Where are they please ?... :)

I know Futurequest but, is it the only one ?

Originally posted by Bot
Where are they please ?... :)

I know Futurequest but, is it the only one ?

Theres plenty of places that offer 99.5% uptime guarantee and up, but it depends on what you refer to, if you've got a dedicated server from somebody, its likely its 99.5% uptime for the network, not your server )as they cant be responsible for you breaking stuff really).

For web hosting, 99.5% should be easy to achieve aslong as you have a solid network and good quality dedicated servers to host the clients.

There are many hosts that offer 99.5% and sometimes even higher, like 99.9%, but you've got to read their SLA carefully, to see what this includes and what it excludes.

Alan

A lot of hosts say they are 99.5% uptime guarantee, that's right, but how many will credit hours of hosting per hour (or half hour) of downtime ?... It's hard to found them.

That's why I ask "where the REAL..." :)

(not for dedicated server)

Lots will do that. Any host worth their salt will tell you that beforehand if you ask and/or make out a deal if need be.

porcupine is right.

Before signing up with any hosting provider...email and ask if they will credit you for downtime. It's not advertised, but most hosts will make the effort to meet your needs by giving credits.

Best of luck in your search.

Thanx :)

Originally posted by Bot
Thanx :)

NP :)

Don't most shared hosting providers only count downtime as starting from when you contact them about the downtime? In other words, if your're sleeping and your site goes down for 8 hours, tough luck.
Or are there actually shared hosting providers that will count downtime for your behalf and automatically credit you if the uptime guarantee isn't reached?

Originally posted by kreativ
Don't most shared hosting providers only count downtime as starting from when you contact them about the downtime? In other words, if your're sleeping and your site goes down for 8 hours, tough luck.
Or are there actually shared hosting providers that will count downtime for your behalf and automatically credit you if the uptime guarantee isn't reached?

Depends on the provder :)

I'm still searching for hosts that will credit hours of hosting per hour (or half hour) of downtime and it is quite hard...

Often, I read "99,5% uptime guarantee" on the first page, but there is nothing about it in the SLA... :stickout (it is the same in France)

Originally posted by Bot
A lot of hosts say they are 99.5% uptime guarantee, that's right, but how many will credit hours of hosting per hour (or half hour) of downtime ?... It's hard to found them.

:eek: I'm shocked... I thought the standard policy of web hosts was to give a full refund for any month where the guaranteed uptime was not reached.

Greetings:

Check out rackspace.com for 99.999% SLA.

Originally posted by avara


:eek: I'm shocked... I thought the standard policy of web hosts was to give a full refund for any month where the guaranteed uptime was not reached.

I think it all depends.

Some hosts are yearly so to do something monthly as far as uptime would be a little weird.

Also, not everybody requests a refund so sometimes instead of refuding them, they get a discount on the next month (if it's a monthly host).

Originally posted by avara


:eek: I'm shocked... I thought the standard policy of web hosts was to give a full refund for any month where the guaranteed uptime was not reached.

In an industry with no standards, there is no such thing as a standard policy. And uptime gurantees are not the same as a Service Level Agreement.

One of the major national facilities-based hosting providers uses the phrase "99.9% uptime guarantee" on their website, but if you dig through their website looking for the terms of the guarantee, it's not only very difficult to find it, as it's referenced in an obscure faq, but they state categoricaly that it's impossible to guarantee uptime, and so they won't be providing any refunds if their uptime fails to meet 99.9%.

An SLA is a document that gives the metrics, the specifics, how to claim a payout, and the payouts for whatever the agreed upon uptime is. Some are tiered, others have a single uptime measurement. Some providers offer a single SLA for everyone, others offer custom SLA's for people who want more uptime covered in it.

Service with SLA's costs more than without. An SLA is basically an insurance policy, you are paying a premium and if you file a claim it's checked out and you receive a payout if it is legitimate (and yes, people try to file false SLA claims just the same as false insurance claims). And the higher the uptime covered under the SLA, the higher the 'premium'. As well as the more strict the terms, the higher the premium.

Rackspace and Conxion both offer 99.999% SLA's

Conxion monitors their uptime and if their system shows downtime of more than 24 seconds in a month, that entire month is credited back to the customer. 25 seconds downtime = 100% credit

Rackspace measures their network downtime starting at the time the customer opens a trouble ticket with them, and ending when the server is one again able to receive and transmit data. They give a 5% credit for each 30 minutes of downtime during a month, past the first 24 seconds. 10 hours = 100% credit.

There's a big difference between the two. One is automatic and based on actual downtime, the other is based on when the customer reports the downtime. One gives the customer a full refund after 25 seconds, the other after 10 hours.

Neither is better or worse, they are just very different SLA's for very different markets. What's important in an SLA is that the terms be clearly defined and met.

But the major difference is the price. Conxion is hideously, prohibitively, expensive for most companies and serves the Enterprise market (they are Microsoft's host, providing all those software downloads). I was given information a couple of years ago that a FailSafe (the name of their SLA) managed hosting setup was running a quarter of a mil per year at that time.

I believe Rackspace's prices are more in keeping with a mid-range market.

