Hellacious Server Nightmare

I have just finished moving my very last site over to my new server. This post is going to be short and sweet because I’m absolutely exhausted. The trouble began just over two weeks ago. We had hosting through The Planet. We’d never really had problems with our server going down, though tech support had become exceptionally rude in the past few months.

When our server went down, I went in, filed a ticket, and an hour later we were back up. When it happened again later that day, Ash and I were not happy. We filed another ticket. I also talked to Live Support to get the server up; this time in about 10 minutes. I was assured the issue would be investigated so it could be resolved. In the next 4 days, we crashed nearly 2-3 times every day. Every techie at The Planet had a new theory. One was that our server had too many visitors and Apache had to be set to allow more. After fighting with Apache, I realized tech support wouldn’t be helping with the issue. They had various other theories, none of which they would fix, of course.

One of my tech friends had recommended Rackspace. They’re a bit more expensive, but their tech support is stellar. After having a family meeting to discuss the price issue, we decided it was worth it, since our business sites are on the server and we cannot afford to have those sites down. It took me an additional 4 days of non-stop work (excluding meals and bathroom breaks) to get everything transferred over. Part of it was due to the server crashing and part of it was because I’d never moved MYSQL DBs before. It was a learning experience, but we eventually had the chance to move everything over. I just finished tonight.

I’m going to take a much needed, much deserved break from the computer tomorrow. I plan to hang out with my son, CoolTeen (hey, he named himself!), the lil evil shih-tzu, Oliver, and our newest “child”, the Cabbage Patch Kid we received for review, “Early Darold Evans”. I also plan to play some wicked mad Metal Gear Solid 4 on the PS3 once my son goes to bed.

Lesson to be learned – The Planet was a bad experience and Rackspace has been AMAZING! I have my own tech support team who tirelessly helped me through this massive server moving experience! So, if you want the best tech support team, go to Rackspace. Nothing else compares.

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