Never rely on other people

When it comes to running a large web site you really don't have many options for web site hosting, especially if you want to do it right and not on the cheap. Sure if you have enough cash you could do it all by yourself by getting a dedicated OC-12 and a cluster of servers. Who has that kind of cash today? I certainly don't, especially for a site which has no revenue stream.

Your only other option is to lease space from a commercial web site host. Even when you're doing it right and paying top dollar you are still relying on someone else; someone who might not be as professional and dedicated to customer service as you.

Friday night I noticed my server wasn't creating data backups as it should so I filled out a support ticket. Saturday morning I found that FTP to my server had been disabled. No big deal, I figured, they must be working on it and it would be back to normal soon. I even received several emails overnight and through out the weekend stating that my ticket has been escalated to the System Admin level. Well now it's Monday and FTP access is still down and my repeated requests for an update seem to be falling on death ears.

What happened to that thing called customer service?