Server outage: I can't win

Down 4.5 hours today, thanks to the new host. It's like I can't win. While I had the T-1 for the last two years, I had two outages total from sprint. Two hosts in two months and I've had major downtime from both. I used to think $1200/month was throwing away cash, but I'm quickly learning it was money well spent.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

The old saying "you get what you pay for" I guess applies in this case.

I am sure its frustrating.

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Arena football has arrived in the Windy City. Go "Chicago Rush"

Happy to know it's not my end, but very sorry to hear about your troubles. Oh well, life is like a box of crap, you never know how it will come out. -Me

-Wait, no. That was stupid. Never mind.
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Well, I used to be able to see TTD from my house, then I moved.
Life's not fair.
*** This post was edited by TTDTom 9/24/2003 8:08:30 PM ***

Dude, is there a reason as to why my "Favorite Six Flags Park" topic is nowhere to be seen. It's a perfectly relevent topic.

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www.zyklontribe.com

Because "Favorite" topics aren't permitted. If you actually read the ToS you would've realized this.

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Six Flags Worlds of Adventure Online

So Jeff are you considering the T-1 again? Cost is an issue. Maybe a few perks extra and cbuzz club costing more (say 35) to attempt to cover the costs.

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Hi.....whats your name again?

Tenchi-online.com Theme park photos and more. Your new home for the Jeff Siebert fanpage

Jeff, sorry to hear about the downtime...for awhile I thought my net-admin decided I spent too much time buzzing, glad that wasn't the case...

Cygnus12: Relevant, sure....interesting OTOH, is determined by Jeff and the mods...."favorites" topics are NOT permitted....

Please go back and read the ToS (terms of service). You agree to abide by those rules when you sign up....
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This sig brought to you by Planet Express, providing intergalactic package delivery for aliens and earthlings alike...

No... I don't want to go back to the T-1. I already feel hopelessly in debt from supporting that habit for two years. If I'm really disciplined I can get it paid off by March, but that's only assuming that ad revenue and club memberships remain steady.

Which reminds me... if anyone is interested in a Cisco 1720 router with a T-1 CSU/DSU, I'm trying to unload it for around $700. It's $1500 for the router and T-1 module new, so I think that's a bargain!

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

Jeff, I wish that Coasterbuzz was more of a lucrative business for you. If so, I don't think there would be as many issues. I hope Campusfish brings in the bank.

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Missing the Fallen:
King Cobra 1984-2001
The Bat 1981-1983

I wish it was lucrative too. I know that a lot of the kiddies out there, and grumpy old enthusiasts, think that it's some kind of crime for me to ever actually make a buck on the site, but why? Is there some rule that you can't do something you actually enjoy for a living?

CampusFish is a big experiment. It's fast as hell, based on the next forum engine (because a blog essentially is just a forum topic). I kid you not... I've got pages rendering in .009 seconds under a heavy test load. When I finish the documentation for the forums I'll be able to sell them. Would like to roll into CB, but that's going to require quite a bit of data conversion.

So yeah, it'd be nice to make it financially worth my time, and maybe by next summer it will be. I'm closing another ad deal for next summer hopefully soon, which will at the very least buy the last few classes Steph needs for her second masters.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

I'd think that rolling all the CampusFish stuff would require something more form the user than just joining the CB Club. That's a lot of features for $20.

I like the CampusFish idea. It's like Pop forums forced Friendster and LiveJournal to spawn its child. Once I get my finances back in order, I may just pick up a CFish account. (Yes, I'm that screwed in finances.)

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Missing the Fallen:
King Cobra 1984-2001
The Bat 1981-1983

Geez, I wish I had the dough to lay out for that router. Oh well.... I don't really have a use for it right now anyway. But such a nice piece, for so cheap.
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Do the Moo Shoo!

$700 for a Cisco 1720 isn't bad. Just the WIC-1DSU-T1 card is half that.

$1200 for a T1 is a hair on the high side. I'm surprised Sprint ever billed you correctly though... they screwed my previous company over pretty badly. (Hint: don't deal with Sprint's sales folks in Kansas City, find someone local.) They were very reliable though.

Anyway, you can probably find a local ISP to do T1 for a bit less. Or maybe SDSL or g.shdsl if you can find someone on the bleeding edge. (There's a g.shdsl card for the 1720 too, though a whole Cisco 828 might be cheaper...)

Or if you keep shopping around for co-lo companies that don't suck... Fark has done pretty well with Servint. The only extended downtimes we've had were either my fault or were hardware problems (on machines I built and shipped to their co-lo). Plenty of little 10 minute outages here and there but that's to be expected with any ISP.

Normally I'd suggest the ISP I work for, except we don't do co-lo anymore and we don't do Win32-based webhosting anymore.

Oh yeah, and turn on HTTP compression in IIS6 if it isn't already -- you'll save a TON of bandwidth (money) doing that.

The downside of the T-1 was that it could be saturated. Any time Keith posted a new animation to Badnitrus I had utilization up at 100%, which is not good. The advantage to being with Sprint directly was that I was right there on their backbone. Few people were more than 12 hops from the server.

Bandwidth is not a concern right now, because I get 750 gigs a month and only use about 200, so compression isn't necessary.

I can't get DSL where I am, and even if I could, I couldn't get the service level I'd need. It's a nice arrangement if you can do it though. RCDB is run on a DSL line.

CB won't get the blogging stuff, but it will get the new forums, as well as an update to the content app the site is running on (tweaked that big time as well). The new forums won't really have a ton of new features that you'll see on the front end (although a point warning system will be implemented for naughty thread hijackers), but it'll be so much faster.

There have been days when I wake up and ask why I bother, but I guess if I didn't do this I'd play DDR half the day and surf for porn the other half.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

A point warning system? Say it isn't so!

If it could accept both warnings and kudos, it would be a great tool. Otherwise, what would stop some spiteful loser with his own domain from creating a few dozen accounts and manipulating the score?

-'Playa
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The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.

Can't get DSL? Is it the upload speed that you need?

You got Adelphia for your cable internet service, right Jeff? It's not bad, right? But that's just used for your own personal access, I'm assuming. The upload speed sucks on it, I know... (128k capped, changing to 256k in November)... but hey, DSL is like half the speed down, maybe twice the speed up, from what I've checked (Charter, AT&T, Verizon... and others). I'm surprised RCDB could handle that kind of traffic on a DSL line, must have a good upload on it.

I hate it when my server goes out. Especially when I need a refill on my Coke.

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A day is a drop of water in the ocean of eternity. A week is seven drops.

I think routers are on sale at Sears this week along with the belt sanders and jig saws.
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Ripple Rock Amusement Park

I think that's rooters, not routers.

I think not.
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Ripple Rock Amusement Park