Life can be heck when you are popular, especially if you are popular with the wrong folks.
The ISP (Internet Service Provider) that hosts my many websites and blogs sent me a notice yesterday that they had shut down one of my most popular websites because it was using too much CPU resources in the shared host computer in which it is located.
My ISP provides unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth, but not unlimited use of the computer processor. It’s completely legitimate as I am only paying for a shared portion of the processor(s) I use.
I have made no changes in any of my websites that should cause that problem. However, there are some things I can do to reduce the load on the processor. I contacted the ISP (by phone line) and have followed their suggestions on changes. I hope it helps. I don’t really like to be shut down without notice.
What it really means is that outside users have been demanding too much work from my website and the computer that runs it. It could be that I have become so popular that everyone tries to access it at the same time. Unfortunately it could also be an attack by the “bots” trying to deny service by overloading my machine.
If it really is legitimate users just using my website, then I would have to move to a much more expensive system with my own private server. Since I don’t run most of my websites and blogs for profit, it doesn’t make much sense to move say to a “cloud” based system.
I now have to pay a lot more attention to who is jerking my chain… friend or foe? 🙂