Isn't it ridiculous that some company use advertising slogans like 100% uptime guaranteed?

Those who ask for high availability hosting probably run some sort of e-business and downtime equals loss of sales. So they may contract hosting with a provider who promises 99.999% uptime or something. But such declarations only have any meaning if the host who fails to provide the promised uptime is liable for the consecutive damage to client's business, at least to some extent.

I mean, some hosting company promising 100% uptime with her liability limited to what has been paied for the hosting itself is simply a joke. For sure it doesn't say anything about the actual uptime of such a datacenter.

It all depends on what is promised to have 100% uptime and how they will achieve this.

It is very possible to achieve 100% uptime on networks, servers, firewalls, load balancers, etc. It all depends on how it's set-up and run.

Now if you have a host that offers hosting on 1 server with 1 T1 connection to Level 3, offering a 100% uptime guarantee is a little silly. :) It's not the offer that matters, it's how will they achieve the guarantee!

Ok, I guess you have a valid point here ;)

Originally posted by astra4
Isn't it ridiculous that some company use advertising slogans like 100% uptime guaranteed?

<snip>

For sure it doesn't say anything about the actual uptime of such a datacenter.

What is guaranteed is the money you've spent, they aren't usually offering an actual guarantee on the server actually being up 100% of the time (as you said).

It is very possible to achieve 100% uptime on networks, servers, firewalls, load balancers, etc. It all depends on how it's set-up and run.

This simply is not true. There are just too many parts to technology. You show me a network that has 100% uptime - all the time - and can guarantee it, I'll find a place it can break down. I agree with 99.9999%. Not much trouble with failovers, HA, LB's. However, even Yahoo's go down every once in a while.

Also, read SLA's from InFlow, Sprint, etc... who have *real* SLA's. They have guidlines because they know they can not get 100% uptime for ALL situations. The reason I say *real* SLA's, is because host who offer 100% are full of crap and play the same numbers games as those who offer 100 GB's of transfer for $1.

I think Nothing is 100% complete in this world.:D

Also, read SLA's from InFlow, Sprint, etc... who have *real* SLA's. They have guidlines because they know they can not get 100% uptime for ALL situations. The reason I say *real* SLA's, is because host who offer 100% are full of crap and play the same numbers games as those who offer 100 GB's of transfer for $1.I don't understand what you are saying? Inflow's, Savvis, etc. 100% uptime SLA is crap?

Originally posted by UmBillyCord
This simply is not true. There are just too many parts to technology. . . . . . . .because host who offer 100% are full of crap and play the same numbers games as those who offer 100 GB's of transfer for $1. Couldn't agree with you more:blush:
Hey!! We agree on something!!:beer:

:D

http://www.magentasites.com/geosite/specifications/

Offers 100% uptime by way of multiple server locations. Interesting though how this same company offers Unlimited Space and Bandwidth.


Andrew

Availability: Guaranteed 100%
A GeoSite will never be down. Magenta Sites has a policy of offering refunds in the case of over 1-minute service interruption.Now, wouldn't 100% Uptime also include anything less than 1 minute too :)

Well it's all in the semantics of the small print isn't it?

Here in Sydney, the rail authority deems that a train is on-time if it arrives +/- 5 minutes of its timetabled time of arrival. :D

Now, wouldn't 100% Uptime also include anything less than 1 minute too Yeah, it would. That's like saying "I offer 100% uptime (not including downtime)."


Andrew

Good thing i didn't have no 99.999999% server up time guarantee :) If I did... I be out of business by now.... My averages are 98%

Ok back to the point......

People like to see 100% uptime guarantees in the first place.

Originally posted by Synergy
. . . . . People like to see 100% uptime guarantees in the first place. I don't :rolleyes:
When I was looking for hosting; I would walk right away from sites that made such statements.
It's just an advertising gimmik.

Ok letme rephrase:

A average person would like to see 100% uptime guarantee.

:D

Originally posted by Synergy
Ok letme rephrase:

A average person would like to see 100% uptime guarantee.

:D Okay . . . . I can agree with that!
Depending, of course, on your definition of "average." :cartman:

Okay . . . . I can agree with that!
Depending, of course, on your definition of "average."

It'll be the same people who sign up for 500mb of space and 30gb of bandwidth - for their homepage, which should be hosted on Geocities because they get 30 page views per month. If I were to offer the following:-

30gb bandwidth
300mb space
100% uptime
Full everything
Toast in the morning F.O.C

for $10/£10 per month, they'd have a quick look elsewhere but come straight back, even if I were twice the price of a low end package more than adequate for their needs.