More so, this term has been taken from the service provider/datacentre and utilised as marketing tools by many hosts other than being a conditional reason why one should choose that provider of hosting services over another. In reality though, there should be the defininitive distinction between the host server and the network for those using a SLA approach as a mechanism rather than just window dressing.

Originally posted by Phoenix


In an industry with no standards, there is no such thing as a standard policy. And uptime gurantees are not the same as a Service Level Agreement.

One of the major national facilities-based hosting providers uses the phrase "99.9% uptime guarantee" on their website, but if you dig through their website looking for the terms of the guarantee, it's not only very difficult to find it, as it's referenced in an obscure faq, but they state categoricaly that it's impossible to guarantee uptime, and so they won't be providing any refunds if their uptime fails to meet 99.9%.

An SLA is a document that gives the metrics, the specifics, how to claim a payout, and the payouts for whatever the agreed upon uptime is. Some are tiered, others have a single uptime measurement. Some providers offer a single SLA for everyone, others offer custom SLA's for people who want more uptime covered in it.

Service with SLA's costs more than without. An SLA is basically an insurance policy, you are paying a premium and if you file a claim it's checked out and you receive a payout if it is legitimate (and yes, people try to file false SLA claims just the same as false insurance claims). And the higher the uptime covered under the SLA, the higher the 'premium'. As well as the more strict the terms, the higher the premium.

Rackspace and Conxion both offer 99.999% SLA's

Conxion monitors their uptime and if their system shows downtime of more than 24 seconds in a month, that entire month is credited back to the customer. 25 seconds downtime = 100% credit

Rackspace measures their network downtime starting at the time the customer opens a trouble ticket with them, and ending when the server is one again able to receive and transmit data. They give a 5% credit for each 30 minutes of downtime during a month, past the first 24 seconds. 10 hours = 100% credit.

There's a big difference between the two. One is automatic and based on actual downtime, the other is based on when the customer reports the downtime. One gives the customer a full refund after 25 seconds, the other after 10 hours.

Neither is better or worse, they are just very different SLA's for very different markets. What's important in an SLA is that the terms be clearly defined and met.

But the major difference is the price. Conxion is hideously, prohibitively, expensive for most companies and serves the Enterprise market (they are Microsoft's host, providing all those software downloads). I was given information a couple of years ago that a FailSafe (the name of their SLA) managed hosting setup was running a quarter of a mil per year at that time.

I believe Rackspace's prices are more in keeping with a mid-range market.


Very interesting :agree:

I think web hosting SLA's, with only a few exceptions, are useless.

A web hoster's ability to recover quickly from problems has more to do with their financial, technical and procedural wherewithall than it does to do with SLAs.

Clearly a huge percentage of web hosters have no ability to live up to their uptime gaurantees, and they'd be wise not to commit to refund policies.

One major and extremely well thought of web hoster has no uptime guarantee or refund policy other than a 30 day money back guarantee. If I were in the market for their services I would buy from them in an instant, despite the complete lack of SLA or any guarantee.

Isnt it false advertising to say 99.5% and then in the ToS have 'We do not promiss 99.5% uptime'?

If they advertize "99,5% uptime" it mean nothing exact. For example: 99,5% is average uptime for the last month...or last day :D

Something to also consider is that using the guarantee on the page and not covering it in a tos/aup, etc does not mean that you remove liability. If the statement does have an effect and is an implied term of their contract then it is binding on the host to deliver, despite that tos/aup.

It can be easily argued that this uptime guarantee relates to a customer's site being up, email working, etc which is based on the fact that the server and network that the server is connected to is running for 99.5% of the month. It is not what the clever sod knows but the perception of the public, namely being the average consumer that isnt the guru.

Bottom line is that if you use that on a site page, then you ARE offering the guarantee, irrelevant of the fact that it's included or not in the contractual conditions.

the only type of SLA that counts is as stated above. WHere all the terms are described. uptime at the network and uptime at the servers. What is not considered downtime ( security updates that require reboots ( those reboots can last up to 4 minutes on the win2k platform) are not considered applicable downtime), what days or hours schedualed basic updates are permitted. Full breakdown of what the payment terms are....

We privtely offer certain customers SLA's but the rates are not the standard rates offered publicly. Why because 99.9992 at the servers only give you about 30 minutes at the server monthly. and if you need to do non security based upgrades, like extra ram, or cpu swap which take 12 minutes or 19 minutes respectly, that eats right into the policy.

every time I need to make a non-security related upgrade, I have to review the specific servers SLA's policys to confirm that the policy is written to cover certain hours. for example USA e-commerce sites that operate on my servers have within thier sla's a special day every week and a specific time in which I can make general non security upgrades and updates. They all ( sla's clients ) require 8 days of advance notice with 3 reminders 5th day, 3rd day, and 12 hours.

Now you ask is covering the risk associate by writing a SLA policy worth while, Yes. Does every client need it, no. someone earning 100 per day on there web site does not really need it, but someone that earns 100 per hour does. and those clients are the one's that I'm willing to offer it to. because they know the value of having a fully managed server taking care of there web site and are willing to shell out the rates to protect that income stream.

Mike