Network issues

[Craig_Smith]

I understand everyones frustration. For everyone who thinks I'm being condescending or less than friendly I'm getting an equal amount of "thanks yous" and "good job"'s. The bottom line is we do our best and MOST people appreciate it.

[parapet]

I guess I've been online long enough that I remember some of the big outages... like when AOL went from pay-per-hour to unlimited, and it took them weeks.. months... to get everything back up and running. Or when one of the early viruses took off through the Internet and seemingly took darned near every server out of whack...

I worked for a local ISP for a while and was grateful back then not to be the one in charge of the servers. They were under constant attack by hackers (let alone viruses and trojans) who couldn't care less who they hurt in their craving for publicity.

Outages happen, and they are going to happen, probably more often if some of the loonies out there in the world have their way. The key here is that Vortech always responds swiftly and gets things taken care of FAST. I've been with several hosting companies over time, one of them was one of the major players in the hosting industry. None of them had the customer service speed and delivery that Vortech has, certainly not the flexilibity and number of services that Vortech provides at the price they charge. And none of them responded with Vortech's speed when it came to getting things back online.

I for one am grateful to have found Vortech, and grateful for the great service they provide at a great price. I was not one of the callers (so make that 25,998), I KNEW the techs would be scurrying to get things taken care of if there was a problem, and they would certainly know there was a problem--they didn't need me harassing them, nor would I do so.

And the comment about customers who pay a low price for the hosting and then claim it's taking their business down... that's right on the mark. If your business is going to be irretrievably destroyed by a temporary outage, then you'd better make the investment in a bulletproof hosting solution and be prepared to pay the bucks that's going to take. Otherwise, accept that there are sometimes problems and that they WILL be fixed asap.

[electricfox]

Originally Posted by parapet

And the comment about customers who pay a low price for the hosting and then claim it's taking their business down... that's right on the mark. If your business is going to be irretrievably destroyed by a temporary outage, then you'd better make the investment in a bulletproof hosting solution and be prepared to pay the bucks that's going to take. Otherwise, accept that there are sometimes problems and that they WILL be fixed asap.

Don't get me wrong, I have loved Vortech for many years, but it's times like these that I pull out my hair. You've stated that it wasn't your fault, and that's the case with all of them, and you blame the fact that we don't pay you enough.

Why even bother having a SLA then? If we don't pay you enough to experience quality service, then why not just come out with it and tell us to find someone else if we need it? I appreciate the honesty now, but it would have been nice to hear this just once when we were buying our servers from you ("you know, you aren't paying us enough for us to buy quality network components, things may go down. are you sure?"). The reason why your $10/mo customers are annoyed is because of this dichotomy.

[Dean]

I've gotten thru to the ISP that owns the offending network. They have shut down the flood and I made them promise me they would keep the user responsible offline until they have fully investigated (not sure what their promise is worth, but its the best guarantee a non-customer can get).

I've contacted Cogent to get the null route on mail2 removed.

[cfrankland]

Originally Posted by Craig_Smith

I understand everyones frustration. For everyone who thinks I'm being condescending or less than friendly I'm getting an equal amount of "thanks yous" and "good job"'s. The bottom line is we do our best and MOST people appreciate it.

Don't take the "condescending" remark the wrong way, I also gave you a "Thanks for the quick action", and kudos for the troubleshooting!
It was just that one "I don't want to argue about it, but your wrong." that didn't come across so well, since I wasn't able to either. I wouldn't lie to you

[Craig_Smith]

Clinton, after 7 years in this biz, I don't take ANYTHING personally. Its all good man.

[Dean]

Cogent has removed the null route. Mail2 should be accessible in a couple minutes...just waiting on BGP.

I'd like to say from the techs, we're very sorry this happened. We really do work hard to try to provide you with the best level of service we can. I apologize for any comments that were made out of frustration during this ordeal. We do value our customers very much.

