Anyone have the scope on the outage for Bluehost?
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23bluehostdown&src=tyah
Cannot even move my DNS until its restored. 
I suggest moving the status page to outside your network as well.
https://www.bluehost.com/hosting/serverstatus
I am in the last stages of getting rid of BlueHost for one of my clients. Go figure this would happen _today_ at the exact same time I'm getting the last bit of data off so I can cancel the account.
Their site and my site work
US west coast
-Grant
a message of 9 lines which said:
Anyone have the scope on the outage for Bluehost?
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23bluehostdown&src=tyah
The two name servers ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com are awfully
slow to respond:
% check-soa -i picturemotion.com
ns1.bluehost.com.
74.220.195.31: OK: 2012092007 (1382 ms)
ns2.bluehost.com.
69.89.16.4: OK: 2012092007 (1388 ms)
As a result, most clients timeout.
May be a DoS against the name servers?
bluehost.com itself is DNS-hosted on a completely different
architecture. So it works fine. But the nginx Web site replies 502
Gateway timeout, probably overloaded by all the clients trying to get
informed.
The Twitter accounts of Bluehost do not distribute any useful
information.
I just waited 160 minutes for a tech call and the Bluehost tech told me he
was able to confirm that it wasn't malicious activity that took down the
datacenter but rather it was caused by a "datacenter issue".
So my first thought is someone didn't design the topology correctly or
something.
Some of our emails are coming thru but Google DNS still lost all of our DNS
zones which are hosted by Bluehost.
At least the #bluehostdown is fun to read 
Forgot to mention that their ETA was by end of today. :facepalm:
remember folks, redundancy is the savior of all f***ups.
Gee, for $3.49 for a website hosting per month , it's a real bargain.
While the network person inside me says, Wow that's a long outage. The
other part of me is really wondering what one thinks they can really
expect from a company that hosts a website for just $3.49 ? Such a
bargain at less than 1/2 the price of a single hot dog at a baseball
stadium per month. That price point alone tells you about the setup and
what you are agreeing too and who it's built for. Goes along with the ol'
saying, "you get what you pay for."
If they are down for 10 hours a month out of the average 720 hours in a
month - thats a tiny percentage 1-2 of the time it's unavailable - in
service terms of dollars it's roughly a nickel they credit each customer.
Do I need more coffee or is my math wrong about a nickel for 10 hours of
website hosing ?
However, maybe that is all many companies /sites really need. In which
case, it should be easy enough to build in backup yourself using two cheap
hosing providers and flip between them when the need arises. Or pick a
provider that manages their routing well and works with you quickly, but,
you'll have to pay more for that.
Yep, the math spells it out - "you get what you pay for."
Thank You
Bob Evans
CTO
Except for the fuckups that the redundancy *caused*...
- Matt
Walmart has cheap prices so "you get what you pay for."??
Hasty generalization but I can't disagree 100% with your opinion on this
one.
I am learning about the non-profit world of IT and the challenges are all
around me.
You can't have split-brain failures if there isn't enough brain to split?
Yes, I agree with you Joe - a hasty generalization, as "you get what you
pay for" doesn't really apply to as many goods in the same way it does to
almost all services. However, a $3.49 web site service should have be a
good first clue.
Thank You
Bob Evans
CTO
However, with thousands more users at that price point, you would think the income would be plenty for better services.
Who makes more, the store with smaller quantities at higher prices or the store that sells more bulk at lower prices? Perception of value, I believe, wins.
Robert
For an ISP type service - it's almost impossible the make it up in volume
- all you need is one phone call to cost you $10 in support on a $3.50
service. With that many customers you can imagine how many call to just
ask what happened or vent after the event is over.
I founded a cable modem business prior to docsis standard. Call center
with 150 people in it. People would call for help with their printer just
because we answered the phone. So support for a $3.49 web service must
make compromises somewhere in an attempt to reach profitability.
I know of 3 very big ISPs - all barely making money for years. Providing
crummy service , priced cheaply and expecting to make it up in volume.
