I have been reading quite a lot of server providers' SLA or TOS.
I noticed that a couple of things commonly are not included with the uptime guarantee such as:

*Telco Failure
*Backbone peering point issues
*Hardware failure
*Software bugs/flaws
*Network floods, hacks, attacks
*Circumstances beyond reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, "Acts of God
*Scheduled maintenance for hardware/software upgrades
*DNS issues not within the direct control of server provider

Okay... I am new to this, but how could network go down other than the things mentioned above.

I'd say human error is the #1 cause of downtime. Like `rm -rf`ing the wrong directory, those sorts of things.

But really, uptime guarantees don't mean much, if anything. If your site was down for a week but you got a month free, it wouldn't really help the fact that you just lost thousands of visitors or customers.

Originally posted by qslack
Like `rm -rf`ing the wrong directory, those sorts of things.



They will probably try to pass that off as an "Act of God" ;)

Originally posted by qslack
I'd say human error is the #1 cause of downtime. Like `rm -rf`ing the wrong directory, those sorts of things.

But really, uptime guarantees don't mean much, if anything. If your site was down for a week but you got a month free, it wouldn't really help the fact that you just lost thousands of visitors or customers.

At least the host is willing to compensate you something as no host dare to offer/guarantee 100% uptime. It is better than nothing ;)

Just my thought.

Regards,
Choon

Originally posted by Pluto
I have been reading quite a lot of server providers' SLA or TOS.
I noticed that a couple of things commonly are not included with the uptime guarantee such as:

*Telco Failure
*Backbone peering point issues
*Network floods, hacks, attacks
*DNS issues not within the direct control of


I think the above should NOT be exempt if a provider is giving an uptime guarantee. The others are almost always not included, and for generally good reasons. I host really can't be responsible for hardware failing. There's little that can be done to prevent it. Even the best hardware can fail. However, if they're going to offer an uptime guarantee they should at least have a stable enough network and peering to prevent the above from causing major problems.

Originally posted by qslack
I'd say human error is the #1 cause of downtime. Like `rm -rf`ing the wrong directory, those sorts of things.


rm -rf ./

rm -rf /

what is the difference?? :rolleyes:

Originally posted by choon


At least the host is willing to compensate you something as no host dare to offer/guarantee 100% uptime. It is better than nothing ;)

Just my thought.

Regards,
Choon

Well good thought yes, but so wrong way to compensate. I mean, money back is the only thing that counts - who wants another free month with a host being down a lot ( if that was the case )???

I had a pretty busy site at a pretty wellknown host when they got BIG/BIG problems earlier this autumn.

Site was down for days ( and I had sold a lot of advertising on it - the advertisers got pretty upset ) and when I complained all I got was "Sorry. Here's another month with us for free"

I just switched host as soon as I could.

Originally posted by ASPCode.net


Well good thought yes, but so wrong way to compensate. I mean, money back is the only thing that counts - who wants another free month with a host being down a lot ( if that was the case )???

I had a pretty busy site at a pretty wellknown host when they got BIG/BIG problems earlier this autumn.

Site was down for days ( and I had sold a lot of advertising on it - the advertisers got pretty upset ) and when I complained all I got was "Sorry. Here's another month with us for free"

I just switched host as soon as I could.

As I have said... it is better than nothing. No host will like to have thier customers' site down and how the host choose to compensate is better than just nothing. Some might refund you the month hosting fee, give you a free month of hosting and others refund you on certain percentage of the hosting fee etc. Again, this is better than NOTHING and every host know that if their uptime percentage for their customers' site is below 99%... they are going to loose a lot of their customers.

Regards,
Choon

Originally posted by Pluto
I have been reading quite a lot of server providers' SLA or TOS.
I noticed that a couple of things commonly are not included with the uptime guarantee such as:

*Telco Failure
*Backbone peering point issues
*Hardware failure
*Software bugs/flaws
*Network floods, hacks, attacks
*Circumstances beyond reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, "Acts of God
*Scheduled maintenance for hardware/software upgrades
*DNS issues not within the direct control of server provider

Okay... I am new to this, but how could network go down other than the things mentioned above.

looks like brefings of burst.net tos. :D

anyway.

i have seens the hosts which offer you 99.99 % network uptime gurantee. example: rackspace.com. yes they will compansate you if network goes down for more then 4-5 minutes. but there are some conditions to that.


*Backbone peering point issues

good hosts have redundancy so there should not be much effect of this.

*Hardware failure
it depends how much time it takes to replace the failed hardware, rackspace offer you gurantee of replacement of hardware within 2 hours. which other host give such gurantee. ??


*Software bugs/flaws
well, its there duty to provide fixes, patches and OS exploites not only to protect your box but protect whole network from getting explotied.

*Network floods, hacks, attacks
yeah, but many firewall products and ip tracking softwares are available to limit this thing. again there is limit to this. what if your server was not reachable for 4 hours and your hosts said noc fibers was dosed ?. you will look for another host, don't you !!


*Circumstances beyond reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, "Acts of God

ACTS OF GOD ?. hehe, you did not pray last night. boooommmmmmm :D :D :D

*Scheduled maintenance for hardware/software upgrades
here also there should be a limit and previous notification.

*DNS issues not within the direct control of server provider
OK, ok. but again not very long.


i guess 99.5% uptime is reachable. i had around 99.9% uptime with colossus.net in 15 months of time. Now this is what i call quality hosting.

;)