[tmanners]

Any update on mail2? I still can't connect to it.

[Dean]

The null route has been removed. If you can't connect, please submit a support ticket with a traceroute to the server.

[chungmike]

Originally Posted by Dean

Cogent has removed the null route. Mail2 should be accessible in a couple minutes...just waiting on BGP.
I'd like to say from the techs, we're very sorry this happened. We really do work hard to try to provide you with the best level of service we can. I apologize for any comments that were made out of frustration during this ordeal. We do value our customers very much.

Thanks again for the good work and updates on this issue.

[awen]

I can understand problems like these, and glad Vortech was on the job getting it fixed. I realize it wasn't an equipment issue so it makes sense that the SLA for outages doesn't apply. Kudos for a job well done.

The thing that irks me the most however is Vortech people who tell US that the forums and other servers and services were NOT down or affected when we are out here and can plainly see that they ARE affected. Just because you're sitting on the inside and don't see a problem doesn't mean that there isn't one and that everyone else who contradicts your claim is lying. I've also noticed Vortech outage lengths tend to be leaner that I've recorded in the past.

I believe these inconsistancies may be due to some technical configuration that lets Vortech see shorter outages and less affected services due to their proximity to the equipment, and that too is reasonable.

However is very unprofessional to deny it when numerous clients are reporting in problems. Maybe you don't see the problem, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Consider the possiblity and direct your reaction to the network and not at your clients, please.

[zcom]

OK, it makes your tummy hurt when the network goes down, especially if your clients are ringing your phone off the hook. But it seems that the techs did all they could to correct the outage, which, in all fairness, was actually an attack, not an outage. On a constructive note, I would like to know if Vortech could provide, at reasonable cost, some kind of mirror site or redundant server that would redirect busted traffic when outages occur? I would be happy to incur this additional expense on behalf of my clients. Any chance of this?

Thanks!

[mdallarosa]

mail2 is still unreachable
i have submitted a ticket with the following traceroute

from centralops.net [70.84.211.98]
to
Tracing route to mail.chw.com.uy [216.157.145.22]...
hop rtt rtt rtt ip address domain name
1 0 1 0 70.84.211.97 61.d3.5446.static.theplanet.com
2 0 0 0 70.84.160.161 vl2.dsr01.dllstx5.theplanet.com
3 0 0 0 70.85.127.105 po51.dsr01.dllstx3.theplanet.com
4 0 0 0 70.85.127.4 ae0-0.ibr04.dllstx3.theplanet.com
5 0 0 0 4.78.220.9
6 1 0 0 4.68.122.1 ae-1-51.bbr1.Dallas1.Level3.net
7 32 32 32 64.159.0.25 so-3-0-0.mp1.Orlando1.Level3.net
8 Host unreachable

Trace aborted

[toddharr]

Not there for me, either:
1,192.0.0.1,0ms,,0
2,63.199.113.245,11ms,adsl-63-199-113-245.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net,0
3,67.114.50.65,11ms,dist3-vlan60.irvnca.sbcglobal.net,0
4,151.164.92.194,11ms,bb1-g10-0.irvnca.sbcglobal.net,0
5,151.164.42.77,11ms,,0
6,151.164.241.221,12ms,core1-p1-0.cranca.sbcglobal.net,0
7,151.164.40.90,15ms,bb1-p1-0.cranca.sbcglobal.net,0
8,151.164.41.29,13ms,ex1-p15-0.eqlaca.sbcglobal.net,0
9,4.68.110.113,13ms,te-3-4.car3.LosAngeles1.Level3.net,0
10,4.68.102.161,13ms,ae-2-56.bbr2.LosAngeles1.Level3.net,0
11,64.159.0.25,81ms,so-3-0-0.mp1.Orlando1.Level3.net,0
12,0.0.0.0,20ms,,0

We are aware that mail2 is still unreachable. We are working to correct issue and will keep you updated on it's status here.