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I've been on Linode for a few months, after years on AWS, and I'm not nearly convinced to trust them with these "Managed Services". Why? Too much "scheduled d

I've been on Linode for a few months, after years on AWS, and I'm not nearly convinced to trust them with these "Managed Services". Why? Too much "scheduled downtime" (few hours/month) vs. AWS's 99.999% uptime. Why else? Well, it's a perverse incentive. If they have less reliable systems, the pain goes up, to where more people will sign up for "Linode Managed". We should all get good uptime, not have to pay extra. Most importantly, their offering is not an SLA. I don't see anywhere in the "Linode Managed" where they are guaranteeing uptime %'s, or penalties for lower performance. And, how can they realistically handle even 50% of the 3AM panic problems, if some of those will be my website's inability to talk to 3rd party sites (which neither of us have control over). If they really can fix 90% of the 3AM problems, then they are the root cause of most of those in the first place. There's not many good reasons why Linux will break at 3AM often if you've setup your stack correctly.

matchu 13y ago
I've literally never had my servers go down on Linode's account, having run 'em for years now. Maybe the management panel goes down from time to time, but that's a totally different number than AWS's 99.999%—is that what you were referring to? Or has Linode actually killed your servers?
- kareemm 13y ago
  Linode hasn't killed my servers, but just informed me that they'll be doing maintenance on my production box that will likely be a two-hour window, but could take up to 8 (!) Not very excited about Linode these days.
  - eli 13y ago
    You can migrate it to another physical server at any time in advance of the maintenance window.
    - jebblue 13y ago
      This is true, Linode's support is top notch responsive. I've been with them for several years, no issues, great uptime, they keep bumping up what they offer without touching the price. There's no per hour gotchas. What they say they offer, they deliver.
- plorkyeran 13y ago
  Yeah, I have a linode that's getting close to 3 year of uptime and has only had a network outage longer than a few minutes once in that time.
- johnvschmitt 13y ago
  Good points. Yes, these comments truly prove that "Your mileage may vary". The grass isn't always greener, and with so many users, our personal experiences are simply "statistical anomalies / anecdotes" to the other guy, but are 100% our relevant personal experience to ourselves. It kind of reminds me of my uncle who does surgery on backs. When a patient asks him, "What's the success % rate on this surgery?" He replies, "100% or 0% for YOU". It irked me to hear that from him, as an engineer, but he's so damn right when it comes to personal experiences & preparations (emotionally & otherwise)
drzaiusapelord 13y ago
My EC2 hosts have had horrid uptimes. From the big event in VA last year or so to a bunch of random events. Support was useless as well. My Linodes are rock solid. Yeah Linode got hit by a cold fusion vulnerability and had the bitcoin issue, but for company as old as it is, that's still a good track record imho. Meanwhile we're leaving EC2. Don't need it really and certainly don't need the headaches. The CPU on those things are pretty weak as well.
lost-theory 13y ago
I've never had my linode machines taken offline, but I've received many "Instance scheduled for retirement" messages from AWS.
lsc 13y ago
>vs. AWS's 99.999% uptime. SLA numbers are not insurance. At best, they give you back some of your hosting costs... but if you are doing anything serious? that's a very small fraction of what you lost due to the downtime. Also, 'uptime' means a different thing on a VPS than in a cloud. In a cloud? if a server goes bad, you shoot the server and the customer spins up nodes on another one. the local data is gone. This is not counted as downtime. On a VPS? that's counted as downtime and as data loss.

matchu 13y ago

I've literally never had my servers go down on Linode's account, having run 'em for years now. Maybe the management panel goes down from time to time, but that's a totally different number than AWS's 99.999%—is that what you were referring to? Or has Linode actually killed your servers?

kareemm 13y ago
Linode hasn't killed my servers, but just informed me that they'll be doing maintenance on my production box that will likely be a two-hour window, but could take up to 8 (!) Not very excited about Linode these days.
- eli 13y ago
  You can migrate it to another physical server at any time in advance of the maintenance window.
  - jebblue 13y ago
    This is true, Linode's support is top notch responsive. I've been with them for several years, no issues, great uptime, they keep bumping up what they offer without touching the price. There's no per hour gotchas. What they say they offer, they deliver.
plorkyeran 13y ago
Yeah, I have a linode that's getting close to 3 year of uptime and has only had a network outage longer than a few minutes once in that time.
johnvschmitt 13y ago
Good points. Yes, these comments truly prove that "Your mileage may vary". The grass isn't always greener, and with so many users, our personal experiences are simply "statistical anomalies / anecdotes" to the other guy, but are 100% our relevant personal experience to ourselves. It kind of reminds me of my uncle who does surgery on backs. When a patient asks him, "What's the success % rate on this surgery?" He replies, "100% or 0% for YOU". It irked me to hear that from him, as an engineer, but he's so damn right when it comes to personal experiences & preparations (emotionally & otherwise)

drzaiusapelord 13y ago

My EC2 hosts have had horrid uptimes. From the big event in VA last year or so to a bunch of random events. Support was useless as well. My Linodes are rock solid. Yeah Linode got hit by a cold fusion vulnerability and had the bitcoin issue, but for company as old as it is, that's still a good track record imho. Meanwhile we're leaving EC2. Don't need it really and certainly don't need the headaches. The CPU on those things are pretty weak as well.

lost-theory 13y ago

I've never had my linode machines taken offline, but I've received many "Instance scheduled for retirement" messages from AWS.

lsc 13y ago

>vs. AWS's 99.999% uptime. SLA numbers are not insurance. At best, they give you back some of your hosting costs... but if you are doing anything serious? that's a very small fraction of what you lost due to the downtime. Also, 'uptime' means a different thing on a VPS than in a cloud. In a cloud? if a server goes bad, you shoot the server and the customer spins up nodes on another one. the local data is gone. This is not counted as downtime. On a VPS? that's counted as downtime and as data loss.