Moving entire Cyberspace Ashram to a new hosting or new dedicated server - down-times possible
Dear Cyberspace Ashram users
Last night around midnight PHT the CA site was shortly totally down and inaccessible. below at the bottom of this post you see the 2 eMail I received in this matter from my current hosting 1and1.com.
Briefly:
The Cyberspace Ashram has again too much traffic - I had such a situation already around 1998 with my very first host - and the Cyberspace Ashram thus uses too much resources - CPU, memory, etc - from the shared hosting account I currently have since mid 2004. A move to a more powerful hosting company or the move to a far more expensive dedicated server is needed within the next 2 weeks. The following weeks will be entirely dedicated to this work to move the Cyberspace Ashram and to expand its technical potential to remove any current traffic restrictions.
How little my actual usage of my package's limits by the Cyberspace Ashram visitors is can be seen in below screenshot taken today. It shows once more that advertising promises often have zero value and only serve to catch new customers ...
Package usage Cyberspace Ashram on 1and1.com hosting as of 28 September 2006
The trigger but in no way the only cause is the newly added Photo gallery Philippine islands. any new and increase productivity ads new load to the server and the Cyberspace Ashram enjoys higher visitor numbers than ever before and more popularity than ever before in all sections of the web site. Reducing my productivity is no option at all for me - I have thousands of ideas for new services, new chapters, new topics and improvements. The only limit of my productivity always is time and available funds. Funds come to a very substantial part from the increased Google adsense revenues which made it possible to spend more hours online and to invest more for the poor and needy ones here than ever before, to pay for fast DSL lines to better serve all Cyberspace Ashram readers and also to allow more than minimal living comfort for myself. The "free" spiritual services including all costs still are a few ten thousand dollars each year and hence only by increased productivity can all spiritual services offered be maintained in full and with improved overall quality in the years to come. Increased free services for more people from more countries requires more advertisement-income from commercial or general interest pages created and thus require more hardware and server resources.
Such a move was inevitable and predictable since more than a year - the time of execution just a matter of real need. The site was running fine and the page loading time never critical at any given time. 1and1.com beliefs different - hence there is no other choice but to move onward and upward in technical equipment used for serving you safely in the future as well.
Hence the hosts option to reduce server stress - to reduce traffic - is no option but a recommendation for suicide. Creativity and productivity needs to flow freely.
For that reason I certainly will upgrade to a better and more powerful server and most likely to a dedicated root server or a dedicated managed server - one server with 100% resources and CPU / RAM just for your benefit and thus free of any hosting contract restrictions.
To properly select a new server system and move to that new server, I need a few weeks full time for
- careful study of all options, all possible hosts for a dedicated server
- learn all the procedure to run and configure a dedicated server
- transfer and reconfigure if needed any of the scripts, forum software and photo gallery
- after transfer of all files ( currently some 1.2 GB or so of data ) a many weeks lasting 24/7 monitoring on the new server is needed to observe for any potential problems, security problems and stability problems.
The overall time allocated for this move to a dedicated server and its initial monitoring may be 2-3 months. During this period visits here shall be limited to truly spiritual motivated visits as the Cyberspace Ashram server move and monitoring will take most of my time during coming 2-3 months for full online presence serving an increasing number of daily visitors - currently more than 8000 visitors per day from some 204 countries per months.
Here below for your information the server move initiating eMail from my current host 1and1.com
1and1.com first email shortly after shutting down the Cyberspace Ashram for several minutes
Recently we have noticed that your web site(s) is consuming a
disproportionate amount of server resources (including memory and/or cpu
time). Because of this, we have had to move your account off of the
shared hosting server to an auxilliary server. We now request that you
consider purchasing a Managed or other Dedicated Server in order to
continue hosting with 1&1 Internet.
The decision to move your account was made by the system administrators
in order to improve the quality of service for the rest of our clients
on the shared server from which you were previously hosted. The
resources consumed by your account threatened the ability of that server
to capably operate as as a shared host, so it was required that your
account be moved in order to mitigate server load. Though we could move
your site back to the original shared hosting server, it is not
recommended. Your account activity has demonstrated that your site
deserves its own server to better suit its performance needs.
Please visit 1and1.com to review the server products we offer. You will
have one (1) month to make a decision and migrate your account over to a
1&1 server or another host provider. You can choose to return your
account back to the shared server, provided that you take steps to
reduce the load generated by your websites. If the account has to be
moved off the shared server system again you will only have the option
of purchasing a dedicated server account to continue hosting with 1&1
Internet.
Please reply to this email promptly. Further questions/comments should
be directed to ...
Thank you for your compliance in this matter.
Sincerely,
...
Customer Compliance Operative
1&1 Internet Inc.
A follow up response from 1and1 came shortly after my reply
Your account was not taken down but rather moved to the auxiliary server
because it was utilizing too many server resources on the shared hosting
environment and was degrading server performance that it was affecting
other customers. Server administrators found that your account was
utilizing 23.71% of the cpu resources on the server. They identified
the following script as creating the heavy load.
/photography/photo_gallery/index.php
We will ask that you consider the following:
1) Taking steps to reduce your resource usage. This can be done by
reviewing your traffic logs to see when you have unusual spikes of
activity or resource demanding scripts. In either case, you will have to
make due with the resources allocated to you to maximize their
effectiveness. If you agree to this, your account will be reverted to
it's previous server host system.
If we have to move your account in the future, you will have no
additional option but to upgrade your services. Keep in mind that
operational accountability of your services falls within our T&C:
http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/Gtc
4.1.10.
You agree not to undertake any action which is harmful or potentially
harmful to the 1&1 server structure.
2) Upgrade your account. We have a variety of services that offer much
more additional resources at your disposal to better suite your needs.
Please visit http://order.1and1.com for updates on our current product
lines. You can always contact us for additional assistance:
...
Lastly, we will give you an additional 2 weeks to make your decision.
Thank you for your compliance in this matter.
Sincerely,
...
Customer Compliance Operative
1&1 Internet Inc.
Love and bliss
hans
