Aircon issue in MK - Cloud VM

[John]

Hello,

An aircon issue has been detected near one of the storage racks used for the Cloud storage devices. This is not a service effecting situation, as the other storage racks are online and operating normally and are able to take over the load if required.

The temperature is always dropping and we will notify you when this issue is fully resolved.

[John]

Hello,

All storage systems have returned to optimal operating temperature.

[shoecake]

Is this related to the issues with the cloud servers which started early yesterday morning, went on most of the day and then again last night?

Where is the service announcement for that and how come a supposedly 100% uptime system had such a catastrophic failure?

Patrick

[John]

Is this related to the issues with the cloud servers which started early yesterday morning, went on most of the day and then again last night?

Where is the service announcement for that and how come a supposedly 100% uptime system had such a catastrophic failure?

Patrick

Hello Patrick,

No, the issue yesterday on HyperV Cluster 1 was another issue entirely. I'll have to get back to you on why no notification was posted.

As for a catastrophic failure, Cloud isn't magic. We stand by our uptime guarantee and will compensate if we drop below it. That isn't to say we don't think the uptime guarantee isn't achievable, as it is, but no system is completely immune to failure. Enough failovers have to be in place to make sure a failover isn't a common occurrence.

I believe some people on the "Global" Amazon Cloud were down for a few days at the back end of last week. There isn't a technology in place anywhere in the World that can absolutely promise there will never be an issue, just technology in place to ensure it is rare and can be recovered from quickly.

[shoecake]

Thank you for the quick response. It is more the lack of information that annoys me, rather than the downtime.

When I purchased one of the cloud VPS's your web page stated "There is a guarantee for 100% uptime of the hosting platform" which is how I sold it to my clients. In addition on your sales page it still states "There will be absolutely no downtime due to power outage, network failure or failure of servers or storage." which hardly seems true now.

I am a realist when it comes to IT and do not expect a 100% uptime no matter what the technology, I just feel this is misleading.

My real issue is with the lack of communication. Of course your admins should concentrate on fixing the problems, but there is no real point in posting on this forum once a problem has been fixed. I need to know what is happening when it happens so I can communicate this to my clients.

Yesterday morning I did start a new thread on this forum suggesting you had a systems status webpage where your customers could see what the issues are when they happen, but a 'moderator' has not seen fit to approve it yet. I hope it has not been quietly deleted as this was a serious suggestion of how you could improve your service.

[John]

Thank you for the quick response. It is more the lack of information that annoys me, rather than the downtime.

When I purchased one of the cloud VPS's your web page stated "There is a guarantee for 100% uptime of the hosting platform" which is how I sold it to my clients. In addition on your sales page it still states "There will be absolutely no downtime due to power outage, network failure or failure of servers or storage." which hardly seems true now.

I am a realist when it comes to IT and do not expect a 100% uptime no matter what the technology, I just feel this is misleading.

My real issue is with the lack of communication. Of course your admins should concentrate on fixing the problems, but there is no real point in posting on this forum once a problem has been fixed. I need to know what is happening when it happens so I can communicate this to my clients.

Yesterday morning I did start a new thread on this forum suggesting you had a systems status webpage where your customers could see what the issues are when they happen, but a 'moderator' has not seen fit to approve it yet. I hope it has not been quietly deleted as this was a serious suggestion of how you could improve your service.

Hello,

Of course I understand your point and to be honest mostly agree with you. The text you quoted about the uptime guarantee I clarified previously. To be perfectly honest, you can't have downtime to a single instance of network, hardware or storage failure. Only if multiple failures or software problems can cause an issue. The software side being the cause of most problems.

In regards to the status page, it will be something we will incorporate into our new billing system shortly after launch. However, in the mean time, updates should be posted here and I'll look into why they weren't yesterday.

[shoecake]

Hello,

Of course I understand your point and to be honest mostly agree with you. The text you quoted about the uptime guarantee I clarified previously. To be perfectly honest, you can't have downtime to a single instance of network, hardware or storage failure. Only if multiple failures or software problems can cause an issue. The software side being the cause of most problems.

In regards to the status page, it will be something we will incorporate into our new billing system shortly after launch. However, in the mean time, updates should be posted here and I'll look into why they weren't yesterday.

Glad to hear you intend to create a status page. One thought I had after posting this would be to have a twitter feed of ongoing issues. This may be quicker to implement and could me a more usefull way of your customers getting real time information.