4 ms·

Oof. You're not wrong, this is really really bad, especially for Dropbox, storage is their business so I expected way better. These stats are no different to

Oof. You're not wrong, this is really really bad, especially for Dropbox, storage is their business so I expected way better. These stats are no different to S3 at all. All of this engineering and moving away from AWS and for so few gain in availability. I was initially excited when they moved away from AWS and expected industry leading higher availability when they moved away, but I was wrong. This is disappointing for Dropbox which this is their main business, storing files without any minor hiccups or outages for years.

awill 3y ago
this is an overreaction. Dropbox is mostly storing files that are already stored on the customer's device, so customers usually won't notice an outage.
- colesantiago 3y ago
  How is this an overreaction? I would expect Dropbox, a file storage company that proudly invests heavily in tech and infrastructure to achieve a better availability than what they already were on AWS (99.99%) In terms of availability the change is pretty much 0 and as a business / enterprise customer I might as well choose a different service with similar or higher 9s or (if my needs are complex) choose S3.
  - nmjohn 3y ago
    Can you provide an example of an alternative service which will give higher than 4 nines for availability that an enterprise customer would pick instead if that < 1hr of downtime per year was too high?
    - colesantiago 3y ago
      AWS (Architected Correctly) which I am sure Dropbox has experience in. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/achieving-five-nines-cloud-justice-public-safety/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/achieving-five-nin... Here is a service that has managed to achieve 5x9s of availability: https://ably.com/ https://ably.com/
      - jazzyjackson 3y ago
        > achieve 5x9s of availability: Guaranteed availability is a bet they're willing to make, a gamble they've been on top of so far, a risk that, should something fail, they will pay out on according to their SLA.
        colesantiago 3y ago
        Seems to be working out for them (Ably) and this isn't a public billion dollar company like Dropbox. I would have thought that given Dropbox's engineering talent, they would have designed a system that would account for 5x9s and even making that guarantee for enterprise or mission critical customers. Can't even find their SLAs anywhere for these customers, so I presume that Dropbox doesn't care about them. Guess I was wrong and this is just disappointing and made the move not worth it.
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    I'd rather have maximum consistency and integrity than maximum availability.
    - colesantiago 3y ago
      Most tech these days have improved to offer maximum consistency, availability is also important, which is why it is a good thing that Dropbox still trusts AWS and especially S3, better than their own on-prem solution. https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/dropbox-s3/ https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/dropbox-s3/
rrdharan 3y ago
> These stats are no different to S3 at all. All of this engineering and moving away from AWS and for so few gain in availability. What makes you think a gain in availability matters or is necessarily a motivation for the project? If they can achieve the same availability at far lower cost, it’s a win for them, which is why they would (and did) do it.
- colesantiago 3y ago
  > What makes you think a gain in availability matters or is necessarily a motivation for the project? This isn't a win for enterprise / business / mission critical customers. Governments and public services cannot use this at all.
  - CaveTech 3y ago
    They can, and do.
    - colesantiago 3y ago
      They use AWS more than the unreliability of Dropbox.
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    You think 9-1-1 doesn't experience downtime?
    - colesantiago 3y ago
      Strawman. Who said that emergency systems don't ever experience downtime? Orgs using mission critical systems would trust a service that has less than 5x9s. > Emergency response systems is 99.999% or “five nines” – or about five minutes and 15 seconds of downtime per year. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/achieving-five-nines-cloud-justice-public-safety/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/achieving-five-nin... I see hospitals will be using AWS and other reliable hosts to use S3 rather than Dropbox.
rsync 3y ago
"... storage is their business so I expected way better." Storage is our business and we target an even worse 99.95% availability[1]. Availability has a cost. That cost is complexity. We would very much prefer to have boring outages more often than have fascinating outages very rarely. [1] https://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/sla.html https://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/sla.html
- colesantiago 3y ago
  > Availability has a cost. That cost is complexity. It seems that Dropbox's system is complex enough but still isn't as designed to be highly available (5x9s) as a well architected system on AWS using S3. Yet It is surprising a public billion dollar company like Dropbox cannot go beyond this for their mission critical customers (govt agencies, healthcare, military, etc) willing to spend hundreds of millions. So yes, I expected way better.
sosodev 3y ago
Do you know of any companies that actually provide better reliability in their consumer product? The ones that lie or skew their uptime calculation don't count.
- colesantiago 3y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35979536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35979536

awill 3y ago

this is an overreaction. Dropbox is mostly storing files that are already stored on the customer's device, so customers usually won't notice an outage.

