If you manage VPS hosting, dedicated servers, or any production infrastructure, the holidays are the worst time for something to break. Your team is scattered, response times are longer, and the people who know the systems best might be unreachable. The best strategy is preparation.
Freeze big changes
Don’t deploy major updates, new infrastructure, or database migrations in the two weeks before a holiday period. Big changes need babysitting, and you don’t want to be troubleshooting a half-finished migration at 2 AM on Christmas. Set a change freeze and stick to it. Routine maintenance and critical security patches are fine; new features and big refactors wait until January.
Set up mobile access
Make sure you can check on your servers from your phone. Load SSH and RDP clients so you can connect to your Linux VPS or Windows VPS from anywhere. Test them before the break so you’re not fumbling with credentials while something is on fire.
Our Client Portal works on mobile, so you can reboot a VPS or check server status from your phone.
Set up monitoring and alerts
If you don’t have monitoring already, set it up before the holidays. You need to know when CPU, disk, or memory hits critical levels, when a service crashes, or when your site goes down. There are plenty of monitoring tools for Linux and Windows servers. The important thing is that alerts go to your phone, not just to an email you won’t check.
Rotate on-call coverage
Don’t stick the same person with on-call duty every holiday. Rotate it, and compensate people for covering. Having a clear schedule means everyone knows who’s responsible, and the person on call has permission to escalate.
Have a runbook
Write down the steps for common incidents: how to restart the application, how to fail over to a backup, how to restore from backup, who to contact for escalation. During a holiday crisis, clear instructions save time and reduce panic.
We offer 24/7 support for VPS hosting and dedicated server issues. If you want managed support so our team handles monitoring and incidents, contact us.