Monday, June 22, 2009

Tales From The Data Center Crypt

If you have more than one web site and have at least one dedicated server then data center management is probably a sore subject for you. Its one of those areas of the web nobody likes to talk about but the reality is 99% of all small business owners have had downtime as a result of a poorly run data center. In the not too distant past (about 9 months ago), I went from owning less than 5 dedicated servers, to being responsible for managing over 80 servers and the hosting of just under 200,000 web sites spread across 180,000 domains. Let me tell you something, the nightmares I experienced by setting up a full-fledged hosting facility are nothing compared to the amount of money that was lost when my client cut their contract short because I just wasn't getting the job done.

You see, at one point in time, I was a great SEO. I ate, drank, slept and dreamed about seo (I still do). But when I tried to take on an area of technology that I had just dabbled in previously, I cut my own legs out from beneath me. The number one rule in business school and that every entrepreneur will tell you is to focus on one thing and do that one thing better than anyone else in your industry. Well, I thought that since I was so good at seo and business consulting that I could take on another area (hosting) without too much hassle and that I'd probably save a fortune to boot. I can't even begin to tell you how wrong I was. I spend 70% of my time during the life of this particular contract (nearly 18 months) fixing hosting, network, infrastructure, operating system, caching, dns, ARIN, routing, firewall and other data center issues than I did search engine optimization. Because of that I was never able to implement the seo solutions I recommended in a timely manner and I ultimately failed to deliver the results I boasted to the client about.

Why am I telling you this? Because I'm now trying to work my way back out of a hole that's been dug deep with debt and failure and if one of you can benefit from my story then this post has done its job. We as humans are not meant to do a lot of things well even though we think we are suppose to be great at everything. We see companies like Twitter who's founder list is like a who's who of Valley startups and we think it's all about how great and smart the founders are. The truth is that success comes from commitment and committing to do the best job you can with the resources you have at your disposal and a lot of luck thrown in to boot. So if you're struggling right now and not sure why things just aren't working out, take a minute to look at your daily or weekly task lists and see if there are some things you're doing that would be better off in someone else's hands. Remember, the internet is a give equals get ecosystem (just like life mind you). In order to get you must first give and give generously. Could you benefit others around you by giving some of those tasks on your to do list away to someone else? Think about it, it will do your brain good.

Posted By Jason Dowdell at 11:37 AM
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