colesantiago 3y ago
How is this an overreaction? I would expect Dropbox, a file storage company that proudly invests heavily in tech and infrastructure to achieve a better availability than what they already were on AWS (99.99%) In terms of availability the change is pretty much 0 and as a business / enterprise customer I might as well choose a different service with similar or higher 9s or (if my needs are complex) choose S3.
- nmjohn 3y ago
  Can you provide an example of an alternative service which will give higher than 4 nines for availability that an enterprise customer would pick instead if that < 1hr of downtime per year was too high?
  - colesantiago 3y ago
    AWS (Architected Correctly) which I am sure Dropbox has experience in. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/achieving-five-nines-cloud-justice-public-safety/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/achieving-five-nin... Here is a service that has managed to achieve 5x9s of availability: https://ably.com/ https://ably.com/
    - jazzyjackson 3y ago
      > achieve 5x9s of availability: Guaranteed availability is a bet they're willing to make, a gamble they've been on top of so far, a risk that, should something fail, they will pay out on according to their SLA.
      - colesantiago 3y ago
        Seems to be working out for them (Ably) and this isn't a public billion dollar company like Dropbox. I would have thought that given Dropbox's engineering talent, they would have designed a system that would account for 5x9s and even making that guarantee for enterprise or mission critical customers. Can't even find their SLAs anywhere for these customers, so I presume that Dropbox doesn't care about them. Guess I was wrong and this is just disappointing and made the move not worth it.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  I'd rather have maximum consistency and integrity than maximum availability.
  - colesantiago 3y ago
    Most tech these days have improved to offer maximum consistency, availability is also important, which is why it is a good thing that Dropbox still trusts AWS and especially S3, better than their own on-prem solution. https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/dropbox-s3/ https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/dropbox-s3/

rrdharan 3y ago

> These stats are no different to S3 at all. All of this engineering and moving away from AWS and for so few gain in availability. What makes you think a gain in availability matters or is necessarily a motivation for the project? If they can achieve the same availability at far lower cost, it’s a win for them, which is why they would (and did) do it.

colesantiago 3y ago
> What makes you think a gain in availability matters or is necessarily a motivation for the project? This isn't a win for enterprise / business / mission critical customers. Governments and public services cannot use this at all.
- CaveTech 3y ago
  They can, and do.
  - colesantiago 3y ago
    They use AWS more than the unreliability of Dropbox.
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  You think 9-1-1 doesn't experience downtime?
  - colesantiago 3y ago
    Strawman. Who said that emergency systems don't ever experience downtime? Orgs using mission critical systems would trust a service that has less than 5x9s. > Emergency response systems is 99.999% or “five nines” – or about five minutes and 15 seconds of downtime per year. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/achieving-five-nines-cloud-justice-public-safety/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/achieving-five-nin... I see hospitals will be using AWS and other reliable hosts to use S3 rather than Dropbox.

rsync 3y ago

"... storage is their business so I expected way better." Storage is our business and we target an even worse 99.95% availability[1]. Availability has a cost. That cost is complexity. We would very much prefer to have boring outages more often than have fascinating outages very rarely. [1] https://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/sla.html https://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/sla.html

colesantiago 3y ago
> Availability has a cost. That cost is complexity. It seems that Dropbox's system is complex enough but still isn't as designed to be highly available (5x9s) as a well architected system on AWS using S3. Yet It is surprising a public billion dollar company like Dropbox cannot go beyond this for their mission critical customers (govt agencies, healthcare, military, etc) willing to spend hundreds of millions. So yes, I expected way better.

sosodev 3y ago

Do you know of any companies that actually provide better reliability in their consumer product? The ones that lie or skew their uptime calculation don't count.

colesantiago 3y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35979536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35979536