There are two ways to look at it...
1. Server uptime.
On the left is an actual live report direct from our server.
It contains information extracted direct from the server logs and shows the actual uptime of the server.
We had to reboot out server in order to finalize a kernel upgrade. Our server's total uptime before the reboot was 345 days without a single problem
2. Service availability
Good server uptime does not mean anything if you cant access the server from the internet.
This is the one that counts and no-one has control over it and no-one can guarantee it.
Click here for a report for the exelwebs.com's web site availability.
The downtime in June and July 2007 was caused by me updating a "control file" in my web root. I had the wrong settings and my site went down.
Not the server.
This monitoring works on a basis of a web site (in this case located in London) sending requests to exelwebs every 30 minutes.
If exelwebs fail to reply it will be recorded as "down" and will stay "down" until the next time the server send a request to exelwebs.
The service might be unavailable only for 1 minute but will be recorded as unavailable for 30 minutes.
Why would a web site become unavailable?
The internet, as we know it, depends on a whole array of different "things" to be in place and functioning properly for us to be able to access any given web site.
Consider the following (all of them needed to be functional)
- Your computer
- Your modem / Router
- Quality of the cable inside your house
- Quality of the cable outside your house to the exchange
- The serviceability of the equipment in the exchange
- The equipment and cable / satellite link to the next point in the line to eventually get to the data centre where the server is physically located
Try the following:
1. Click on "Start" then "Run"
2. In the command box type "CMD" and click "OK"
3. Type "tracert www.exelwebs.com" and press enter. (without the "")
The results is the different computers and routers and other equipment that your connection is following to get to the exelwebs.com web site.
You might see errors, in that case the "internet" is trying to find an alternative route to your destination.
The success and speed of the connection also depends on a lot of other factors outside the scope of this article.
You can use this internet monitor for more information.
- Once you get to the end in the "tracert" it will show you the server that exelwebs.com are hosted on.
You will enter our data centre via one of the carriers listed at the top of this graphic.
They are the people responsible for keeping the internet alive and well.
Up to this point there are no guarantee that your web site will be available to the public.
- Once inside the data Centrex, you will be helped along the way via the blue and green switches and routers to the "customer" at the bottom of the graphic. The "customer" in this case is the computer where exelwebs.com is being hosted.
- You will notice that there are always two paths to the server. If anyone of the components fail, it will automatically switch over to the other one and maintain the connection. (This is known as a fully redundant system)
- This is the part that we as a host has control over and what we guarantee with out uptime guarantee.
So unless we have a computer component failure, there is not much we can do to guarantee your web site will be available to the world out there.
- Your code on the web site might be faulty.
- Some setting that you changed in your Cpanel.
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