IP Democracy: Navisite Heads into Day Four of Massive Failure

***Note to Everybody Who Has Been Trying to Reach Me at emediadynamics.com email address: We switched away from Navisite earlier this evening and my email is now functioning***

****Update for Navisite Customers at 10:54 p.m.: Don't expect your sites to be up anytime soon. The mysterious Mark Clayman has posted this notice on the website that says, in essence, things are screwed up and we're working on it, which, in some variation or another, is what Navisite has been saying since Saturday.

Despite promising to bring up "the vast majority" of its relocated servers by 1 p.m. today, publicly traded hosting and applications providers Navisite (Nasdaq: Navi) has failed to bring up fully even a minority of the servers that it relocated this weekend.

The company is headed into its fourth day of a horrifically botched relocation of hundreds of servers that it acquired when it purchased hosting provider Alabanza. And I'm headed into my fourth day without email or access to my web sites.

At this point, Navisite's poorly planned data center consolidation has slipped from mere incompetence to outrageous indifference to its customers needs and should be grounds for legal action, if not government sanctions of some kind. As I understand it, Navisite planned to "virtually" relocate servers from Baltimore to Andover, MA while an actual physical move of the servers was conducted via ground transportation.

Once the servers arrived in Andover, MA, the physical reconnection was supposed to take place, with minimal disruption to the hosted sites. For reasons unknown to customers, Navisite didn't follow this procedure. Navisite simply unplugged the servers, put them on a truck to Andover and then attempted to bring them back up again, skipping the necessary first step.

According to people who have talked to Navisite's tech personnel, they were ill-equipped for the relocation and ignorant of how to accomplish even basic tasks. Even as late as this afternoon, my developer believes that Navisite is hopelessly mired in the weeds and is vainly promising anything while lacking the necessary in-house expertise to solve the problem.

So, in essence, Navisite yanked the servers for 200,000 web sites, put them on trucks and then didn't know what to do when the servers arrived in Andover. Nobody was prepared for this kind of relocation nor was anyone skilled enough to successfully implement it.

Worse, Navisite had informed its clients of a completely different timetable and process for the server relocation than the one implemented.

Please email me at cynthia@ipdemocracy.com if you plan to seek legal action against Navisite. I'm researching the relevant government officials in Massachusetts and DC who should be contacted to stir up possible government investigation into the company's practices. I'll post that information in an update to this item.

Update: Although there are no government agencies that have direct jurisidiction over website hosting companies, I spoke to the FTC. There's no clear-cut office at the FTC that handles situations like this, but one of the staffers told me to direct people to file a consumer complaint anyway. Someone will pay attention if enough people file. Here's the direction: go to www.ftc.gov and click on the "consumer complaint" box or call 1-877-FTC-HELP and talk to a staff member.

I've just emailed a staffer at the JOINT COMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS, UTILITIES AND ENERGY for the Massachusetts legislature to find out how to apply political pressure on Navisite.

And I've got a call into the FCC to find out if there's any chance they have jurisdiction.

But, the bottom-line is that web hosting companies are not regulated. This is a contract issue and probably calls for class-action litigation.

Update: We're going to switch to a new provider if Navisite fails to get the sites up and running by midnight tonight, although as one web hosting provider has suggested, this might not be the greatest thing to do. My developer is also concerned that if we switch hosters and then Navisite manages to actually get our sites up and running, then some sort of IP address/DNS server conflict will occur, although I don't know anything about this. I'd be glad to post alternative web hosting company names and addresses here for those of you likewise given the shaft by Navisite, with the proviso that I won't be making any recommendations. Just offering people some alternatives.

Update: Navisite "thanks" its customers for patience as it stares down the barrel of a fifth day of massive outages. I sincerely doubt that any of Navisite's customers are patient. Here's a typical email I received from a Navisite customer:

This has been a total disaster for my company. I have about 30 websites down for over 3 days so I have lost 3 days of new business and I have no idea what current customers are trying to email me with any issues.

Interestingly, the company's latest missive is signed by a top executive Mark Clayman,
Senior Vice President of Hosting Services. From my understanding, no Navisite executive has participated in any of the conference calls the company started hosting yesterday. Only "customer service representatives" have participated on these calls, and they are unable to answer questions.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 5, 2007 3:48 PM to IP Democracy