UK2 Dedicated Server Network Problems
by Feeder on Nov.23, 2009, under Web Hosting Talk
I’ve just found this forum after having a search around about UK2’s datacenters. I’ve been dealing with UK2 for a fair few months on this issue but I’m at the point where I need some advice.
The online radio station I co-run uses a UK2 Gold server for the website and the online stream. We used to use a slightly less powerful server for the website alone, but we ended deciding to upgrade the server and host everything with UK2.
After setting up the server software and transferring the DNS, we started to get reports of a lot of buffering happening on the audio stream. I got in contact with UK2 who asked for an MTR trace. I supplied many traces which exposed a fault with the closest router to the server. The router dropped packets every two minutes or so, causing a total of 3% packet loss. The response given to this was as follows:
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No problems, that router will drop the first packet you send (so packet 0 will always fail) however this has been in place for years and has never caused any problems. |
After I insisted that a problem existed and was causing very real problems with not only the stream, but the remote desktop connection, ftp transfers, httpd downloads etc. they told me they’d look into it further, eventually responding with the following:
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It looks be an issue with the linecard your switch is attached to |
They then moved the server to a different switch, but the problems continued. After informing them, they responded:
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We will be upgrading the entire network within your server’s DC over the next couple of weeks, this issue should then be resolved. |
This was on the 1st of October. They also requested that I give them an MTR trace to their own website, uk2.net. I supplied this (showing 3% packet loss), and they replied:
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Thanks for that, the router where the packet loss is, will be replaced very soon. |
A few days later, I asked to be told when this would take place, to which they responded:
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I believe its scheduled in for the 14th October. |
After chasing them up on the 15th, they replied:
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Unfortunately this maintainance had to be rescheduled. |
They told us it would take place "tonight or tomorrow", and then the next day they replied again:
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this has now been booked in for the night of Monday 19th October. |
After chasing them up again, we were told:
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The server maintenance was completed last night. |
However, the problem still existed.
We then called up sales and told them of the situation. They eventually agreed to set up a temporary server for us to run the radio stream from. We were informed that UK2 were to be getting their own data center within two to four weeks, and that our main server would be moved there.
Now, a month later, nothing has happened, so I have chased them up again:
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We will be moving your original server out of it’s current datacentre within approximately 2 weeks. The issues you’re having should disappear then. Unfortunately we are not able to move it now due to the configuration of our network. |
I don’t know whether to believe them or not and I have no idea what this problem is caused by. Both UK2 dedicated server support and I have attempted to diagnose this problem to no avail. What I would like to know is if anybody else has had the same problems with UK2 or any other provider, whether it’s been resolved or not.
It appears to me that there’s some kind of hardware fault with the server its self, or with the network path between the server and the Internet.
Does anybody have any information that could be relevant to this? It would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for sticking with this long post!