It's exactly the same with high performance tyres(tires in the US) and processors - people generally have little idea what they need do they :).

--Rich

I don't understand what you are saying? Inflow's, Savvis, etc. 100% uptime SLA is crap?

Let me explain.

The Inflows, Sprints in the world who have *binding* SLA's and actually will pay out if there isn't 100% uptime, are not crap.

However, get an SLA from Inflow, you will see fine print. Also, if someone is so positive they have *100%* uptime, then don't just give me a partial service credit which InFlow does, but give me the loses I would suffer if you did go down. If my business makes $10,000 a day and you are down for 4 hours, then credit me $1667 too. After all, 100% up means it will NEVER go down. If you are afraid to do this, then you shouldn't be offering 100% uptime. It is misleading.

Now look at these other small virtual host who offer 100% uptime. Do they deploy two or more servers, *globally* load balanced, at multiple data centers? Hell no. The cost is huge. How can they offer 100% uptime in one data center? Sure 99.9%, but 100%? Point, they play the same game as unlimited host. It is a numbers game. 1) They have fine print. 2) They bank on the fact most customers will not ask for a credit. 3) They figure most customers won't notice. In the end they can say they have 100% uptime, knowing the cost of lying is cheap.

In the end, these agreements are nothing more then goals - "We strive to have 100% uptime", not "we guarantee your site will never go down" like many companies advertise.

I used to host a web site with webhosting.com (horrible company). They put up 99.9% uptime, and guess what their TOS said? Yep: "99.9% uptime is not a service-level guarantee". My virtual hosting account didn't even reach 90% uptime there, and was down like 1 day every week. They also offer unlimited bandwidth.

Once my web site was down for a week, and another time for several days while I was paying for once-off newspaper ads.

After complaining A LOT they finally credited me 3 months of free hosting. WELL GUESS WHAT: THAT ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH. I moved away as soon as my contract ran out after a yerar. :)

Hello
You should not be using an SLA as insurance against loss of business.
You should take out adequate commercial insurance for your business through an insurance company.

On the issue of uptime guarantees, they are not worth the paper they are written on but if you don't have one you will lose business.
Our sales increased by a small amount as soon as we added one.
Before we had one people asked why we didn't.

Gordon

Good call: SLA's are not insurance. Look at electricity. Two years ago the power company up here was having just a horrible time for a couple months. Every 10 days or so a part of the city would just go out, each for a different reason. Some large, busy stores like Walmart went out and were in the dark for over an hour and couldn't sell anything. But the power company isn't liable at all. I mean, when the power is out you're not racking up electric bills. :-) (After the 3rd or 4th outage the newspapers started to run stories about possibly making utilities responsible for major outages, but it never went anywhere.)

In that sense, a host is like a utility company. I feel you should definitely refund for downtime, but be liable for lost sales? Of course not - it would be making me take on a huge risk for very little return. 1 hour of downtime could cost me 10 years of profit from that one customer.

[Off topic, I heard Home Depot cashiers would walk around the store with you and a flashlight when you were done shopping and write down the prices for everything. Cash only, please! :-D]

Originally posted by cimshimy
http://www.magentasites.com/geosite/specifications/

Offers 100% uptime by way of multiple server locations. Interesting though how this same company offers Unlimited Space and Bandwidth.


I wonder how they will technically do that. By using multiple server location, they need intelligent DNS servers. But there are still a single point of failure on those DNS servers.

We can assume a company that offer a service like that will use that service on their own web site. However from a quick look on their DNS records they use TTL for one day. Now how could they 'switch' to another server without some delay? A good explanation is they put the 'real' servers behind some load balancing host. But that still doesn't explain how they do geographically content delivery.

No, I'm not trying to make them look bad. I'm just trying to figure out how they can do that from technical standpoint.

You people seem to forget that if you have 100% uptime guarentee, it doesnt mean it WILL be up 100%, it simply means that if it isnt you will be compensated in some way.

Isn't it rediculous that some companies use advertising slogans like "satisfaction guaranteed"?

<insert verbiage here, I'm too tired to come up with it myself>

I mean, some company promising that you'll be satisfied with their liability limited to what you paid them is simply a joke. For sure it doesn't say anything about how satisfying their service is.

Originally posted by cperciva
Isn't it rediculous that some companies use advertising slogans like "satisfaction guaranteed"?


If an organization wants to offer you your money back if you're not satisfied, what should they call it, besides a "satisfaction guarantee"?