I have had a few occasions lately where my VPS goes down for a few hours and the answer from my host has been “possible Ddos” attack on the data center and we are looking into it.
I would just like any advice as what is “normal”, to get these outages, or should I need a host with some sort of fallback/failsafe system.
If they do unavoidably go down how long would be the “normal” downtime etc etc.
I dont want to rattle on about losing money with lost clicks etc but any advice wold be appreciated as to how the best way to avoid it.
as it stands now it has been out for 3 hours as I speak.
John
What do they come back with after they've looked into it? If something is wrong they need to fix it. That kind of downtime is not acceptable.
The DDoS might not even be directed to your own domain on a VPS.
The only time I was the the target of an actual DDoS attack, with ransom, & involving the FBI, the attack was sustained for over a month. It cost a fortune to filter the traffic thru a 3rd party service so legitimate requests could get thru.
An actual DDoS attack is usually directed to a domain or IP by zombie computers - a large quantity of machines that are infected with a the code. When the attacker points those machines at a domain on your server, it doesn't stop until they either shut them down or point them someplace else.
Your host can take a hit too and find that their network is flooded by the packet requests. That can shut down their entire operation depending upon how redundant their bandwidth provision is.
Get on a dedicated server and then you at least won't suffer from the bandwidth demands of other domains on the same VPS. I found dedicated servers with cPanel and WHM at TMDHosting.com and have had one for almost two years now - quite satisfied.