Keeping Customers After a Disaster
Recently The Planet, a large web hosting company that has numerous data centers, experienced an explosion in their H1 DC. At one point over 9,000 servers were offline. It’s been fun to watch the commotion. I am very happy that I am no longer in the hosting business (with the exception on one non-profit site) since the two dedicated servers I had at one point were located in this DC. No, I never used The Planet, but The Planet bought out ev1Servers.net which used to be rackshack.net.
Anyway, Douglas Erwin, CEO of the Planet, recently announced the compensation for customers affected by the outage. It ended up being two months free service and 10% on new services for the rest of the year. Most customers were expecting one month free, so the second was a surprise. There was a twist though, the second month of free service will be in December. Why would they do that? Why not get it out of the way right now? While some folks were speculating it was to keep their cashflow up in the short term, I don’t think that was the answer. They did it to keep customers from jumping ship! Folks who were looking to leave will stick around to get their free month in December! If The Planet can keep a customer until December, they probably aren’t going to leave. Smart, if you ask me.
If you are still in the hosting business, this should serve as a reminder for the need of local backups, offsite DNS, load balanced servers in different geographical areas, your customers contact data, and lots of caffeine!
Skilled Employee???
I’ve been checking out the County websites looking for various Social Worker / Juvenile Justice jobs planning for my future. When I checked out Waukesha County I ran across this job posting:
I think I could handle this one! Only have to be semi-skilled…
Expert Traveler? Yes I am!
For those that fly regularly or pay attention to the news, you may remember that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been modifying security checkpoints to accommodate three separate categories of travelers. From the TSA website:
“The self-select pilots are comprised of a series of lanes designated by signage that directs passengers based on their travel needs and knowledge – Expert, for the business traveler who flies several times a month; Casual, for passengers who travel less frequently, but are familiar with the security process; and Family/Special Assistance, for passengers traveling with small children or strollers, elderly passengers and passengers who may need special assistance.”
On my recent travels to Las Vegas, I departed from Milwaukee’s General Mitchell Airport which utilizes the new lanes. As I approached the checkpoint I noticed that the “Family/Special” lane was closed and that there were approximately 20 people in the “Expert” lane, with no one in the “Casual” lane. All the lanes converged onto one xray and metal detector line. I thought I was pretty experienced with flying but I figured I would take the “Casual Traveler” line as I wasn’t in a hurry. I expected to have to wait until the “Expert” line cleared out, but that wasn’t the case. As soon as I hit the front of the “Casual” lane, the TSA employee stopped the “Experts” and waved me through. I basically skipped in front of 20 air travelers by picking the lane that was empty and ignoring the signs.
At that point I decided I was indeed an “Expert” traveler…
Tanks Spill onto Roadway
I ran across this while checking the local news:
MADISON, Wis. – The eastbound lanes of the Beltline are closed from Verona Road to Seminole Highway after a truck crash on Friday afternoon. Madison police said that a truck rolled over and spilled some type of tanks onto the roadway.Stay tuned to WISC-TV and Channel 3000 for continuing coverage.
I hope they weren’t Army Tanks, they don’t like it when their tanks get spilled all over the place…
ok, so its probably not that funny, but I laughed for a while… its the little things…