Couldn't sleep tonight so I thought I would write some articles for my various blogs, like my photography blog over on http://outlawimagestudios.com but it turns out I couldn't do that because 1and1 seems to have brilliantly managed to change something in their environment for Wordpress sites (even those manually installed) that has them all redirecting when you try to login to WP Admin.
It's even more brilliant that they did this right before a major holiday when they are not likely to have the appropriate staffing to deal with the issue. In general I haven't had any issues with them over the past 7-8 years I've had my sites with them. However twice this year for the first time I've had issues with either the site being down or not having access.
I know quite a bit about the industry, so I won't be jumping ship any time soon. It's inconvenient for me but not devastating like it is or will be for some people. I'll probably ask to be compensated in some way though. It is going to slow down some things I wanted to put in place if they don't have this fixed by tomorrow morning.
In general this has me thinking that I should consider a method of redundancy in the near future. If I setup a web server with a backup of my files, and transfer all my domains to another provider it would mean that in the event my hosting is having an issue, I can just point my domains to a mirror backup from HOST A to HOST B. Of course this means paying more, but it also means I would have peace of mind, and a way to ensure that my sites are never down.
I guess once any of my sites starts making me enough money to cover a second hosting plan I will do just that. Or I could always use my friends' private server as a backup solution . The whole thing is really a gigantic hassle but it will probably be necessary in a year or so to start planning something like this.
If you are running a business or a company, I recommend this solution. If you cannot afford to be down for more than an hour, this is really the only way to guarantee that and put control in your own hands and not that of someone else. Its unlike that both your host will be down at the same time (just make sure they have completely different data centers, a quick google search will save you a lot of grief here, and make sure they are not owned by the same people).
Also always keep a backup everything, even a wordpress site. Do a backup of your database and of your actual files. If you update daily then backup daily. Again its a pain, but losing everything is worse. Also backup your email to your local machine as well as your contact list, don't just leave it on your server.
I set mine to forward a copy of everything to a Gmail account so I have all the email backed up in the cloud as well as locally.
See if I had another account setup somewhere, I could simply just upload the latest backup, and point the nameservers to the new host, and keep it there until they fix the problem and keep my sandbox website over there so I can test and verify the problem is fixed, then just point the nameservers back after uploading the latest version of the site(s).
Anyway, writing this have served its purpose. You guys now have some decent tips on keeping your site up, and I've bored myself enough to get some much needed sleep.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Friday, December 6, 2013
Sunday, December 1, 2013
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