stable but over a period of time it has gotten slower. With the shear number of users that now use it, it is understandable, growing pains is something we all have to deal with (hopefully). What once was fine for a number of users is now being bogged down with all the new clients and so they talked to the software developers (Psoft) and they suggested to upgrade the OS to RedHat Enterprise to help with the speed issues. They are currently working out the bugs from the change over.

I have been a client here for a while now and overall I have had a enjoyable relationship with them. There have been times where I haven't been so happy with what they told me but... atleast I was able to get in contact with them. Which is a lot more than I can say for my previous hosting providers.

If your hosting with Matrix then you havn't made a mistake, they are a solid provider and offer a very solid service.

I must confess guys, this is all my fault. Everytime I move to a new hosting company, almost immediately something unique happens that nobody ever experienced before, LOL. I moved from my last host because multiple PIX firewalls completely failed keeping us offline for 10+ hours. Of course they'd never seen multiple PIX's hard fail simultaneously (if that's what really happened). I had one customer who was so angry at me so I moved her first. Now she is "dying" over no CP. At least her site is up.

I know you guys are working hard to resolve this and thanks for the constant communication in this thread.

[mfennell]

Now we know who to blame!

Maybe we can get you to sign up at my local competitors :P

CP is ssssmokin' now!

[nelsonke]

To the new guys, I have been here about a year. While I have had a few problems - mostly Microsofts fault with a Windows 2003 server not ready for prime time (surprise) -- the communications is great, and the "work together" spirit is outstanding. I predict you will be happy you switched.

[antic]

The simple fact is there will be bugs and problems from time to time no matter where you go. The main thing is the support and communication you get from your provider, and of course their competency. Sometimes problems just can't be predicted or avoided.

This is a biggie of course, affecting the entire CP across the board. But from past experience I have every confidence that the guys will work out a solution. This is the best hosting & support environment I've come across, and the community is very positive.

It's unusual, no matter what the industry, for customers to pipe up with positive feedback and not just underline the problems. That's a significant thing in any customer base, and Vortech can be proud of that.

Just a suggestion, now that I've buttered them up.. It might be nice to have two CP server boxes - not just for speed but also for redundancy in cases like this. It would provide a way to test PSoft upgrades etc. on one box, leaving the other one available if anything goes wrong, or simply crashes. The CP is "missioin critical" stuff after all. Is that something worth looking into?

Anyway, hope the speed issue gets sorted out soon, and thanks as always for the updates!

[Brangwyn]

That would probably require 2 extra boxes, one to mirror the database and the other to mirror the actual CP server ... I'm not too sure of the benefits in doing that though, one of the main reasons I suspect that we have the odd problem with the CP is becuase Vortech has the biggest HSphere cluster known to man, so trying to test these upgrades on another server thats not in as a big of a cluster (don't foget when theres hsphere upgrades its not always just the CP server that gets upgraded, theres a service/component that runs on every webserver in the cluster as well) may not highlight too many issues.

I think Brads current approach is to let the other HSphere resellers out there test anything other than the critical patches and see if they have any problems before putting them on here, seems like a fairly sensible approach to me .. let the others be the guinea pigs

[antic]

ah, I see. If web server components all get upgraded too, then yeah there's no point is doing that.

So when the CP get bogged down perodically, is that because of CP web server load, or CP database server load? Or something else?

[edit] I agree totally with Brad's approach! [/edit]

CP Database and Web are on two separate boxes... We have considered setting up multiple Web boxes (that run the java part of the bit), but 2.4 is "right around the corner" and uses tomcat, so we've been waiting to see how tomcat will react and if its feasible with tomcat (No sense getting Jserv working to change 2 months later...)

Also, even if we did setup "test boxes"... how good would that be if noone actually uses it? Its not just the updates, but the amount of hits per second we are getting, you just dont know till it actually goes live...

[AbsoluteWeb]

I am having trouble connecting to the control panel. When it finally does connect, it is extrememly slow. I can't do anything at all...

Is anyone else having these issues?

[jmbeach]

yes, same here. Slow and seems to connect when it feels like it...