Re: [cobalt-users] 99.9% revisited...

[Kris Dahl <krislists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Alright, 22 hours down the first time, almost six hours this time, and
> no end in site.

You're still at 99.7% on a year, even after 28 hours of downtime.  And
that's a lot of downtime.  99.9% is not hard to offer.

> While this was a problem with DSL it could easily have been with a T-1;
> even with a T-3.

Well, if you are spending $1000+ dollars a month with them, they hustle a
little bit more.  This is from experience.  If you buy a commercial grade
DSL line from like Savvis, they guarantee your connection.  And they have
the private peering to back that up.  Of course you're not talking about
$100/mo, either.  If I remember correctly a 1MB DSL line from them (not the
line, but the access) was around $700/mo.

> Now you see why I give my best efforts, but don't GUARANTEE uptime?

Well... You you have to be positioned to be able to offer it.  When I was
saying that it is easy to get a 99.9%, and 99.99% isn't that much harder, I
was assuming you would be in a high-grade commercial datacenter with
redundant routes and private peering arrangements, adequate UPS and
generator power, etc.

You can't really offer that kind of guarantee on a DSL line.  Or really even
a T1 line (although I feel I could easily guarantee 99.9%).

And its not like I would make that guarantee for free--the service would be
at a premium (as I wouldn't want to attract lower-end clients).  But you
can, if you make the effort (and charge the premium) offer 4 nines
guaranteed.  But only do it if your target market requires it and you get
something out of it (i.e. more money--at least enough to cover the
penalties).  Its all about the Benjamins.
-k