Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : No Network SLA credits at Layered Tech?

[bithost(NET)]

In light of Friday's 4-hour outage at LayeredTech, I have just been informed by LT that there are no SLA credits pending.

The wording of the e-mail is quite cryptic:

Hey,

I am truly sorry, but we do not offer SLA's further more refund in the matter.
also you were experiencing a very small network delay for a brief time, due to a reason that is out of our control.

I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused, please let me know if there is anything else i may help you with, or if its ok to close the ticket.
=


Best Regards,

************
Network Manager
Layered Technologies.

(I removed the tech's name to protect the innocent) ... I get the gist of it...

I went on their website and am not able to find any reference to their network uptime guarantee.

I know it existed, because I received an SLA credit for a different issue on Feb 22, 2007, which involved a 1-hour total outage:

I have added a credit of $8.94 to your account per SLA policies for server #####.

Friday's issue was 4 hours in length. I believe some credit is due here... if their network was set up truly redundantly and if SAVVIS was providing the service they advertise (per the explanation at the SAVVIS website) then we certainly should not have been subject to a 4-hour outage because one vendor suffered a cut line...

Speaking of which, LT is trying to tell us that everyone experienced latency due to this cut line:

Yesterday Level 3 had a fiber optic line cut, somewhere in the US. A substantial amount of traffic had to be rerouted, causing the slowdowns throughout the US. All US carriers were affected by this fiber issue. level 3 is working on new bgp peers.

... yet I ran the exact same tests from a box at Handy Networks in Denver and there was no latency whatsoever.

- Are others receiving the same song-and-dance from LT?

- Are others also being refused an SLA credit?

- And when did the network uptime guarantee disappear, anyway???


So, tonight we will be sending an e-mail to all our clients notifying them that their data center now offers NO uptime guarantee. I am not particularly pleased about this development. I sell a quality-based service, and for me personally, part of what determines quality is accountability. "No uptime SLA" completely flies in the face of the kind of service we strive to offer.

Bailey

[fastnoc]

One thing's for sure it shows fortitude letting all of your clients know this. It also shows confidence in your own work that they stay with you.

I know you already know this since I've read your posts for years but I think I'd seriously consider a provider change in the future.

[Jame$]

The SAVVIS issue that day caused slowdowns for me, but not downtimes.

[bithost(NET)]

All of our servers were serving zero web or e-mail data for over an hour. I did provide proof to LT of this. The outage is undisputed.

(The only thing I was able to do was to SSH in; everything else was unreachable on all servers. I checked every one of them personally. No web pages, no e-mail, no FTP.)

We had further connectivity issues throughout most of the afternoon. My customers did not report things being consistently up for them until about 4 PM.

Since posting this simply inquiry to WHT, I have received a rather rude e-mail from Jeremy that LT will not discuss this further... and a sarcastic "Have a nice day and future with your next provider."

So I guess LT does not want their customers sharing their experiences. The only reason I posted here was so that the thread would not be threatened or closed prematurely before folks had a fair chance to chip in... I was hoping to get earnest feedback, see if I was having an odd experience, or if this whole SLA thing was something I missed along the way, or ?????

Obviously I tripped over a nerve.......

Incidentally, every other data center I have researched since then (I have a list of 20 and growing), has a network uptime guarantee and a hardware replacement SLA. Layered Tech no longer has either.

I'm not saying "good" or "bad," I am just reporting my findings.

Bailey

[Frankc22]

I'm not saying "good" or "bad," I am just reporting my findings.

Why? It is as clear as daylight BAD.

When a staff member at a (not hosting) company told me something similar I wrote a nice article praising this company that make so much money that they in fact don't even need their customers.

I placed it on our more than 200 news websites and also faxed the article to several dozen branches, asking each of them to forward it to the correct person at Head Office please. (You can imagine the results when one after another start to contact HO)

[LaserSpec]

Seems like you were not fully down, which is what an SLA would cover.
If you were able to access SSH then your machine was up, and most SLA's do not cover issues or problems in the internet at large... just the network equipment/uplinks that the provider itself is responsible for.

[VPSHelp]

Bailey, with all the problems you've had, why not just move them? Sounds like a good solution to your customers. Don't let them suffer because LT is obviously not changing their ways for the better.

Honestly, watching how they've been doing things, it seems their road is weaving wildly, and the employee's are straight road. The company falls behind the employees, and before long "Under Construction" signs so the company can catch up.

They've changed staff out quicker than the local McDonalds

[bithost(NET)]

Well, I don't really feel like they are "my" servers to move. Yes, technically it's my company name on them, but I heed my customers' wishes. My job is to do what my customers ask me to do, and do it the best I can. If they want to stay at LT, then I'm stuck at LT. My customers do come before my ego.

The other issue is, frankly, pricing. LT is teetering on that price vs. value precipice. If we go with a cheaper facility, we will definitely get shoddier service. If we go with a more expensive facility (which I would prefer!) then I have hard-working ladies and gents (my customers) paying more for their servers than they would like to be paying.

Remember I already had to spring one price hike on them this year...

What has me wringing my hands about this is that I personally recommended LayeredTech to each of them. I sold each customer on LayeredTech individually. Now I am faced with going back on my recommendation, and I feel like that cheapens my word, even though I understand rationally that the service being provided today isn't what it was two years ago. I am always busy finding some way to beat myself up if it's not my fault for service having declined, then surely it's my fault for not seeing it coming...

Bailey

[Linn_Boyd]

Originally Posted by bithost(NET)

The other issue is, frankly, pricing. LT is teetering on that price vs. value precipice. If we go with a cheaper facility, we will definitely get shoddier service. If we go with a more expensive facility (which I would prefer!) then I have hard-working ladies and gents (my customers) paying more for their servers than they would like to be paying.

This is your classic price/performance issue. Keeping performance costs good money, it may not always be the cheapest provider that is the best, but sometimes the most expensive.