Enterprise Hosting

Rubaidh also provide hosting for all the applications we develop. Using our state of the art system architecture we can provide a scalable, resilient solution for any Rails application. The servers are provided through us by one of our hosting partners (RimuHosting and Rackspace), which means we get the advantages of their excellent support on the servers themselves:

  • Multiple, redundant Tier-1 connections to the Internet, providing fast, low-latency connectivity. Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) so that the servers carry on running, even through an extended power outage.
  • Security. All the premises where the servers are located have comprehensive physical security features, including 24 hour security staff and Closed Circuit TV monitoring.
  • Hardware replacement. If something goes wrong with the server hardware, it’s always quickly replaced, minimising and potential downtime. In fact, Rackspace guarantee to replace hardware within 1 hour! Fantastic support staff. While Rackspace have the trademark on
  • Fanatical Support, Rimuhosting also consistently demonstrate their zeal!

Monitoring

All the servers themselves are monitored both by the hosting partner and by us. Both parties will be paged immediately if there is a problem with the server. In addition, Rubaidh provide comprehensive monitoring at an application level to ensure that your web site is always running. In the event that something happens, we are automatically paged, 24×7 and endeavour to fix the problem as soon as possible.

Backup and restoration

All of our servers utilise RAID mirroring for the safety of your data. If a single hard drive fails, then there is no interruption to service at all — it simply carries on while the on-site support staff replace the disk. On the off-chance another component in the server does fail, the on-site support staff will quickly (Rackspace guarantee the fix to be within an hour!) replace the faulty component and we’ll be back up and running again. Of course, once your application has scaled beyond a couple of servers, even this will not result in an interruption of service!

In the event of some catastrophic failure, your data is still safe and you will be up and running again quickly. All data is backed up off site, every night (which, incidentally, does bump up the bandwidth bills slightly, but we feel it’s worth it for peace of mind!). Our system configuration is a standard one for every server, so after the server has been replaced by on-site support staff, the data can be quickly restored and your site will be back before you’ve lost all your hair.