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Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

status.gandi.net

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Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#161

Post by Grimm665 »

eg312 wrote: post #27
aosaigh wrote: post #13

I don't have hosting with Gandi, but I do use them for domains and DNS. I'll be considering migrating my domains from them after this. Their response to this is exceptionally poor. To say essentially "this could happen to any other web host" it nonsense. I've never had this happen with any of the providers I've used for hosting and I'd be very angry if I had just lost an entire VPS. The fact that they've lost all sna…

I use Gandi for domains & DNS too. I've never had any problems so far but I don't want any surprises... Where do you want to migrate? What is a better alternative?

I use Hover for DNS and domain registration, never had a problem and their interface and support is top-notch.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#162

Post by ben509 »

y4mi wrote: post #122
ben509 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a different kind of format however, which -by definition- isn't a replica anymore. All non-trivial replication has to cross machine boundaries. To transmit to another machine, you have to use a serial format since there are no pointers on the wire. So insisting that a replica must be the same format prohibits the concept of replication in practice.

So, that admin dumped his database but didn't know that the data was using a custom locale which makes recovery troublesome. How is it a copy if it can't recover the original in some cases? We're not talking about a compressed archive here, it's a (incomplete) step-by-step instruction to recreate the data. If anything out of norm happens, it's gonna fail-possibly silently.

> How is it a copy if it can't recover the original in some cases?

Do you think a gun is not a gun if it sometimes jams?

> We're not talking about a compressed archive here

I think we have two camps. Mine is considering "copy", "backup", "replica" to be broad categories that are distinguished by simple mathematical or technical properties. For instance, I'd consider a device that copied a single bit to be "copying," even though it's arguably just a wire.

The other camp has very specific products and tasks in mind. A replica is associated with distributed computing, while a backup is something a systems administrator makes as part of disaster recovery.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#163

Post by jdmguit »

oefrha wrote: post #83
arpa wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still back up to the same providers' different data center. Two data centers failing simultaneously is very unlikely.

Not always an option. For instance, I use Linode’s backup service and it can only back up to the same data center (although it is said to live on a separate system).

Coming from a Linode employee, I can confirm this is true. Linode's backups live in the same data center as the server, but the systems are separated so that they don't directly affect one another.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#164

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

oefrha wrote: post #83
arpa wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still back up to the same providers' different data center. Two data centers failing simultaneously is very unlikely.

Not always an option. For instance, I use Linode’s backup service and it can only back up to the same data center (although it is said to live on a separate system).

You can, and should, back up your irreplaceable data elsewhere using a custom solution. Unless it's some service that doesn't allow you to export the data at all, it may be inconvenient, but it is an option.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#165

Post by duxup »

EnderMB wrote: post #28

Oof, this Twitter thread looks particularly bad, especially the response from the official Gandi account. https://twitter.com/andreaganduglia/status/12151991477012316... While I appreciate that there are real people behind these companies that are probably having a really rough time right now, the criticism that Gandi are getting as a company is justified - and if Gandi are truly a "no bullshit" company they need to…

The number of people who have control of social media accounts for companies who do not understand how to relate to people / basic customer service / can predict how their post will be received is shocking.

I worked at a company of 5K+ people and one of the folks in control of the twitter account(s) would come to me with questions.

Now I applauded them for coming to me for technical questions before posting, that was great, but they absolutely did not have the self awareness / understand what to say / when to say it and etc.

But hey they were tied to a high ranking person (who also had no clue) so they had access to the account.

In my early days I worked PC customer support... I feel like that comes in handy all the time.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#166

Post by oefrha »

nradov wrote: post #100
oefrha wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often times the backup provider is the hosting provider, whom you have to trust. (This extends all the way from big clouds like AWS and GCE to small providers like Linode and DO). Having an external backup can be unreasonably expensive due to ridiculous egress costs.

If your business can't afford external backups then you don't have a viable business in the first place. And of course egress costs have to be considered when choosing a hosting provider.

Not everything that’s hosted in the cloud is a business. In fact, the Internet wasn’t even created for the purpose of profit-generating business.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#167

Post by johnnycab »

clSTophEjUdRanu wrote: post #120
danr4 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Screenshotted in case (when) they delete it https://i.imgur.com/s3R1VVc.png Using memes after permanently losing customer data is extremely disrespectful.

Meh. It's Twitter. They lost data but arguing on Twitter circularly forever with these people solves nothing.

It has long been the platform of choice for those seeking a response or to resolve issues. The tone of those ill mannered tweets reveals incredibly bad optics and serves as a reminder for those, who haven't encountered any issues thus far, that we could be treated in a similarly shoddy manner.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#168

Post by martius »

alpaca128 wrote: post #89
anarcat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't, actually, expect them to do so. But even if I would, and Gandi, here, were doing backups and replications, no one is immune from errors and catastrophes. Pretending that the cloud is permanent in infallible is extremely dangerous. I would seriously question the competence of any sysadmin relying on this as a base principle. Sure, they screwed up, but this stuff happens. We should actually be happy it happens…

> Gandi, here, were doing backups and replications As far as I understand correctly they only made snapshots on the same machine, which is why there's trouble to begin with. Considering they're currently "reminding" customers that backups are an industry standard right after losing data due to missing backups I wouldn't just shrug it off.

Where does this come from?

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#169

Post by deanmoriarty »

fchu wrote: post #117
deanmoriarty wrote: post #59

I have a custom domain with Gandi and take advantage of their mail forwarding option to forward the emails sent to the custom domain (my “no lock-in” email address) to my personal Gmail account. Considering how critical email is for me, seems like I won’t be trusting their MX servers to process all my inbound mail anymore and will soon be looking for another solution that works well with Gmail (don’t want to pay for…

Depending on your email volumes, mailgun could be a viable alternative

Thanks, I'll absolutely look into this soon.

Re: Gandi loses data, customers told to use their own backups

#170

Post by deanmoriarty »

blibble wrote: post #151
deanmoriarty wrote: post #59

I have a custom domain with Gandi and take advantage of their mail forwarding option to forward the emails sent to the custom domain (my “no lock-in” email address) to my personal Gmail account. Considering how critical email is for me, seems like I won’t be trusting their MX servers to process all my inbound mail anymore and will soon be looking for another solution that works well with Gmail (don’t want to pay for…

gandi's response notwithstanding: email is hardly reliable unless you run all the MXes (and can prove otherwise): you're likely having emails dropped all the time already

For sure, but everything is relative. Ignoring for a second the lock-in factor of using a @gmail.com address, I would trust Google's MX servers any day over Gandi's, especially after this last incident (trust == reliability in this context).
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