HostDime is a global datacenter provider and has been around for 23 years, with over 200 employees today.  They have datacenters in Orlando (Florida, USA), Los Angeles (USA), Brazil, Mexico, Columbia, India, and the UK.

And it appears they’re in trouble.

According to a Reason For Outage posted by VPSDime, a provider that uses their services, there is a dispute between HostDime and its facility provider in the UK:

To provide full transparency, we [VPSDime] want to clarify how our London location operates. We use HostDime as our upstream infrastructure provider in the UK. HostDime, in turn, utilizes data center space and network services from a separate, overarching facility operator.

We are a customer of HostDime, and HostDime is a customer of the facility operator.

After relentlessly pressing HostDime for answers, they have finally disclosed the truth behind this extended downtime. HostDime is currently engaged in a contractual dispute with the overarching data center facility.

Because of this dispute, the facility operator abruptly shut off all power and network access to the server cages. HostDime has informed us that they have tried to reach an agreement with the facility operator over the past 24 hours with no success.

They go on to share a communication they received from HostDime:

HostDime is now progressing forward with migrating services to a new infrastructure vendor within the UK. As this plan progresses, we expect to be able to provide an ETA and will send that out in a subsequent update. At this time, many factors with the previous vendor are still in effect and can obfuscate an accurate timeline but we remain committed to expediting a resolution. Once we have cleared these hurdles, an ETA for the move and restoration of services will be able to be provided.

“Relentlessly pressing”…that doesn’t sound good.  Sounds like HostDime was not eager to disclose the nature of this dispute.  Is it financial?  Some contract term that one side doesn’t want to accept?  Perhaps it’s coming up for renewal and they’re haggling over rates?

Whatever the reason, it’s pretty shocking that matters would reach a stage where service is actually cut off by the facility.  The enormous reputational damage potential is obvious, as is the fact that their UK clients (at least) are going to flee.  That’s what VPSDime is doing:

We find this situation unacceptable. While we wait on HostDime to resolve their internal vendor issues, we are actively executing our own plan to bring your VPS back online.

We are working with new, stable data center providers in the London region to bring brand-new servers online. Our goal is to provision replacement VPS instances for you using your exact same IP addresses as quickly as possible.

Hopefully, HostDime resolves the issue quickly.  It’s tempting to speculate but at this point, the above is the only hard info we have.

raindog308

raindog308 is a longtime community LETizen, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, raindog308 runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, raindog308 has a life-long love of German Shepherd Dogs, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, playing guitar, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.