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Having your instances run at 100% CPU pretty much raises a red flag at any cloud provider. Depending on your plan it either gets shut off (like in this case) or

Having your instances run at 100% CPU pretty much raises a red flag at any cloud provider. Depending on your plan it either gets shut off (like in this case) or you get a notice about "suspicious" behavior and a bit of time to fix the "issue".

nbevans 7y ago
That's not true. A proper cloud provider (AWS or Azure) would not bat an eye because the CPU is frequently pegged at 100%.
arianvanp 7y ago
That sounds odd to me. Especially given that digitalocean is the default dynamic provider for Gitlab CI builds which _will_ run droplets at 100% CPU.
- robteix 7y ago
  From what I understand, they’re not saying you’re not allowed to use 100% for (what their user agreements define as) legitimate uses. They’re saying several droplets suddenly created and immediately going to 100% flags them as suspicious activity for human review. Looks like after such review, they would flag them as legitimate and all would be fine, 100% CPU or not. They’ve botched that second step though.
  - numpad0 7y ago
    Not sure what the materialization of that suspicion might look like -- competitors trying to crush DO's business? mass account creation or mass fraudulent logins? "mining crypto"? What I could come up felt quote-unquote legit grounds for a timed suspension but only instinctively so.
  - mkl 7y ago
    That doesn't make sense to me. You pay for the time you have the droplets running, so it seems kind of silly to have them sit idle for a bit before you give them work to do.
    - wgerard 7y ago
      I don't work at a cloud provider, but I think the reasoning is: It's a common pattern in malicious actors to immediately spin up several droplets and immediately peg the CPU on each one. There are, obviously, non-malicious actors who do the same, but it's a bit like wearing a balaclava in public: Likely to raise some suspicion just because it's associated with malicious actors.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
sergiosgc 7y ago
What's next? Having your disks use too much I/O causes the same response? Or actually using the RAM you pay for? I run my own iron, with cloud only for elastic loads. Every time I launch a cloud instance, it will be using 100% CPU, otherwise I wouldn't launch it. It's unacceptable to label that profile as "suspicious". It never happened to me on AWS or Azure.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- chewbacha 7y ago
  > ...you pay for The major indicator here was the lack of payment history, so they hadn’t paid for it but were working off of credit. I think it’s a nuance that’s very important.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    This is confusing though, since Digital Ocean credit can mean like a referral, or by prepaying your account - something I do to prevent billing overages.
  - sergiosgc 7y ago
    I'm sorry to dig heels, but that's no excuse. If the credit they were given allowed them to use the resources, it follows that using the resources is not a breach of contract. From the description I imagine Digital Ocean offers a free period or tier, to reduce friction in customer acquisition. This is a marketing tool, and must not, in any way, cause situations like the one described. If a marketing tool induces service failure, it has no place in a professional setting.
    - chewbacha 7y ago
      Credit and promo codes are also used extensively for fraud. If a business had been in operation for a while solely on credit, it may well generate a false positive in a fraud detection algorithm if it scaled dramatically. But it is important to disconnect monetary spending from coupons or vouchers as they are not equivalent. You mention free tier but that’s not what was at issue here. Also, 10 additional instances isn’t in the free tier of any cloud service I’ve used. I’m not saying that DO is correct, but I believe the parent argument was a simplification if the events in question. Also, DOs handling of it via support was far worse than the initial algorithm, imo.
yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
I can assure you we run AWS instances at 100% with no problem at all. (Well, no problem from AWS; sometimes it's caused by a software bug.)

nbevans 7y ago

That's not true. A proper cloud provider (AWS or Azure) would not bat an eye because the CPU is frequently pegged at 100%.

arianvanp 7y ago

That sounds odd to me. Especially given that digitalocean is the default dynamic provider for Gitlab CI builds which _will_ run droplets at 100% CPU.

robteix 7y ago
From what I understand, they’re not saying you’re not allowed to use 100% for (what their user agreements define as) legitimate uses. They’re saying several droplets suddenly created and immediately going to 100% flags them as suspicious activity for human review. Looks like after such review, they would flag them as legitimate and all would be fine, 100% CPU or not. They’ve botched that second step though.
- numpad0 7y ago
  Not sure what the materialization of that suspicion might look like -- competitors trying to crush DO's business? mass account creation or mass fraudulent logins? "mining crypto"? What I could come up felt quote-unquote legit grounds for a timed suspension but only instinctively so.
- mkl 7y ago
  That doesn't make sense to me. You pay for the time you have the droplets running, so it seems kind of silly to have them sit idle for a bit before you give them work to do.
  - wgerard 7y ago
    I don't work at a cloud provider, but I think the reasoning is: It's a common pattern in malicious actors to immediately spin up several droplets and immediately peg the CPU on each one. There are, obviously, non-malicious actors who do the same, but it's a bit like wearing a balaclava in public: Likely to raise some suspicion just because it's associated with malicious actors.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

sergiosgc 7y ago

What's next? Having your disks use too much I/O causes the same response? Or actually using the RAM you pay for? I run my own iron, with cloud only for elastic loads. Every time I launch a cloud instance, it will be using 100% CPU, otherwise I wouldn't launch it. It's unacceptable to label that profile as "suspicious". It never happened to me on AWS or Azure.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
chewbacha 7y ago
> ...you pay for The major indicator here was the lack of payment history, so they hadn’t paid for it but were working off of credit. I think it’s a nuance that’s very important.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  This is confusing though, since Digital Ocean credit can mean like a referral, or by prepaying your account - something I do to prevent billing overages.
- sergiosgc 7y ago
  I'm sorry to dig heels, but that's no excuse. If the credit they were given allowed them to use the resources, it follows that using the resources is not a breach of contract. From the description I imagine Digital Ocean offers a free period or tier, to reduce friction in customer acquisition. This is a marketing tool, and must not, in any way, cause situations like the one described. If a marketing tool induces service failure, it has no place in a professional setting.
  - chewbacha 7y ago
    Credit and promo codes are also used extensively for fraud. If a business had been in operation for a while solely on credit, it may well generate a false positive in a fraud detection algorithm if it scaled dramatically. But it is important to disconnect monetary spending from coupons or vouchers as they are not equivalent. You mention free tier but that’s not what was at issue here. Also, 10 additional instances isn’t in the free tier of any cloud service I’ve used. I’m not saying that DO is correct, but I believe the parent argument was a simplification if the events in question. Also, DOs handling of it via support was far worse than the initial algorithm, imo.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago

I can assure you we run AWS instances at 100% with no problem at all. (Well, no problem from AWS; sometimes it's caused by a software bug.)