UPDATE: In discussions with MediaTemple after things had calmed down, we agreed that R/WW is better off on a single tenant server. For all its positive points and innovation, ultimately the Grid is a multi-tentant solution – which when you have a critical asset (as R/WW is for me) is probably not the ideal solution. MediaTemple had actually advised me of that originally, it has to be said. So currently R/WW is in the process of being upgraded to a Dedicated Virtual server.
[original post] Apologies for the site downtime – the MediaTemple Grid Server was down for 2.5 hours tonight, meaning R/WW was unavailable during that entire time. Normally MediaTemple is an outstanding server provider, and their customer service is second to none in my experience. However, I have major concerns about the Grid Server – which was touted so highly on TechCrunch in October 2006. Quoting from Michael Arrington’s post at that time:
“Media Temple launched a major new hosting service this morning called Grid Server. It matches low end shared hosting services in pricing ($20/month) but promises to grow along with the site, manage huge short term traffic spikes without a disruption in service or performance and avoid the Äúbad neighborÄ? problem common with shared hosting services.”
It sounds great in theory, but not so grand when your website goes down for 2.5 hours. Unfortunately I have to say I’ve had more problems with Grid Server than on the Shared Server I was previously on. Again, this is nothing against MediaTemple’s customer service, which is generally excellent. But the Grid Server does not seem to be the golden panacea it was said to be when it launched.
