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Exactly correct. This implies that Cloudflare was using PowerDNS and (as was their right) chose not to pay for even basic support. I'm not sure what else Power

by otoburb 13y ago

Exactly correct. This implies that Cloudflare was using PowerDNS and (as was their right) chose not to pay for even basic support. I'm not sure what else PowerDNS could have done in this situation, and I can only imagine their teeth gnashing when they found they'd lost a lighthouse user. Typically, lighthouse customers almost always also pay for support. Upon reflection, their post-mortem blog post was extremely well handled and written.

michaelt 13y ago
We in the computer business are well aware that some bug reports don't get fixed - such as because they require new features outside the scope of the project, or because fixing them is a huge hassle. A "carrier grade" support contract sounds expensive. If I'm going to my boss to ask for $x0,000 for a support contract because of a specific bug we're experiencing, I need to know the resolution won't be "WONTFIX"
- otoburb 13y ago
  Those are indeed common issues in our industry. However, in this specific case, PowerDNS specifically calls this out on their support section of their page: "Many (large) developments in PowerDNS have been funded by operators that wanted to expedite the authoring of the features they needed."[1] Also, carrier grade support does indeed sound expensive for a small shop. Might even be deemed expensive for a medium-large shop (since they don't list pricing details). However, for an outfit as large as CloudFlare, I find it hard pressed to believe they couldn't afford Basic Support considering that one of their engineers on this thread stated that DNS is a critical part of CloudFlare's core service offering. You don't ask for a support contract for a specific bug, but for a general class of support and current + future bugs. As part of the negotiation, your boss and organization can also leverage "lighthouse" status to influence PowerDNS to fix even minor bugs quickly as part of a negotiated Service Level Agreement ("SLA"). EDIT: To give CloudFlare the benefit of the doubt, it is possible that PowerDNS didn't make their support options clear to users before, and only updated their support pages after this post-mortem. [1] https://www.powerdns.com/enhancements.html https://www.powerdns.com/enhancements.html

by otoburb 13y ago

michaelt 13y ago

We in the computer business are well aware that some bug reports don't get fixed - such as because they require new features outside the scope of the project, or because fixing them is a huge hassle. A "carrier grade" support contract sounds expensive. If I'm going to my boss to ask for $x0,000 for a support contract because of a specific bug we're experiencing, I need to know the resolution won't be "WONTFIX"

otoburb 13y ago
Those are indeed common issues in our industry. However, in this specific case, PowerDNS specifically calls this out on their support section of their page: "Many (large) developments in PowerDNS have been funded by operators that wanted to expedite the authoring of the features they needed."[1] Also, carrier grade support does indeed sound expensive for a small shop. Might even be deemed expensive for a medium-large shop (since they don't list pricing details). However, for an outfit as large as CloudFlare, I find it hard pressed to believe they couldn't afford Basic Support considering that one of their engineers on this thread stated that DNS is a critical part of CloudFlare's core service offering. You don't ask for a support contract for a specific bug, but for a general class of support and current + future bugs. As part of the negotiation, your boss and organization can also leverage "lighthouse" status to influence PowerDNS to fix even minor bugs quickly as part of a negotiated Service Level Agreement ("SLA"). EDIT: To give CloudFlare the benefit of the doubt, it is possible that PowerDNS didn't make their support options clear to users before, and only updated their support pages after this post-mortem. [1] https://www.powerdns.com/enhancements.html https://www.powerdns.com/enhancements.html