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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 availab

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/

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/