Ashkir [dot] com

I will soon be contacting everyone hosted with the Ashkir [dot] com network about this topic to get their opinions. Hence, the reason I am making this post to explain what is going on.

Yes. There is an issue on the board now, and no, I’m not closing this site! don’t worry! I hope I didn’t scare you all! I feel it is time to move on up to the cloud. Yes. I said that dreaded word, the cloud.

A while ago Amazon destroyed the reputation for the cloud and pushed cloud computing back a few years in the minds of people whom are hosted. But, the cloud is a huge advantage compared to shared hosting.

I am strongly considering moving us to the cloud by the early week. Okay here’s what you need to know:

Traditional data center server (our current):
- Extremely secure
- Very limited capacity for growth.
- Can be dedicated
- We are stuck with several others on a single server, within a single rack, within a single range.
- If one part of the rack fails, all of the rack may go down in a domino effect.

Cloud center (our proposed move):
- Ecosystem of computers.
- Good control.
- Very, very, very low downtime. If one part feels, it is still accessible thanks to other parts.
- Shared, like us.
- Unlimited capacity for growth.

A cloud computing area also drastically reduces ping tests for several locations around the world which makes cloud very ideal for an international website, like, we are becoming.

On a traditional server we do experience bottlenecks. If there is a high surge of traffic, like a large resource linked to one of our sites, our server can become bottlenecked and start to go under. Within the cloud environment bottlenecks usually don’t exist. So this is something we won’t worry about.

But, isn’t a cloud multiple servers and will cause a performance drop?
No. It won’t. Performance will NOT be effected in speed loads. What you’ll experience is an equal experience and possibly never even see a second of downtime again.

Cloud is more ideal for us because we are growing fast, and it will help us keep our resources under control.

Please research it before making a decision. I have done much reserach and talking to many experts. I want to move to the cloud.

Hi all. There was a recent server transfer. The PHP version is now 5.2.14. It was PHP 5.3.4. The PHP organization changed many variables. so much with the 5.3 version it broke many scripts, including the ever popular WordPress and PHPBB.

I apologize for the inconvenience that PHP 5.3 caused.

Thanks to Kate Olmstead we have a new look and its set up. This website you’re seeing has gone a complete overhaul. And I’d like to announce new things that will be up and coming:

The first would be, I plan on focusing on hosting slightly more. I usually only provide hosting for my friends, or friends of my friends whom need a quick host for a short project. I’m starting to take on some long term websites. Here are a few I’ve taken on:

• Summerview Apartment Homes, a nonprofit apartment complex.
• Lands of Flame, a role player’s website and game.
• Divergent Musings, Kate’s site is now hosted with us.

These are three strong websites to redo under Ashkir [dot] com and three websites I am proud to be a part of. They all do great things, and I strongly support them.

I am planning on opening up free hosting to be further for upcoming artists (non-musical) and students. I have extra space, and I might as well do some good with it. Please don’t hesitate to point a friend over to me.

On the hosting side, Fantasico has been disabled for everyone. Fantasico is never updated anymore, and a software much better has taken its place, Softaculous. There are more choices, and it is easier to use. Don’t worry. .

So that is the latest things of what is going on. So, yes, it may seem to be that I am building a network. So, we’ll just call it the Ashkir Network. I never require anyone whom is hosted with me to credit me back. I only host people because they have something I am interested in, and or they’re a great friend.

Along with this, Ashkir [dot] com is being integrated with my personal blog named Stars in Silence. It is a fairly active blog and I try to add content each week. New content will hopefully be featured on this website as well. I plan on making this website/network a portal of me. I want it to be my… what do you call it… ? Internet resume.

There was 45 minutes downtime today across the Ashkir [dot] com network. This seems as if it were a DNS issue that was temporary. The issue is fixed. I apologize for the downtime.

Data Center Apology/Report
Today our data center experienced a power service interruption that may have affected several of you. A combination of sincere efforts and major precautions were taken to avoid disruption, however, power service was unable to be sustained after an unforeseen short circuit occurred at one of our main bypass panels. We apologize for all of the difficulties this service interruption has caused you.

This morning we proceeded with the integration of our additional new UPS into our infrastructure. To accomplish this integration both of our UPS’ were taken off normal operation and put into maintenance bypass. There was no service interruption anticipated as the necessary precautions had already been taken and a step by step process had been planned out.

Unfortunately, during the process we experienced an unexpected short circuit with one of the conductors in one of our maintenance bypass panels. This caused one of the upstream main service disconnects to trip resulting in a loss of power availability to half of our data center.

Immediately after the incident occurred the portion of the electrical infrastructure affected was thoroughly inspected by our electrical contractors to ensure the integrity of this distribution was not compromised. All inspections were satisfactory and within minutes our new UPS was successfully brought online under normal operation followed by our existing UPS.

Power loss to affected servers began to get restored within the hour of the outage. Our emergency standby team quickly responded and attended to troubled servers. Most servers automatically rebooted and came online once power was restored. As of 3 PM EST in the afternoon we confirmed all servers had power restored to them. Unfortunately, many did require a file system check which could have taken up to a few more hours to complete.

Nonetheless, our team has been and are continuing to thoroughly screen all affected areas and ensure all servers are up and running properly. All work involving our main electric infrastructure is officially completed and expect 100% uptime for countless years to come.

We do not take downtime lightly and want to assure you it is our daily objective to maintain the level of service we know you expect. We understand it is a privilege to be of service to you. We have worked hard to achieve your trust and confidence and will do everything to maintain it. It is our pride to be your choice. This is something we want to show you.

Update: 6:10 GMT Network Outage
There is an outage effecting servers once again with cross lines. Should be corrected within fifteen minutes and be stable. Full investigation is being launched.

Update: 7:15 GMT Server
Server has just come back on line. Further updates and a full incident report will appear here when we have more news.

Update: 6:44 GMT Update
Within the next 30 to 45 minutes, the service on remaining servers should be restored. Our data center team is working as quickly as possible. We thank you immensely for your patience and support.

Update: 6:28 GMT Major Issue Affecting our USA Servers
At the moment we have sketchy information from our Data Centre but I have had it confirmed that there was a major Power Outage at the Data Center in Orlando Florida basically causing all servers to go down. There are in excess of 3000 servers in the Data Centre we use in Florida and from what I can gather all have lost power.

Technicians are bringing them on line gradually. At this time 65% of our sites are back on line. There are still a significant number of sites down.