Their solution was to merge and lose money together. Still providing a
lowball price for service , they then took the profitable parts of the
business and sold those to others so they can re-org and improve cash
momentarily. The re-org produced the same low prices and crummy service.
So it's a cycle some people play just to win money from hedge funds,
investors and finally the public. What do they call it when one keeps
doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result ?
Low priced services are difficult to make profitable - if you drove your
car the way most low priced business services operate you would have a car
that top speeds at the minimal freeway speed, wouldnt carry a a spare
tire, drive around until the empty light turns on and carry as little
insurance as possible. - Gee, come to think of it, I've been in an airport
shuttle van like that in new york.
Thank You
Bob Evans
CTO
The bottom line is the value/price ratio. We should all be working to add
value. By any means necessary.
The pitfall of low priced "services", is that it's hard to balance the
support level and lower price for services.
If Bluehost and lower end web hosters can completely do away with the
support aspect, certainly SAAS can scale. But if a significant part of your
value proposition is support, it's real hard to get down this low if any
human is ever involved, and if you pay a living wage to your workers. I
really expect at the ultra low end you have to be willing to do away with
live support, and just provide a product that works....with no support.
Would people want to buy a web host for $3.95 but if they engage support pay
$15/hour for it? Perhaps that would work... but I think the value
proposition gets skewed in this sense. Those customers paying this little
likely needs support in a variety of ways. The challenge is to do it all
right, so they don't...
I agree with Bob, more likely they are subsidizing costs with investment and
hoping to provide a profitable model in the future with enough market share.
Bottom line, is the industry needs to be increasing value, because the flip
side.... working for no profit, surviving off investment only... there's no
end-game. You see this cycle time and time again as market share is grabbed,
then underperforming companies are rolled up. In this process value is
destroyed.
Ultimately this is also why it's extremely damaging for investors to
constantly invest in companies that don't make a profit, and don't provide a
successful economical model for the services/products provided. These
companies largely live on investor money, lose money, and in their wake
destroy value for the entire industry. Of course the end-game for the
investors is to make money... I'm always surprised how strong
investment/gambles are for non-profitable companies. I guess there is no end
to those with too much money that have to place that money somewhere. As the
rich get richer, there will only be more dumb money cheapening the value
proposition. After all, who needs value when you have willing investors.
Bottom line is that if it's not worth doing... then maybe it should not be
done. Maybe the race to the bottom is not worth it. Maybe investments that
lose value for an industry should be limited.
The giant pool of money is now weaponized.
-Kiriki
hi
For an ISP type service - it's almost impossible the make it up in volume
- all you need is one phone call to cost you $10 in support on a $3.50
service. With that many customers you can imagine how many call to just
ask what happened or vent after the event is over.
a painful reality ... support costs are NOT cheap if one is trying
to keep customers happy
more customers usually requires more support expenses too and hopeully,
support expenses would start to go down after some critical levels
I founded a cable modem business prior to docsis standard.
congrats..
What do they call it when one keeps
doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result ?
"the internet"
"there's NO sheriff in town"
"there's a (new) sucker born every second"
"dumb money"
"tax deductions - tax write offs"
"i wanna get involved, me too syndrome"
...
Low priced services are difficult to make profitable
- pricing strategy vs customer volume is always a tradeoff
- one can always give well behaved customers their discounts from "normal pricing"
- one cannot give "good service" when starting from "lowest possible pricing"
magic pixie dust on dah turkey
alvin
Kiriki, you nailed it. Explained this perfectly.
Thank You
Bob Evans
CTO
I'm confused. If these companies largely live on investor money,
lose money, and destroy value...how is it that a scant two sentences
later, the rich are getting richer, and there is _more_ dumb money?
I would posit the rich get richer because they *do*
see value in the investments they make. That is,
value is being created in these deals...just not for
everyone.
Matt
I think he means to say the rich get richer on the other side of the
investment by playing the shorting and the buying of stock in the gambling
marketplace. As the stock itself can create a new currency.... so they
make more money playing with that than the actually investment. They are
on the inside hence the saying the rich get richer.
Thank You
Bob Evans
CTO