99.9% uptime is it good or bad?

Knut_Engstrom

Alright, so I'm used to see bold claims about 100% uptime, which is why 99.9% uptime made me wonder. Why this specific number? will my server be down 40 minutes every month or what's the deal?

Kenneth_Crayton

This was actually changed down from 100% recently, just a few months ago. And no it doesn't mean any downtime. My own servers has been running for over a year and I never had any downtime. Been monitoring with uptime robot which pings the servers every minute and never had a failed response.

I think the reason is just a technicality, there are virtual servers that actually has 100% uptime but for that to work, those servers exist on multiple physical nodes and are always synced if I understand it correct. Those VM's tend to cost 2-3 times more tho.

Orson_Deforest

I'm also pretty confident to guess that it's likely because of how the VM's are provisioned. Only big players like Google, Microsoft and Amazon can guarantee true 100% uptime, they have fail over physical hosts for that, ready to take over as soon as the main host goes down. But it comes with a high price.

You'll basically choose between a low price and 99.9% uptime guarantee, or pay 2-3 times as much and get 100% uptime guarantee. What's best is always up to the individual in need of servers. Me personally, I'd like to build my own high availability cluster, that's why I choose 99Stack Cloud.

Knut_Engstrom

That makes sense, tank you all!

Kenneth_Crayton

Well, no need to worry. I think it's great that they're being honest about this. 👍️

Marco_Weiss

Nothing ever changed in the underlying platform as far as I'm concerned, you'd get 100% uptime if there's no issues with the physical host node your vm lies on. If there is, then yes, it could potentially lead to some downtime.

Actually KVM do support live migration, and with a robust network, UPS and diesel generators you'll get as close to 100% uptime as practically possible. Don't think that Google, Amazon or Microsoft actually can guarantee 100% uptime either. They may be closer to 100%, and they may have taken more steps to reduce the risk, but practically it's impossible.

George_Hegland

No clue about that, but if I had to guess it's probably that since 99Stack uses many different service providers in the back end, not all of them can guarantee 100% uptime. Therefore it would be false advertising to make a 100% uptime SLA, even if some regions does have that.

mranderssen

George_Hegland No clue about that, but if I had to guess it's probably that since 99Stack uses many different service providers in the back end, not all of them can guarantee 100% uptime. Therefore it would be false advertising to make a 100% uptime SLA, even if some regions does have that.

This is the reason, it used to be 100% uptime SLA, and I bet it still is on the old plans, generation one for instance even if the agreement says a lower value.

The_Moose

George_Hegland No clue about that, but if I had to guess it's probably that since 99Stack uses many different service providers in the back end, not all of them can guarantee 100% uptime. Therefore it would be false advertising to make a 100% uptime SLA, even if some regions does have that.

Not all providers can guarantee 100% up-time SLA. Having a generous refund policy isn't enough in case something goes wrong, we believe. Especially not if important sites and apps goes down because of misinformation. We're working on a solution, but it could take some time, as it is more of a legal issue than something we can solve with code. ☕️

Until then we'll reduce the up-time SLA to the number used by the "worst" provider, currently somewhere between 99.9% and 99.99%. For critical apps and sites you may want to use plans from different providers to avoid service disruption. Never trust 100% up-time without first checking the technical specifications of a plan.