[Hidden-tech] (un)reasonable expectations of email and web hosting services?

[Chris Duncan, GISmatters]

For clarity I should say my provider is not local, nor a part of HT - it's 
Stargate, as you can see from my website where I put a small logo of theirs 
at the bottom of each page - I think they're in the Chicago area.  I'm 
aware that there are local providers who are also on this discussion list 
and was especially interested in their "insider" perspective on what one 
can reasonably expect, in addition to feedback and anecdotes from users of 
bigger and/or non-local providers.

Thanks for the responses so far - sounds like I have reason to be 
dissatisfied with the outages I've experienced.  Hope to hear a bit more... 
information is power, as they say.

Cheers,

Chris

Chris Duncan, GISmatters wrote:
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> 
> I've just passed through the 2nd substantial interruption to my email 
> and web hosting services (same provider for both services) this year, 
> and I'm wondering if my expectations are reasonable or not: I expect the 
> provider to have enough redundancy to keep at least email up and running 
> 24x7. In the short time I've been in business (15 months), I'e had 
> several out-of-the-blue contacts that have led to paying work, and I 
> hate to think that bounced email at the wrong moment could be turning 
> away potential customers, or even just annoying existing ones. The 
> failure on this occasion, at least, was such that messages were not 
> being held for re-delivery - they were being bounced back to the sender 
> with a message to the effect that gismatters.com was an 
> unknown/non-existent host - related, I suspect, to the fact that the web 
> hosting service was also down for the past 18 hours... I don't think 
> that creates a very good impression for my clients.
> 
> So, is it time for me to look for a different provider (and if so, I've 
> got questions about how to do that in as seamless a way as possible), or 
> is my experience par for the course and that's just life with the internet?
> 
> Chris
> 

-- 

Chris Duncan, Ph.D.
President/Senior Consultant
GISmatters

duncan at GISmatters.com
http://www.gismatters.com/

227 E Pleasant St
Amherst, MA 01002

Tel: 413-549-2052
Fax: 508-637-2557