Quick Tip: CF HOSTING: Can Access Kill?

Cameron Childress, of the ACFUG/Atlanta Cold Fusion Users Group, kindly forwarded the following exchange as a tip to our readers:

George Collman, of GeoSpin NetMarketing, had e-mailed the following to ACFUG:

"I've listened to the ongoing horror stories of using Access databases and also heard those on this list that always have an example of some super-site on Access with a trillion records that never goes down. I've been setting up a bunch of AbleCommerceBuilder stores, and have had some fun with modifying the wizards etc. All these accounts I set up utilize the host's separate SQL server.

"The last two weeks have been a nightmare of downtime, which the host says is caused by using Access in a shared hosting environment. Since there are Access databases on other accounts on the server, if one of them advertises and gets a run of business ... everybody chokes ... even those who are hosted on the server but utilize the separate SQL database server.

"My question ... Is there anything we may be able to do to minimize or prevent this other than getting every @#@#*&$*# Access database off the server? I would really rather not move a bunch of accounts with all the administrative hassle and setup costs, to somewhere that may be not better. Any suggestions? ... They're all low end (dollar) accounts, small businesses that want to test out the ecommerce waters. (We're also up in the sticks in NC, and the general public [here] is about one to two years behind in Internet thinking and spending.) ... Thanks in advance for suggestions."

Cameron responded:

"You may not like the answer, but your best bet is going to be to move off that server, and probably off that host. There's not really much you can do beyond using a lot of error catching (see CFTRY and CFCATCH) to gracefully get around the fact that several other sites on a server are bringing your site down.

In my opinion, your only real question is where are you going to move, and what can you do to make sure this does not happen again? Even if the ISP does offer hosting on special 'SQL Server only' machines, my usual attitude with ISP's is '1.5 strikes and their out'. I don't usually wait around for a host to fix a problem. I get out the second I smell trouble ...

"I'd start evaluating your options. You can co-locate somewhere as Michael [Smith, of TeraTech, Inc., in a related response] suggested, or you could switch to a different shared host. You're going to have to face the fact that no shared hosting environment is going to be flawless, because no matter how hard the host tries, you will always be at the mercy of the other sites on that server.

"You should be able to go to Allaire's support forums and search on the word 'hosting' or any particular individual host's name to get plenty of feedback on different hosts. Several hosts I have heard good things about are FusionFX and VirtualScape for shared hosting, and Comstar for co-locations, but whatever you do, make sure to take the time to find one you are comfortable with, so you don't have to go through this again soon.

"One last piece of advice I would give would be: Don't notify your existing host that you are leaving till your new host has you all set up, data sources, DNS and all. Make the switch at InterNIC, make sure everything's working right at the new host, and then after a few days of problem-free service from the new host, drop the old one. Nothing's worse than moving to a new host just to find that they are actually worse, and you have no fallback position because you just finished cussing out your old host for their crappy service. Not that I've ever been in that position myself ;-)"

We thank Cameron and George for insight into the cause and solution to a common problem for smaller sites.

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