Hi there,

I just wanted to get peoples opinions, I had what i thought to be a potential client today contact me interested in servers, but they stated our 99.5% uptime guarantee wasn't sufficient, they wanted 99.99% uptime guarantee, and the whole month free (unconditional) if there was more then 00.01% downtime (4.5 minutes/month). Obviously (at least IMHO) i turned them away, i thought this was totally insane, but i felt kind of bad, because my other busines (porcupine consulting), whenever someone is turned away, we refer them to someone who can help, but i couldn't think of anyone who could handle this.

I know a few people actually do offer 99.99% or greater guarantee, but would any of these hosts give you the whole month free if there was less then 99.99% uptime!?!? I thought this was insane, i just wanta get other peoples viewpoints on this :D

it`s 99.99 uptime - 7 hours a month allowed down for 1 %

not 4.5 minutes

99% is 7.2 hours, 99.99% = 4.32 minutes down/minute, grab the calculator ^_^.

Originally posted by William
it`s 99.99 uptime - 7 hours a month allowed down for 1 %

not 4.5 minutes

:eek:

It's a buyer's market, but not that much so. A full month credit for anything less than 99% but not even the US Gov't (maybe that is a bad example) can keep something running 99.99%.

Heh, it sounds like they are searching for the proverbial (MS) "five nines" :)

Drew

Drew, yeh thats what i figured, but how can anyone give 5 9's for a single server? For a cluster with 5+ links and bgp4 in a fully redundant cluster can do that without a sweat, because it's a cluster, how would you do this for a server, even 2 9's. I'm starting to wonder if this was a genuine request, or someone looking for something to exploit (free dedicated server, almost anyone can make their server unavailable for 5+ mins/mo.).

There are reasonable and unreasonable guarantees....although many promise 99.99% and such, few deliver....but some are willing to give credit for failing to meet....but full month for .011% downtime...oh come'on now. You are probably lucky he posed a situation so drastic, because with those expectations, what else would he have expected.....

I probably should have made this a poll post now that i look back on it, keep posting, but does anyone know of providers who give the full month free if they don't maintain their uptime guarantee?

Nope, I've never heard of any such (crazy) provider :)

Originally posted by porcupine
I probably should have made this a poll post now that i look back on it, keep posting, but does anyone know of providers who give the full month free if they don't maintain their uptime guarantee?

There was a provider who did this, but they went belly up :), and it was for Enterprise hosting...so people who were spending a minimum of $4,000 a month.

As to your question, I am under the impression that most companies don't offer 5 9's for the server, but instead, network connectivity to the server. That being said, my server is generally up for 3-4 months at a time. The only time it goes down is when I am performing maintenance and have to reboot.

Most providers have a disclaimer stating that their SLA does not cover downtime experienced during maintenance windows, or because of customer error, or things beyond the provider's control (like a DOS attack). Oftentimes so many things are not covered that the SLA winds up having no teeth. Of course, if you are serious you can always negotiate a seperate SLA.

Hello porcupine, I just made I request just like this , for all I know you are the one that I requested this from. I know that this request is completely insane and I would never thing about it if pwebtech.com wouldn't suggest this. They claim that their server does not go down, and they are willing to stay beyond with a monthly refund. Please verify that I'm not crazy :buck:

Sharkman:

It might have been you, i can't remember, it didn't really matter because i wasn't going to mention their name either way :). I dno if pwebtech does this, i guess you'd have to ask them. Personally i don't think i'll ever stand behind something like that unless a big company with big servers and big $$$ wants it, because for the general user, IMHO it's too exploitable, any user can "make" their service unavailable for 5 minutes (a tech would take at least 10 to go look and see whats wrong) and want the month free :), i guess it depends on the terms you wrap around it :)

My Question to you dear Prickly one is What the Hack are you doing posting on your darn Birthday?? Go out and grab a beer or two or three.... Maybe some lucky gal will find your soft underbelly :)

Originally posted by porcupine
Drew, yeh thats what i figured, but how can anyone give 5 9's for a single server? For a cluster with 5+ links and bgp4 in a fully redundant cluster can do that without a sweat, because it's a cluster, how would you do this for a server, even 2 9's. I'm starting to wonder if this was a genuine request, or someone looking for something to exploit (free dedicated server, almost anyone can make their server unavailable for 5+ mins/mo.).

I think it is impossible! When you talk cluster, you talk multiple servers. Also, how can you guarantee it is not the customer causing downtime?

I have seen amny places offer this for the network, however I can not think of anyone offering any uptime guarantee on a server. There are just too many variables.

I have a saying for unreasonable customer request -

"Thanks for stopping by."

Originally posted by UmBillyCord

I have seen amny places offer this for the network


hmmm...there is an echo in here :).

Originally posted by uuallan


hmmm...there is an echo in here :).

