27 ms·

Really, downtime of google so far this year: More than 0 minutes. Downtime of my own server: 0 minutes. Of course I'm not trying to run a massively scalable se

Really, downtime of google so far this year: More than 0 minutes. Downtime of my own server: 0 minutes. Of course I'm not trying to run a massively scalable service coping with millions of customers, because I don't need that.

mekkkkkk 5y ago
You think that's how statistics works? Obviously it's possible to keep your own server running with 0 downtime. But you are exposed to a much higher risk of severe downtimes longer than the cloud provider would likely be. Be it hardware failure, grid, ISP, whatever.
- iso1210 5y ago
  Claim was "It’s still less downtime than your own server" Claim disproven
  - mekkkkkk 5y ago
    That claim was a direct snippet from your original comment. So unless you meant that you laugh at people who are talking specifically about your personal server, I'd say you are being selectively literal.
    - iso1210 5y ago
      Cloud kool-aid drinkers say "The cloud is always better" I say that in many cases your own server is better. My company runs its own on-prem confluence, it's been taken down for updates on a regular basis at a known maintenence time. That's far better than losing it because a cloud based one was hosted on GCP this morning when we actually need the data Obviously in many other cases the cloud is better. You wouldn't want to server a million cusotmers across the world from a single server in your own basement. That's not the only model.
      - mekkkkkk 5y ago
        I agree completely with that added nuance. Cloud infra is definitely overused and is sometimes seen as the only option these days, even for the simplest of projects. Having your own metal is often times much more convenient and cheaper. Plus it's much more enjoyable to work with. My only gripe was with your gross over-simplification that read like "hurr durr, my server hasn't gone down this year, so self-hosting has better uptime than Google". It's such an unnecessary and baseless argument.
        iso1210 5y ago
        Vast vast majority of arguments you hear on HN is that it's impossible to run your own equipment. That's as ridiculous as saying you could run dropbox off a raspberry pi, but tends to get pushed to the top, and the schadenfreude when these events inevitability come along is too good to miss. Every few months another major outage of another cloud provider hits the headlines, meanwhile millions of small companies have no problem with the uptime of their 'legacy' services. I was at a farm a few weeks ago, the farmer had a server in a closet. It did break on occasion, when there was a power outage. His desktop and internet broke too, so what would the point in his server working. If it was hosted on google it wouldn't have been working this morning, despite his computer being fine. If you build your business processes around accepting failure, it's not a problem. It's far easier to keep at least one out of 3 machines online for 99.999% of the time than to keep a single service running for the same time.
- remram 5y ago
  To be fair, this is exactly how statistics work. The average downtime of self-hosted servers might be higher (arguably) but many people are under Google's yearly downtime (aka variance is high).

mekkkkkk 5y ago

You think that's how statistics works? Obviously it's possible to keep your own server running with 0 downtime. But you are exposed to a much higher risk of severe downtimes longer than the cloud provider would likely be. Be it hardware failure, grid, ISP, whatever.

iso1210 5y ago
Claim was "It’s still less downtime than your own server" Claim disproven
- mekkkkkk 5y ago
  That claim was a direct snippet from your original comment. So unless you meant that you laugh at people who are talking specifically about your personal server, I'd say you are being selectively literal.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    Cloud kool-aid drinkers say "The cloud is always better" I say that in many cases your own server is better. My company runs its own on-prem confluence, it's been taken down for updates on a regular basis at a known maintenence time. That's far better than losing it because a cloud based one was hosted on GCP this morning when we actually need the data Obviously in many other cases the cloud is better. You wouldn't want to server a million cusotmers across the world from a single server in your own basement. That's not the only model.
    - mekkkkkk 5y ago
      I agree completely with that added nuance. Cloud infra is definitely overused and is sometimes seen as the only option these days, even for the simplest of projects. Having your own metal is often times much more convenient and cheaper. Plus it's much more enjoyable to work with. My only gripe was with your gross over-simplification that read like "hurr durr, my server hasn't gone down this year, so self-hosting has better uptime than Google". It's such an unnecessary and baseless argument.
      - iso1210 5y ago
        Vast vast majority of arguments you hear on HN is that it's impossible to run your own equipment. That's as ridiculous as saying you could run dropbox off a raspberry pi, but tends to get pushed to the top, and the schadenfreude when these events inevitability come along is too good to miss. Every few months another major outage of another cloud provider hits the headlines, meanwhile millions of small companies have no problem with the uptime of their 'legacy' services. I was at a farm a few weeks ago, the farmer had a server in a closet. It did break on occasion, when there was a power outage. His desktop and internet broke too, so what would the point in his server working. If it was hosted on google it wouldn't have been working this morning, despite his computer being fine. If you build your business processes around accepting failure, it's not a problem. It's far easier to keep at least one out of 3 machines online for 99.999% of the time than to keep a single service running for the same time.
remram 5y ago
To be fair, this is exactly how statistics work. The average downtime of self-hosted servers might be higher (arguably) but many people are under Google's yearly downtime (aka variance is high).