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My new startup, Uptano (https://uptano.com https://uptano.com), is a cloud provider (still hurts me to write "cloud"). ..and we've had 100% uptime in our short

by staunch 14y ago

My new startup, Uptano (https://uptano.com https://uptano.com), is a cloud provider (still hurts me to write "cloud"). ..and we've had 100% uptime in our short run so far. Our systems are highly redundant and as decoupled as possible. Still, I wouldn't for one second claim that I, or anyone else, could do better than AWS on reliability. AWS does a great job on reliability. I do think EBS is a terrible technology that should die in a fiery pit, but they do a damn good job of keeping everything up. If they really do believe their 99.9999% claim, I'd love to see them make a bet. How about Reddit gets $1M if they move and it falls below that?

Cyranix 14y ago
Alternatively, instead of an oversimplified bet, how about they draw up an SLA like normal companies would? Congrats on the 100%, but how long have you been running? And have you been serving any heavyweight clients or fended off persistent attacks?
- xanados 14y ago
  Since this is a marketing piece, they should have to put some real money where their mouth is. Typical SLAs don't come close to being punitive for downtime. They might offer to refund the hosting fee for time down in excess of the benchmark, which would not be interesting marketing and does not indicate that they have especially high confidence in their service exceeding its uptime (relative to competitors).
  - rgbrgb 14y ago
    It would be great if they offered reddit a 1 year deal with guaranteed %99.9999 uptime or their money back. But then, I suppose hackers of the world just wouldn't stand down to that challenge.
pbhjpbhj 14y ago
>Still, I wouldn't for one second claim that I, or anyone else, could do better than AWS on reliability. // That may be true over all customers but for reddit I'm estimating about 1 day of downtime for me in a year (that might even be conservative?) - so that's 99.7% approx. Joyent are claiming that their customers [who?] have only about 30s of downtime per annum. Reliability obviously extends beyond downtime but still AWS don't seem to be do incredibly well for reddit.
- prodigal_erik 14y ago
  They must be trying to sweep http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2269329 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2269329 under the rug. It would take six millennia with 100% uptime for that outage of days to average down to to 30 s/y. Edit: And allegedly three hours without SSL today, which would put them over 30 s/y for a few more centuries.
codewright 14y ago
Could you please explain the tenancy/virtual servers mechanic of your service? The copy on the website isn't clear. (Also, OH GOD that font. OH. GOD.) It's not clear to me whether I'm getting my own server (effectively dedicated?) for $136/month or not. Further, what if I don't want multiple-tenants on the hardware? What does it cost me to effectively treat each physical server a single logical unit? Is that even possible? I mostly want a more elastic alternative to dedicated servers. Is your service along those lines?
- staunch 14y ago
  You're paying for a dedicated machine. Then you run virtual servers on your machine. You could run just one (treating it much like a regular dedicated server), or you could run multiple, that's up to you. There is no scenario in which multiple users share the same hardware. Your hardware is your own. The web site will improve ;-) Feel free to email me with any questions: jake@uptano.com

by staunch 14y ago

Cyranix 14y ago

Alternatively, instead of an oversimplified bet, how about they draw up an SLA like normal companies would? Congrats on the 100%, but how long have you been running? And have you been serving any heavyweight clients or fended off persistent attacks?

xanados 14y ago
Since this is a marketing piece, they should have to put some real money where their mouth is. Typical SLAs don't come close to being punitive for downtime. They might offer to refund the hosting fee for time down in excess of the benchmark, which would not be interesting marketing and does not indicate that they have especially high confidence in their service exceeding its uptime (relative to competitors).
- rgbrgb 14y ago
  It would be great if they offered reddit a 1 year deal with guaranteed %99.9999 uptime or their money back. But then, I suppose hackers of the world just wouldn't stand down to that challenge.

pbhjpbhj 14y ago

>Still, I wouldn't for one second claim that I, or anyone else, could do better than AWS on reliability. // That may be true over all customers but for reddit I'm estimating about 1 day of downtime for me in a year (that might even be conservative?) - so that's 99.7% approx. Joyent are claiming that their customers [who?] have only about 30s of downtime per annum. Reliability obviously extends beyond downtime but still AWS don't seem to be do incredibly well for reddit.

prodigal_erik 14y ago
They must be trying to sweep http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2269329 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2269329 under the rug. It would take six millennia with 100% uptime for that outage of days to average down to to 30 s/y. Edit: And allegedly three hours without SSL today, which would put them over 30 s/y for a few more centuries.

codewright 14y ago

Could you please explain the tenancy/virtual servers mechanic of your service? The copy on the website isn't clear. (Also, OH GOD that font. OH. GOD.) It's not clear to me whether I'm getting my own server (effectively dedicated?) for $136/month or not. Further, what if I don't want multiple-tenants on the hardware? What does it cost me to effectively treat each physical server a single logical unit? Is that even possible? I mostly want a more elastic alternative to dedicated servers. Is your service along those lines?

staunch 14y ago
You're paying for a dedicated machine. Then you run virtual servers on your machine. You could run just one (treating it much like a regular dedicated server), or you could run multiple, that's up to you. There is no scenario in which multiple users share the same hardware. Your hardware is your own. The web site will improve ;-) Feel free to email me with any questions: jake@uptano.com