May 15, 2006 : SmartyHost Compensates For Downtime
📅 - According to reports published Monday by ZDNet Australia (zdnet.com.au), Australian Web hosting provider SmartyHost (smartyhost.com.au -> netregistry.com.au) has offered to provide compensation for customers whose services became inaccessible when the company moved to a new data center last week.
On Tuesday, SmartyHost migrated from a facility operated by Primus to a new location operated by Optus. Since the move, intended as a way to improve quality of service, customers have complained of service interruptions, many in a lengthy series of posts on broadband community site whirlpool.net.au.
The company says it sent out email notices prior to making the transition. The messages asked that customers change their user names to five-digit numbers. Customers that failed to make the change, a security requirement of the new facility, saw their Web sites become unavailable.
While some posters complained that they were not warned of the move, representatives for SmartyHost say some of its more longstanding customers had failed to keep their contact information up-to-date, and had not received the company's communications.
SmartyHost says the problem lies with certain sites whose DNS entries have not propagated. The company says the issue was further complicated by an outage at domain registry operator VeriSign that coincided with the migration.
According to representatives, the company has added a call center and hired additional staff in an effort to more quickly deal with the situation. On Friday it launched a Web-based chat support system. The company expects it will have contacted all the customers affected in a day or two, and repaired their situations.
The company also plans to provide compensation to customers affected by the outage, a group it describes as "a minority" of customers.
SmartyHost said in April that it had become the second-largest Web hosting company in Australia.
On Tuesday, SmartyHost migrated from a facility operated by Primus to a new location operated by Optus. Since the move, intended as a way to improve quality of service, customers have complained of service interruptions, many in a lengthy series of posts on broadband community site whirlpool.net.au.
The company says it sent out email notices prior to making the transition. The messages asked that customers change their user names to five-digit numbers. Customers that failed to make the change, a security requirement of the new facility, saw their Web sites become unavailable.
While some posters complained that they were not warned of the move, representatives for SmartyHost say some of its more longstanding customers had failed to keep their contact information up-to-date, and had not received the company's communications.
SmartyHost says the problem lies with certain sites whose DNS entries have not propagated. The company says the issue was further complicated by an outage at domain registry operator VeriSign that coincided with the migration.
According to representatives, the company has added a call center and hired additional staff in an effort to more quickly deal with the situation. On Friday it launched a Web-based chat support system. The company expects it will have contacted all the customers affected in a day or two, and repaired their situations.
The company also plans to provide compensation to customers affected by the outage, a group it describes as "a minority" of customers.
SmartyHost said in April that it had become the second-largest Web hosting company in Australia.
Reads: 1721 | Category: General | Source: TheWHIR : Web Host Industry ReviewsURL source: http://www.thewhir.com/marketwatch/051506_SmartyHost_Compensates_for_Downtime.cfm
Company: smartyhost.com.au [smartyhost.com.au -> netregistry.com.au]
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