My apologies for the sustained outage with some of the key functionality of the www.Ritterim.com website.
Our hosting service lost a switch which took our database server offline at 11:30 AM today. In the past, we had some short outages (15 minutes or less), but nothing like this.
Much of the functionality of our website is derived from our SQL Server Database. This powerful database manages our licensing paperwork, forms (applications, rates), our calendar of events, our Medicare Quote Engine and more.
Initially, because our Homepage pulls Upcoming Events from the Database, our entire Homepage crashed. We were able to re-write our Homepage so that if the Server is timed out, the page will still load, but with limited functionality.
What are we doing to fix this?
First of all, our host is working to correct the problem with our existing Database Server. Additionally, we purchased additional space with another host to run a mirror copy of our Quote Engine on another SQL Database Server. We are working late into the evening to upload, literally, millions of records to the new Server.
Generally, these types of redundance issues should be handled by our hosting service. We are evaluating our best course of action to ensure that this issue does not occur again.
My apologies for any inconvenience this has caused!
Craig Ritter, President, Ritter Insurance Marketing