I actually have a rare disease that causes me to skip over any post by usernames with more vowels then consonants. I needed to bring in one of our techs to point out what you were talking about. :)

Originally posted by UmBillyCord

I actually have a rare disease that causes me to skip over any post by usernames with more vowels then consonants. I needed to bring in one of our techs to point out what you were talking about. :)

Quite all right, I have allergic reactions to any username that sounds like it should be attached to a fetus :D (only until the middle of July though -- after that, when my kid is born, I am sure my reaction will be much worse ;).

My Question to you dear Prickly one is What the Hack are you doing posting on your darn Birthday?? Go out and grab a beer or two or three.... Maybe some lucky gal will find your soft underbelly

Hehe, thanks. But that wouldn't be a lucky girl if my girlfriend we're to find her :D.

Well that is crazy crazy crazy offer uptime like that for some one elses dedicated server!

If i was the customer i would have free dedicated server for life ahaha just cause some of my linux skills i have forgoten ahahah

regards,

I doubt that pwebtech promise 99.99% uptime or the month is free :eek: :uhh: They are pretty upfront and honest, so it just doesn't sound like the sort of promise they would make (I could be proven wrong). Even NAC.net has problems, DOS attacks, router problems, etc happen from time to time.

I also don't like the idea of refunding the month's charges for downtime. Research and choose the best provider based on reputation, feedback, pre-sales support, price, deal, etc. If it all works out and you are happy with them, then just pay the monthly fees. If you become disatisfied, then move on elsewhere. But the idea of a host refunding all its monthly fees over such a small amount of downtime, is just financially unviable for the host.

If you really need 99.99% uptime, then you will need to put together your own multiple server in multiple locatation redundant and self monitoring system, along the lines of what that Stephen dude has done with esnipe.com (Sorry Stephen - have forgotten your user name).

Originally posted by freakysid
I doubt that pwebtech promise 99.99% uptime or the month is free :eek: :uhh: They are pretty upfront and honest, so it just doesn't sound like the sort of promise they would make (I could be proven wrong). Even NAC.net has problems, DOS attacks, router problems, etc happen from time to time.


This discussion piqued my interest, so I checked out Pegasus, but I could not find any information about their SLA. The only link they had referencing it resolves to a 404 error:

https://www.pwebtech.com/pegasus_sla.html

I did my math again


45 minutes of downtime is allowed with 99.99% guaranteed

(((31*24)-((31*24)*0.999))*60)'
44.6400000000017

Am I right ??????

Youre not as dumb as you look Bill ;)

-Brendan

Originally posted by William

(((31*24)-((31*24)*0.999))*60)'
44.6400000000017

Am I right ??????

99.99% = .9999

(((31*24)-((31*24)*0.9999))*60) = 4.46

Alternatively, you can think of it like this:

.0001(31*24*60) = 4.46

I give up!!
:)

"William"

Your 100% right ! ! !

;)

Originally posted by bahres
"William"

Your 100% right ! ! !

;)

Originally posted by William

(((31*24)-((31*24)*0.999))*60)'
44.6400000000017

Am I right ??????

Thats right, but not for 99.99%, for 99.99% it would be:

(30*24*60) * .0001 == 4.32 minutes (30 days/month is more accepted then 31)

Originally posted by William
I give up!!
:)

Better change your SLA. Time to drop a nine. :D

"UmBillyCord" - You are just to funny

:D

"Time to drop a nine"

is .ooo1 % down

or 1% down, 1 % is 45 mins

.0001 4 mins

Originally posted by William
is .ooo1 % down

or 1% down, 1 % is 45 mins

.0001 4 mins

99.99% = 1 - .9999 [99.99 in percent format] = 0.0001

hence 4.5 minutes :). I'd laugh if i saw a host offering 99.99% uptime or money back, and they didn't know 99.99% meant 4.5 mins not 45 minutes and argued with the customer "we were only down half a hour!" hehe. :D

Although I love this industry, I think it messed up. WHen you buy a T.V. you do expect it to work all the time until it gets old. When you buy a Oven you also expepect it to work all the time. Not %99 percent of the time. when you get phone service or elctric service, unless there is a disastor you also expect to work all the time In our industry when you buy a computer or a sowftware, you actually epxect it to crash. When you get internet connection you actually expect it to go down. I think it is very unfortunate that we can not expect to have a things that constantly run.

sharkman: when you get your electricity from the hydro company, do you expect it to continually run? When you get your cable for the tv, do you expect never to have a outage? When you buy a car do you expect it to never break down? Stuff happens, what can be said, just do you sue your car manufacturer when your car breaks down/or ask for your money back? I'd hope not. Do you sue your Colocation Provider when their network was unavailable for 1 day last month, or demand a full refund? Many people do. It's not necessarily that people expect stuff to break, you just gotta cover your arse, and look how common it's become :(