There was alarming news for many website owners yesterday when 123-Reg confirmed that they had “effectively deleted” a number of the 1.7 million websites they host for their customers.
Hosting is an essential part of having a website. A web server – essentially a big computer – holds all the data that makes up the site people see when they visit it. There are varying levels of server type and the error was on 123-Reg’s cheap virtual private server (VPS) network which hosts tons of websites at once.
Thankfully, they are now looking to retrieve as many of these sites as possible and trying to work out what cause such a catastrophic error.
So, what did happened?
123-Reg said they were performing a clean up of their VPS network which lead to an accidental data loss.
In other words, they’re not sure what happened.
It’s scary to think about what could have been lost missed during the downtime. Websites that sell things could have lost thousands of pounds in online sales. In fact, Ross County FC, the Scottish League Cup holders, had their site deleted by 123-Reg in the run up to a huge game against Celtic meaning fans couldn’t buy tickets.
What an own goal.
How can you avoid it happening to you?
What 123-Reg did was an extreme example but all websites experience downtime at some point. It’s inevitable. But at Miromedia we are proud to say that the average uptime for our web server is currently 99.84%*.
Alongside daily backups, it’s safe to to say our clients are in a good pair of hands.
Miromedia clients benefit from the following:
– Fully managed servers with 99.9% uptime
– Full server backups
– Servers housed in a fully secured data centre
– Fully managed climate control across data floors to ensure the air is managed at an optimum temperature and humidity
– Support from Miromedia (Monday-Friday 9.00am–5.30pm**)
In summary, it’s pretty safe to say you get what you pay for.
* Figures correct for the period 1/1/2016 – 18/4/2016
** Excluding Bank Holidays
