First of all some background info:

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I’m currently on a Servint VPS and decided to switch to a neat Softlayer dedi box ( Dual Quadcore Xenon 2 GHz & 4 GB RAM). The guys setup the server pretty fast and now it’s the time to transfer the sites.

I created a backup from WHM and FTPed it to my /home. Happily logined to my new server WHM and tried to import it. Bingo.. IT crashed at a ~2 GB MySQL DB import.

So I raised a a administrative support ticket ( $3/ticket) and those guys started working on it. Hmm.. 1 hr . 2 hr- 12 hrs.. .. No response. Atlast I went to bed and in the morning I see a note saying that we need to reboot your sever, should we proceed!!!!!!!!!!

Damn.. My forum is down for 24 hrs now. Then in that bad mood I raised a server cancellation request! A guys from the sales called me up and assured every thing will be sorted out.

To make their job easy I dumped my MySQL db alone and wgeted it to the new Softlayer server and raised another $3 support ticket to restore it. I specifically mentioned that no need of asking me to do anything on the server. Today morning another note in the new ticket, we need to run a diskcheck, should we proceed. Oh.. Man It’s been 10 hours after it and the DB is not yet restored.
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So here is my points:

1. I’m very impressed with Softlayer’s management portal, value for money and infrastructure.
2. Softlayer SHOULD treat new customers a little more fairly. My current mindset is to go back to old VPS if Softlayer issue a refund. But I’m in need of a good server so not going for now!
3. Should read the support tickets and value customers concerns over downtime. How can they simply go to bed adding a note to the call “Should we reboot your server”. Is losing 10’s of thousand visitors is a simple mistake?
4. More over why such a high spec server keep crashing on a 2 G mysql import. IS that size tooo large? If yes How can I effectively dump it?
5. What is the best way of switching host for a busy forum with 100’s of posts daily, minimizing post loss and dns prorogation downtime?

Update: After 2 days of downtime, lots of support call, mails and a telephone call the support guys over softlayer managed to restore the database. Thank god, at lasr we are back online.

Posted by Hemanth | 1 Comment »

The idea of BlogWorkz is very simple. There are thousands of bloggers around us, most of them blogging daily. Even with all this hard work do you feel you’re not getting enough recognition and viewers?

That’s what I felt when I blogged in my blogspot blog years ago. Now the growth of huge blogs like techcrunch or gizmodo suggests one thing, you can’t do it alone.

That’s what BlogWorkz all about! We are forming a community of bloggers ready to work together as a team. Each one will concentrate on different technologies/fields ( ranging from Global Warming to Micro Processors) at http://www.techtalkz.com/blog and various other blogs we own.

I have a number of blogs ready now and seeking for Authors. The topics ranges is as follows: ( All are .COM Domain names)

General Technology, Web, Internet, Gadgets etc.

Linux

Apple products, MAC, Mac softwares and Mac OSX

Global warming and Green Projects

Spam and Antispam measures and softwares

Computer security and security products like antivirus, antispam, firewall, antispyware etc.

Webhosting, servers and webhosting plans

Microprocessors and Chipsets

Automobiles and Fast cars, Super cars

Photography

Careers

For each quality posts you’ll be paid via Paypal. We are not going to disclose the post rates but will be decided on direct chat with the bloggers. Once all setup and running the BlogWorkz members will get exclusive access to the private discussion section over here:

http://www.techtalkz.com/blogworkz/

If you are interested please post your comments below with your sample blogs and areas of interests.

Or mail me

Regards..
Hemanth

Posted by Hemanth | 5 Comments »

Hi,

I’m Hemanth, from Kerala,India. I’m a software engineer by profession ( Advanced Windows Installer or MSI technologies) and a webmaster of a number of websites. I’m awarded with Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional award in the year of 2007, for my contributions in the computer end-user support forums and newsgroups.

I’m an engineering graduate ( Electronics and communication Engg.) from college of Engineering Munnar. Currently I’m working on project to create a community blogging platform, where a number of bloggers work and post together to achieve more results.

Posted by Hemanth | 1 Comment »