REBOL Technologies

The dumbing down of server hosting

Carl Sassenrath, CTO
REBOL Technologies
30-Sep-2009 5:08 GMT
Article #0430
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Have you ever had this problem?:

  1. You setup a dedicated server at a major hosting service provider.
  2. Everything is great for N months or years.
  3. Then, they start having serious problems... such as timeouts, dropped packets, down-time, mis-routing, etc.
  4. You contact them, talk with them... and they've gone from being really savvy network experts to... well... complete morons who aren't quite sure what an IP address or name server is.

Over the years, I've seen this pattern happen again and again. Each time, we eventually have to find a new provider. I guess perhaps it's just the nature of the beast.

Back in the old days, we used to joke around that the same 12 OS or language guys did everything. Maybe that's true for host providers too? A few gurus start a company, run it in a smart way, grow the customer base, and become successful. Then, they sell it to the bean counters... the MBAs who only understand the spreadsheet, not the business. Yes, the logo changes, and maybe the website, and especially the web-page background colors and other graphics. (That's when the alarms sound for me.)

From there, it all slides downhill fast.

You'd think they'd realize when they're "in over their heads." But no, they live off their old reputation... at least for a couple years, because many of their customers are not savvy either, so don't really understand why their pages are slow to come up, time-out, etc.

It's a sad note really. The way so much business seems to be done. Smart guys start it, sell it, and then poof, it decays back into the dust.

Oh, and I should mention, I'm not talking about the guys who provide this specific hosting (rebol.com) in L.A. They seem ok. Still. Let's hope that doesn't change.

(I'd add more there, but there are only so many servers I want in L.A... because one day there's going to be a major, major outage. Yes, this is California, the land where mountains are still rising, if you know what I mean.)

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