BlueHost Web Hosting Package

A few days back, ReviewBluehost.com has its first outage and was down for more than 3 hours.

I didn’t really know the actual down time because I was not tracking closely on the website but it’s confirmed to be more than 3 hours. All three MySQL databases with my Bluehost account *disappeared* (thus the connection error). I wasn’t sure why that was happening but it scares the hell out of me.

Without any delay I emailed Bluehost and yelled for help.

The first the support staff I encountered wasn’t what’s happening but he quickly referred me to the upper level. In his own words – he’s referring me to their company ‘engineer’. The folks at support department was professional and didn’t do much ‘PR talks’. After about an hour of silence from the supports, all three databases were back and ReviewBluehost.com is back to normal.

At first I had the feelings that my databases were accidentally removed but Bluehost refused the possibility of that. I tried to ask for an explanation after everything is fixed but there were not much to be told. MySQL server down was the official explanation for the incident:

Dear Customer,

The databases are not deleted they just wont show up if the MySQL Server goes down because cPanel and your scripts wont be able to connect to them. It should resolve usually with in 5-60 minutes depending on what has to be done.

Thanks
Brandon O.
Level 2 Scripting Specialist
Bluehost.com
866.573.4678

Well if this is true, I hope you are not hosting on the same MySQL server with me coz this means your site/blog could be down at that time as well.

Bad news Bluehost, bad news. Recently I’m seeing server usage getting heavier and heavier with Bluehost. It’s pushing the limit and the server load is closing to its max for my hosting server at Bluehost.

An overview on Bluehost server status shows that the server CPU and hard disk usage are abnormally heavy.

Look closer, the hard disk usage is at a worrying level and what’s worse is the CPU load had exceeded it’s comfort zone.

At this time of writing, red light is shown for the server loads where the numbers are 18.12 (8cpus). This means there are 18.12 processes in queue – which is over 2 times of CPU capacity. I’m sure such high server loads will cause website delay from time to time and it’s really a bad sign for a good host like Bluehost.

I’ll be monitoring the situation more closely for the next few days and hopefully the problem is just short term. I’ll definitely contact Bluehost support in case of necessary and keep you updated on the latest status.

Well I’m not the only one that’s tracking on Bluehost server performance. Check out this server uptime report tracked by WebHostingGeeks, the server uptime achieved 99.8% for the past 7 days.

Bluehost Server Performance

I think this is a very sound result and would like to recommend Bluehost to anyone out there who’s looking for a shared hosting service.

BluehostReview.com is not the only website about Bluehost. In fact, there’s plenty of other websites/blogs that are eyeing on Bluehost hosting service like a hawk. One of the well-established Bluehost review websites is BluehostReview.org (yeah, it’s domain is pretty the same as mine~) and they have been tracking Bluehost server uptime for quite some time.

Listed below is the server uptime for BluehostReview.org at June which I believe is a very good reference for those who’re thinking of buying Bluehost.

Note that Bluehost server uptime achieved 99.731% for June and the server response time is well below 0.3 seconds – which both are pretty good results.

ReviewBluehost.com is a website I built with purpose to review Bluehost web hosting services and their latest hosting deals/promotions.

As the website is mainly about Bluehost, it makes perfect sense to host it on Bluehost and provide real feedbacks on everything that comes in the picture.

Why keep looking at the server status?

One thing I like to do with my web hosting is to check its server status from cPanel regularly – it’s my habit to see if everything’s alright with the web host and react asap if anything smells fishy turns in. The habit had haunted me for years since I had my terrible experience with a lousy web hosting company (Network Eleven!).

(Hmmm, I wonder any webmasters out there have the same habit as mine?)

Server status reporting at ReviewBluehost.com

Anyway, with that being said, you can expect me doing the same for this website. And not only checking it, more over, I’ll be publishing the server status of ReviewBluehost.com at this wesbite for the sake of recording and for those of you who’re interested in knowing how’s Bluehost server doing.

Referring to the figure at your right, here’s how my Bluehost server doing today when I’m writing this article.

As you can see, all server functions are doing good with a healthy green light.

The server load level is moderate, CPU memory’s being used heavily with 45.4% used, disk usage on the home folder seems pretty loaded with 90% usage, and the rest of the hard disk remain around 40 – 50%.

That’s all for my report on Bluehost latest server status. I’ll be posting more on the issue whenever I have any updates, not only for my own websites, but as well as other websites that’re hosted on Bluehost.

Stay tuned!