Disaster Recovery, ezboard Style
A fairly shocking discovery for anyone stupid enough to still be using ezboard would be the news that should their Gold Community go belly-up, their request for the backup - remember them? - to be used to restore it to its former glory might take longer than they might envisage and not go as smoothly as expected either.
Take a look at this message thread at the ezboard Help [sic] boards before ezboard, Inc. deletes it. On Monday, 9 July, one of the board admins. reports that a banned user has managed to hack their board and delete its contents. An ezboard Customer Services employee suggests opening a support ticket to request a restoral.
On Thursday, 12 July, another customer reports that they have done that but had heard nothing since. Another admin. also says:
"I'm worried about the restoral as well. It says that we'd be answered within one business day and we haven't heard from them. If nothing happens before Sunday are we out of luck because they back it up every Sunday? We just need some action fast before everything is lost and we don't know who to contact to see something done about it."
Later the same day, another admin. states:
"We have sent in a couple of restoral requests this week and have received no response. I would normally be patient and wait but to my understanding this is a time sensitive issue. Backups are deleted every 2 weeks. So if the backup done this last Sunday happened after the attack then we'll need the backup from the Sunday before which will be deleted this upcoming Sunday. I have thoroughly read the Restoral FAQ and according to it there is no reason that we should not be approved for a restoral. We were the victims of a malicious attack and we have proof that the person who did this was not any of the administrators but someone else."I don't know if this is the proper place for this but since the restoral requests aren't receiving any kind of response then we're at a lost. Even if you can tell me what kind of time frame it takes for ezboard to grant a restoral would help. Its just waiting with no word on what is going on is really hard especially with such a time sensitive issue. Please understand our stress here. We've lost 3 years of great memories and valuable writings and to just sit and wait with no idea of what is being done about it is hard to do."
On Sunday, 15 July a moderator from the board writes:
"...It's been almost a week, and we're well aware that the longer something takes, the less likely it is that we'll get any significant amount of data returned to us. This is FOUR YEARS worth of memories..."
Of course as it was a Sunday, we know already that ezboard staff aren't working, so it take until Monday, 16th before staff issue a holding reply.
Good news! On Thursday, 19th the ezboard staff report that the board has been restored! Except it hasn't:
"I think that ezboard waited to long to give us our restoral and they backed it up after our hack."
Oh dear! Never mind, just before locking the thread on Friday, 20th, the helpful ezboard staffer makes an implied reference to the forthcoming weekend (i.e. no-one working) when they say:
"Please let the techs know via the ticket that is open, exactly what is still missing. I'll keep an eye on the ticket and remind them on Monday to take another look.
There's not anything more that we can do from here, so I am going to close this topic."
So I suppose it's not that surprising that one of the admins. then starts another thread saying:
"Dear EzBoard Re: CHARMED'S DESIGNATION"Your lack of professionalism, and compassion have cost us our board. We begged, we pleaded, we did everything but bribe you and now we lost over 1 million posts, and almost 4 years of archived talent and information that meant the world to over 500 people!
"We are actively looking at other boards, as ezboard has proved that they cannot be trusted nor can they be relied on.
"It's amazing you people can sleep at night. But, what do you care? As long as we pay our yearly Gold Community price, that's all we're good for.
"Thanks for nothing.
"Oh, and thanks for a LATE restoral which caused us to lose even MORE posts."
At last! Someone's waking up to smell the coffee!
The next day (21st July - a Saturday!), the same ezboard staffer writes:
"You shouldn't assume, yet, that you've lost your board. The person who needs to look into doing a further restoral has been ill. We regret that there has been a delay as a result, but when the only person who is capable of troubleshooting this problem is unavailable, there isn't much we can do but hope for your patience."
[Emphasis added]
Sheesh! So when ezboard, Inc. CEO Robert Labatt says back in September 2005 that they have 14,000,000 members and 500,000 communities, isn't it worrying that they have only one staff member who can sort things out?
That staff member, having returned to work, then posted on 23 July, some two weeks after the initial request, to say that he had restored their community from the correct backup.
Not wishing to gloat - oh alright then, wishing to gloat - with my 'self-hosted' message boards, I can choose from six daily backups to restore from should something happen to my message boards. And it's oh so easy for me to do that. Likewise if I didn't know how to set up and install phpBB, for instance, my hosts offer a one-click install and upgrade for it. How pleasant!
Look, I'll be good to anyone who feels stuck on ezboard or Yuku: why not go to DreamHost instead and sign up for what is basically an unlimited hosting plan (in real terms) with none of that 20 page maximum nonsense at ezboard.
And I'll tell you what: if you use the promotional code EZSAVE50 you can even get $50 off your first year's hosting. Go on! Give it a try!
