I'm one of the many victims of the Eservers Merger and my site is still down after almost 48 hours.

So I'm looking for a new host.

Don't need much, just 50 megs space and a few gigs/mo transfer, but my primary concern is uptime: I want a 99.9% uptime guarantee and real consequences if that guarantee isn't met.

I've noticed some hosts warp the meaning of uptime in their TOS, but to me it's very simple: I want e-mail delivered and the site up 99.9% of the time, at least on a monthly basis.

As for the guarantee I don't want a refund of the monthly percentage that a day or two of downtime is worth: "here's your $1 (for $30/mo hosting) for your 24 hours of downtime, sorry about that". I want something more, like at least the entire month free if not more, since I would have lost far more than $1 worth of business (not to mention customer trust) for 24 hours of downtime I think that's only fair.

Is there a site offering such a 99.9% uptime guarantee? Preferrably one with it's own datacenter so the Efreeservers scanda doesn't happen again?

www.pair.com, www.site5.com both have extremely good uptime and reliability.

pair.com looks great! Don't guarantee uptime but at least they own their own datacenter.

Site5's exactly what I didn't want: Only offering 99.5% uptime (almost 4 hours a month) and a "pro-rated credit toward your next service contract with Site5" if the site does go down, so if I'm paying $20 a month for service ("Apex" service: 350meg & 15gig transfer) and the site goes down for 24 hours (only 20 of which is not covered by their 99.5% uptime) I'd get a whole 55 cents back.

my post migh violate the forum rule, so I editted it :)

what rule is that?

Since you are not posting this in an advertising forum, anything I say about my hosting company can be considered an act of self advertising and it violates the forum rules (http://webhostingtalk.com/misc.php?s=&action=forum-rules) :)

pair.com has a 99.9% uptime garuntee, and they have an excellent record. site5.com also has an excellent record, as i'm sure most people here will tell you...

Originally posted by Skie
pair.com has a 99.9% uptime garuntee, and they have an excellent record. site5.com also has an excellent record, as i'm sure most people here will tell you...

what is Pair's 99.9% uptime guarantee? I searched the site and couldn't find any details. I mean, what happens if the site does happen to go down more than 0.1%? How do they measure 99.9%? On a monthly basis, yearly, or since they started my hosting? Since obviously on a yearly basis they could be down for 9 hours straight and still be maintain 99.9%, while on a monthly basis it's only 45 minutes.

And if the site does happen to go down, do I get a "pro-rated" refund, usually equivalent to a few pennies?

I'm not trying to be a hard ass, I don't doubt these are great hosting companies, but if they're so great why not offer better guarantees? It would sure make customers more confident in the host.

guess the host i'm looking for doesn't exist (yet) ;)

http://www.pair.com/pair/advantages.html

Uptime and Reliability
Our network is monitored and maintained 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Our server and network uptime is well in excess of 99.9%. Your data is backed up daily to ensure full recovery in the event of a disaster. Our entire facility is protected by multi-stage security, FM-200 fire suppression systems, Powerware battery backup systems, and a 750,000 watt diesel generator that can run indefinitely. Your data is always safe with pair Networks.

i don't know how they handle downtime. ask them.

Originally posted by hassi

what is Pair's 99.9% uptime guarantee? I searched the site and couldn't find any details. I mean, what happens if the site does happen to go down more than 0.1%? How do they measure 99.9%? On a monthly basis, yearly, or since they started my hosting? Since obviously on a yearly basis they could be down for 9 hours straight and still be maintain 99.9%, while on a monthly basis it's only 45 minutes.

And if the site does happen to go down, do I get a "pro-rated" refund, usually equivalent to a few pennies?

I'm not trying to be a hard ass, I don't doubt these are great hosting companies, but if they're so great why not offer better guarantees? It would sure make customers more confident in the host.

guess the host i'm looking for doesn't exist (yet) ;)

We don't actually publish an uptime guarantee. We have an excellent uptime record, and we strive to document all outages and "issues" on our System Notices page, but as far as we can tell, all of the guarantees out there exist solely as marketing tools, and they create a false sense of security. Most hosts have so many exceptions, math tricks, or requirements placed on the client, that you're right, a major outage is worth pennies in credit, if you get anything, and it's really just an insult.

We would like to do more to specifically document our uptime with hard numbers, but we don't have that ready for our site yet. In the meantime, we just try to be honest when problems happen.

If you feel that you need a host with a specific guarantee, I recommend looking for one with real teeth in it. I've seen such things but they are usually on very expensive contracts, not shared Web hosting.

Kevin

<<
If you feel that you need a host with a specific guarantee, I recommend looking for one with real teeth in it. I've seen such things but they are usually on very expensive contracts, not shared Web hosting.
>>

That's too bad.

So I guess I was right, the host I'm looking for doesn't exist, so the question remains: if a host has such a great uptime, why can't they offer a real uptime guarantee with real consequences if the site goes down?

If a personal site goes down for a day no big deal, but when a business site goes down for a day, even a small business, the results are more serious, especially if they use the site to host pictures and layout for auctions. In my opinion, 24 hours down time on my site is worth at least $100 to me.

I figure it like this: if someone were to ask me "I'm taking down your site for 24 hours unless you pay me $$$$", $100 is probably the most I would pay. However, I wouldn't mind the site being down an hour or two, unless I was being /.'d during that time.

You know what they need? Uptime insurance ;)

http://www.communitech.net/products/virtual/guarantees/

Originally posted by hassi
So I guess I was right, the host I'm looking for doesn't exist, so the question remains: if a host has such a great uptime, why can't they offer a real uptime guarantee with real consequences if the site goes down?


Speaking off the top of my head here...

I don't think there's any business advantage to a host having a "real" uptime guarantee or SLA, given that the existing ones all seem to be marketing tools, that no one policy can meet the needs or expectations of every customer (some have personal sites, some have business, some have been slashdotted, some *are* slashdot), and that the host is then subject to a financial risk that all of its competitors have avoided.

So the choice is 1) have the same uptime guarantee as everyone else and let it create false expectations, 2) have a guarantee with serious credits involved and let it create a major risk for the host (prices might go up to compensate), or 3) abstain from the hype and just publish evidence of uptime and a dedication to honesty and superior technology.

As I was saying, you will only find a service guarantee with real teeth in it once you start paying for enterprise-level services; e.g. OC-3 loops from your telco. And even then it doesn't mean your uptime will be any better, believe me.

I still think you need to consider why you find an uptime guarantee so important. If it's toothless, or does nothing to create improved reliability, then why do you find it attractive?

Kevin

hassi, these links may interest you:

http://www.visionquest.net/Uptime.php
http://www.futurequest.net/Services/Features/#Uptime