Our world is so wonderful (prop's to Louis Armstrong for this masterpiece) and our lives are filled with so many diversities… Let’s take Drupal-site as an example: it can fly like an eagle, or it can fly like a hit duck. Or it can barely crawl like an exhausted dying sloth with the worst outcome - site is down. It is the vilest baseness that if some troubles come out - they come out at the most inappropriate moment possible…
… And here it is, the worst scenario - your site is down. “What. Am I. To do?” - asks almost every owner seconds before panic… Let me give you an answer below :)
There have been cases when we have received Skype-calls of a common topic, smth like: “Guys! Drupal developers! It doesn’t work! It’s broken! SOS! ASAP!” Makes us feel like ambulance, website lifesavers, to be honest. And you know what? We are ready to take this role and to operate! First aid is to check server-side:
1. What’s up with the database: its configuration and general condition.
2. Check services: their run, their work.
3. Presence of some strange parameters and values.
4. Drupal's settings: both on server side and its own.
5. Last repo commits: who and when (to have a possibility to find the needed contact in social networks or via email address and to chat).
...6-48 (lots of boring technical points)...
49. Setting up our own systems for server monitoring (from basic available disk space to a detailed server apps logs).
Thus server is being fixed and run. The next operation is held on site itself:
- Code review;
- Data security audit;
- Page load speed;
- The latest core and modules updates.
Such an autopsy allows to detect all the issues and to plan portal resurrection steps. So the last thing is owner's approval. If we get it - we fix it. Further, site technical support is provided as well, no problems with it.
Now I’d like to share some of the memorable and at the same time interesting cases. Memories) An Israel client wrote: “Node is not displayed! I edit it, I save it, but it is not displayed yet. I re-open it - editing is fine. Furthermore, I save it - it is not displayed. Cycle…” So we have deployed the site copy to our devserver, took a slight look and kindly smiled :) Template had the text in php-code - no matter how hard the owner tried to edit there was no way to display. The simplest epic fail in our 7-years experience - still like to reminisce over it during long winter evenings.
One more story. Early morning, incoming email from owner of E-commerce project on natural food sales: “She just wanted to delete rabbit and… all the items are deleted! We have nothing for sale! SOS!” Wrong taxonomy vocabulary treatment, obviously… But orders are coming instantly, database restoring could have been a big problem because of it. We were really lucky that it happened from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. and nobody purchased any sour-cream at this time. Moreover, our admin set one of backups for an early morning precisely. So we were able to restore it and to perform one more master-class for poor content-manager how to handle taxonomies.
And the last one for now. We had different types of clients, but nobody could compete with the most extraordinary. One nice day out of the blue he demanded to launch beta-version, immediately. No, it was not a dead-line and the reason for this itch was… horoscope! It was very strict: “This day is very favorable for website launch” (facepalm). After negotiations, we understood that we’d better not to mess with Nostradamus so… Beta was launched the very day!
Why we have told all these stories. After reviewing all these (and of course not only these) cases we made a decision: People need urgent help 24/7 and see us as an ambulance for their sites - we will be an ambulance, emergency ambulance.
So we are proud to present you Drudesk. Service for help and assistance in urgent, unpredictable situations which may happen to your website. Call us any time: night is more expensive, hope the reasons are clear; day time - no problems! And yes, the most interesting cases can count on discount! :)