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I have developed a mobile application which is using extensively web services. It connects to my shared hosting server to get real-time information. Therefore, making sure the server is up is extremely important. Otherwise I am going to lose customers.

Some background. I changed no less than 3 hosting providers because they were not very reliable in terms of uptime. My currrent hosting is way better than those previous three, have I used it now for over a year, they have 99.9% uptime guarantee and all, but today I had about 3 hours of downtime. Which is why I am creating this post.

Not all of us small developers can afford expensive dedicated hosting, or have our own servers at home (which is not a guarantee it never will be down). In my case, having shared hosting for a very reasonable $10-15/month is OK. Except for those few hours it might be down.

One idea I have to deal with this is the following: have a second (different) shared hosting with another provider, and make the app to default to using this second hosting when my primary host is down. It's very unlikely that both will be down at the same time. I am going to pay only a few dollars extra per month for this, not 10 times more per month as I would for a dedicated hosting.

I am sure I am not the first person in this situation. Have anyone found a good way to deal with this problem, not requiring deep pockets? We are after all talking only about short periods of downtime on the primary server.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Matt Lacey
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antonio
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    You can't get the levels of service u require for $30 a month. You need to invest. – diagonalbatman Feb 15 '11 at 08:14
  • Andy, I am not talking of some big business here with millions of users. Thousands perhaps, but not millions. I don't see why I need to invest >100 a month just to make sure it's more reliable. Anyway, I know I can put much more money and get it more reliable. My question was not about this. I am looking for alternatives. Technical alternatives. – antonio Feb 15 '11 at 09:39

1 Answers1

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If you are relying on a third party host and don't want to pay for greater reliability then a second server is the way to go. Depending on your application and budget you will also need to consider:

  • Database access and synchronization
  • Hosts in different physical locations
  • Multiple domain names and/or load balancing

If you opt to use multiple hosts and switch to a different (backup) host if one (the first) fails then you should aim to always have both (all) always in use. This way you won't get caught out trying/having to switch over to a "backup" server. By always using both (all) you can be sure that they are both (all) always up to date and working.

If your service is so critical that a couple of hours down time would be unacceptable to your users, then it should be easy to get the users to pay for that kind of reliability. This could fund hosting with a provider who can provide a greater level of up time or a second site. This will also help fund the time and effort to set all this up. ;)

Matt Lacey
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