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Mission critical apps with single owner LEB providers
Anyone have concerns running an app or services with VPS providers who are a one-man show? Let's say an owner disappear for whatever reason, whereas you use services from a larger company like Linode or AWS.
I realize you would make backups and what not but the thought of someone closing shop or not being available suddenly is a concern for myself who runs various web apps to the public.
Comments
If you're really concerned about this then why are you having a service with them?
Being a large organization with fully staffed teams doesn't mean you'll be around next year. The Internet is known for taking wild turns at the drop of a hat. What matters most is this month, this year, where are you getting the service you need at the price you want to pay. Beyond that, there are no guarantees. Remember, if well established were the ticket, GoDaddy would be one of the best hosts around.
If you are seriously concerned about mission critical apps, then get a mission critical server/vps. LEB can do it, but you have to build in redundancy on your own accord and time.
Yes, which is why I don't.
I love LEBs, but you have to keep in mind what they are.
If you are running something mission critical, it should probably be redundant enough to survive a vanishing provider in the first place.
Your thread title is mission critical, and yet you want to spend LEB price for mission-critical apps...
Do you even know what mission-critical means?
If it's mission critical app and your business depends on it then a 1-person operation is not advisable because the 1-man dynamo needs to sleep everyday and their snooze time might be when you need them most (i.e. martians hijack the network, termites invade the drives, etc.
If it's a mission critical app you may also want to avoid VPS providers who didn't even use a VPS until 1-3 years ago (yes, I just read the "what was your 1st VPS" thread). A large percentage of the downtime in LEBland is due to technically inexperienced hosts who would be lost if they didn't have Solus (or CPanel for shared hosts) to hold their hands (example: monsieur shove).
No single hosting is reliable enough to hold mission critial things.
If you're app really is "misson-critical" it wouldn't be hosted on LEBs or on a single host in the first place.
Scoop up a few LEBs build in your own redundancy. We've been with three cloudy 100% uptime providers for our corporate hosting, all three have let us down in one way or another.
Well damn, not once did I say I run my stuff with a small vps provider. As a matter of fact I built redundancy with my stuff. Some of the smaller providers wish folks would sign up for them to run mission critical apps.
Our point is, redundancy redundancy redundancy. Many hosts here have small problems from time to time.
I currently run a web-cluster array on 4 vps in 4 seperate locations. I am still working out the kinks but they were great and ~3tbs of traffic monthly get funneled between them.
So yes we run mission critical apps on them, but there are times where it is better to fork over some extra cast, in my case it is for the backend server.
@mitgib
One mans Rockband. Runs better show than some of the "big" boys with multiple staffs.
An important aspect that a lot of people are overlooking when talking about "one man shows", is that while the one man shows indeed only consists of one person (and thus limited support availability), that one person is personally involved with the service they are providing.
The employees of a large hosting corporation are typically not emotionally invested in the services they provide, and as a result, there's a larger chance of an "I don't really care" attitude, leading to effectively the lowest common denominator in service.
However strange it may sound, a lot of one-man-show hosts appear to have significant emotional investment, which makes it more likely that they care about your service. Because ofthis, I don't find it at all surprising that Hostigation (to just repeat the example) runs better and more reliably than a lot of big-brand hosts.
Agreed! I am sure that for the small providers here, keeping their services tip-top is a point of pride.
Hostigation isn't a 1 man show anymore as far as I know.
1) Trust the man running the one-man-show project
2) Maintain a good relationship with the man running the one-man-show project
3) Cerate your own redundant system
Don't forget, be it a one-man-show project or a redundant system in a fully fledged top of the notch multiple data center, when uncle Murphy comes, he will.
But at least you know the best expectation you can get.
I think Tim is less likely to run. and support also doesnt sleep, as he has added support staff
My only concern with one-man-shows is: what if, god forbid, something happens to that one person? I have service with Hostigation, mind you, but the inherent risk -- slight as it may be -- has crossed my mind.
IIRC Tim has a Chinese dude working for him? Or at least someone covering night support.
You can "what if" yourself into hiding in the closet with a tin foil hat and a butcher knife, but I'd recommend avoiding excessive thought exercises that work against productivity, unless you're a philosopher or psychologist.
If I were to ask what the potential risks are of doing business with a corporate entity, I imagine that there would be no shortage of potentially legitimate answers that all circled the concept of "what if." Quite simply, everything has risks.
Now, the datacenter employees aren't reading obituaries and waiting to cut off power the moment they see a clients name run across it. I'd rather take my risks with a small operation than sit around waiting for the "bought out by EIG" announcement.
No one is too big to fail. With the "safety" of a large corporate host comes one of two things:
A. High price
B. Low quality
The reason you risk these small companies is that they provide a quality of service that the big names do not. They cut support overhead and profit margins to bring you savings. If you don't believe that, try a GoDaddy VPS. It's expensive and slow. Then, try mine. It's inexpensive and fast. Compare it to a larger but not quite so large business like MediaTemple. At best, similar, better support, higher cost. You will trade something, it's up to you to pick what that is.
What ifs stops the world. "What if me living here puts me at risk of a shark falling from the sky?"
Honestly, I don't care as long as I know who's running the servers and I trust in their management job. That's probably why I've stopped expanding my list of providers (or rarely expand it) and have mostly focused on keeping providers I have currently.
Last "New Provider" VPS I purchased? Probably my NodeDeploy. Definitely worth it too.
You're not doing your due diligence as a consumer if you don't at least consider risk when purchasing a product or a service -- especially in a market saturated with fly-by-night summer hosts like this. Considering risk does not automatically mean being paralyzed by it.
Obviously you perform the standard risk analysis (basically asking yourself "What's the history of this host? Any previous reviews? Any benchmarks? have these benchmarks been constant?" etc.
But then there's people who over-do it (atleast in my opinion).
My requirement is based on provider owner's weight
I could start making jokes about the owner's weight now. But I won't. Somebody will though, I think.
Thank you! :-)
Just my theory, the good providers here are on the heavy side
As far as you have backups in place and domain under your control, it is not of much concern.. only thing is the time you need to up another vps and setup the application which i feel can be completed in few hours..
Seems legit. They can't get a lot of exercise when they are on their computer 24/7 making sure their business is going the way they want it to.