On cPanel Plus, if the service is unavailable for any reason, be it scheduled maintenance or an unplanned outage, site visitors will be presented with an alternate page or site. The alternate page or site must be static HTML (and javascript if desired) and will be hosted in AmazonS3. S3 has a 99.9% uptime target, as specified in the Amazon S3 Service Level Agreement.
Fallback Options
Default Fallback Page
The Web Hosting team will manage a default maintenance page that can be used by any sites hosted on cPanel Plus. This page will be a single basic web page with the campus branding Header and Footer, and a message informing visitors that the website is currently unavailable. You can view the default maintenance page here: https://cpp.web.illinois.edu/maintenance.html
Customer-specific Fallback Page
Customers have an option to provide their own maintenance page. This is a single page with university branding header and footer, and the messaging of your choice. It can include links to external resources that are not hosted on cPanel plus, such as the Knowledgebase, help systems, the Illinois home page, or anything else visitors to the site might find useful while the website is offline
Customer-specific Mini Site
Similar to the customer specific maintenance page, customers may also choose to have a static “mini site” as their fallback. This could be anything from static export of their complete site to just a few of the most important pages or a completely different, small website containing the most important items from the production website.
Creating a Fallback Page or Site
All sites will have the default fallback page installed, and may also choose to have their own specific fallback pages. If specific fallback pages are installed, the default fallback would only be shown if there is an issue displaying the specific fallback pages.
The Webhosting Team will work with each customer to select a fallback option that works best for your use case. Tools for creating and managing fallback pages/sites are being researched and may be available to customers at a later date. Until that time, each unit may either provide the static pages you would like to use or may request co-development of appropriate pages. Co-development will be provided as part of our normal consulting process. As each unit’s needs and resources are different, the exact process for managing that collaboration will be determined by the Unit representative and the developer assigned.