Joyent: 54+ hours of downtime • Hacker News Board

Re: Joyent: 54+ hours of downtime

#71

Post by patrickgzill » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 2:49 AM UTC

jasonhoffman wrote: post #18

I get the frustration. I really do and I apologize for any bump like this. I'm the founder of those old textdrive "share hosting" servers (they really have nothing to do with Joyent's current product line). These servers are ~6 years old and they're largely populated by "lifetime" customers who have tricked out various bits of their accounts enough that an automated migration has been basically impossible. We've been…

What I don't understand is that if the servers are 6 years old, why not migrate the old bad hardware to exactly the same OS, as virtual machines running under the virtualization platform of your choice?

A 6 year old server would have a max RAM capacity of say 32GB, you can get a newish 64GB RAM system for what, $3k or so?

In such a case, migration is basically a few shell scripts plus rsync from old hardware to new VM. You rsync a couple of times until the rsync takes very little time, then turn off services; do a final rsync; turn on services on the new VM, swap IP addresses and test.

You can even run FreeBSD/Xen on top of Solaris XVM, right?

Re: Joyent: 54+ hours of downtime

#72

Post by milod » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 2:49 AM UTC

It sucks that your hosting is down, but this is a pretty malicious use of HN considering you paid $200 over 6 years ago for lifetime hosting. Less than $3 per month by now. What SLA were you guaranteed?

The lesson for service hosts, NEVER offer lifetime anything.

Re: Joyent: 54+ hours of downtime

#73

Post by patrickgzill » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 2:51 AM UTC

jasonhoffman wrote: post #30

netik wrote: post #13

joyent had this sort of failure regularly about 4 years ago and continues to do so. Avoid.

Also incorrect. "About 4 years ago" we always did >99.99% uptimes even on the old textdrive stuff. I'd be happy to show all the old stats and graphs, we still have them.

I think he is referencing BingoDisk (perhaps I am mis-remembering the name of the service which was offered by Joyent).

Re: Joyent: 54+ hours of downtime

#74

Post by nphase » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 3:00 AM UTC

I'm sure I'll get down-modded for saying this, but on WHT people will tell you that you get what you pay for, which is in stark contrast with what most people here are saying (lack of gratitude for being a charter customer, etc).

Sure, you paid $200. But if you've been a customer since 2007 then you've basically paid the same price as any cheap shared hosting provider. Contrast this experience with Layered Technologies that ran three price hikes and then when I still didn't leave the server I had with them essentially told me to fuck off once their harddrive failed.

At least jasonhoffman had the courtesy to tell people their best option is to switch servers to avoid trouble.

But, like they say, you get what you pay for. If lifetime support and stability is what you'll come to expect, don't pay bottom dollar prices up front.

Disclaimer: I am not a Joyent customer in any way.

Re: Joyent: 54+ hours of downtime

#75

Post by iskander » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 3:02 AM UTC

chuckmcknight wrote: post #15

iskander wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a lifetime account with TextDrive. I don't know if it was official policy at Joyent to neglect the old customers, but I certainly felt like I was being pressured to repurchase services I had already paid for. After several outages, data loss and extremely slow responses from tech support I switched to linode. No problems since.

Hmm, Joyent migrated my TextDrive lifetime account to their newer stuff at no charge. Did you ask Tech Support if there was a migration path for you?

Nope, they never suggested it and migrating never occurred to me (I assumed it would cost money).

Re: Joyent: 54+ hours of downtime

#76

Post by fingerprinter » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 3:37 AM UTC

jasonhoffman wrote: post #18

I get the frustration. I really do and I apologize for any bump like this. I'm the founder of those old textdrive "share hosting" servers (they really have nothing to do with Joyent's current product line). These servers are ~6 years old and they're largely populated by "lifetime" customers who have tricked out various bits of their accounts enough that an automated migration has been basically impossible. We've been…

"lifetime" textdrive customer here. I don't ever remember getting a "free" upgrade. I was just offered a $45/month upgrade for a joyent smartmachine, but while a large discount, is not 'free'.

I would be interested in getting my account into a virtual env but I can't really justify paying $45/month at this moment...what are my options?

Re: Joyent: 54+ hours of downtime

#77

Post by jefe78 » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 3:53 AM UTC

jedsmith wrote: post #50

jasonhoffman wrote: post #18

I get the frustration. I really do and I apologize for any bump like this. I'm the founder of those old textdrive "share hosting" servers (they really have nothing to do with Joyent's current product line). These servers are ~6 years old and they're largely populated by "lifetime" customers who have tricked out various bits of their accounts enough that an automated migration has been basically impossible. We've been…

Is the personal account information for the submitting individual really necessary for your point? Did the submitter give you permission to tell us about his ticket history and account actions? Although relatively harmless, it seems like planting the seed to a disregard for privacy.

Agreed. He really crossed a line on that one. Standard operating procedure should be to NEVER reveal ANY information about a customer, even whether or not they are customers.

One more reason to shy away from Joyent.

Edit - Jed from Linode?! Hey! You sir are my favourite support person to reach, yet I rarely get you anymore.

Re: Joyent: 54+ hours of downtime

#78

Post by fingerprinter » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 3:56 AM UTC

FOR JASONHOFFMAN

I see you posting quite a bit here...you keep saying the same thing: "take the free upgrade that is being offered".

There also seems to be quite a few old textdrive lifetime members here.

Perhaps the best approach would be for you to outline the steps for those textdrive folks to migrate off of those servers and take the free upgrade you are offering. I personally have no idea how...so if you could explain it, give a link or some concrete information it would be helpful.

I for one would be happy to migrate if it means better servers, I just need to know how...I'm sure I'm not alone.

Re: Joyent: 54+ hours of downtime

#79

Post by pmb » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 4:12 AM UTC

jasonhoffman wrote: post #18

I get the frustration. I really do and I apologize for any bump like this. I'm the founder of those old textdrive "share hosting" servers (they really have nothing to do with Joyent's current product line). These servers are ~6 years old and they're largely populated by "lifetime" customers who have tricked out various bits of their accounts enough that an automated migration has been basically impossible. We've been…

Free upgrade sounds fine - when were these offered, and how would a person take advantage? I have one of the aforementioned permanent accounts (on jervis, even) and if migrating to a new server means that my site is less likely to fall over, I certainly would do it. However, I just dug through all the emails I ever received from Joyent or Textdrive, and none of them mentioned migrating to another server for free. Lots of stuff about how I could pay more to have more, but since things are basically fine for me (running http://imprompt.us and http://tracyfood.com both of which are low-bandwidth vanilla wordpress sites), I ignored all of that.

tl;dr: how can I go about moving my stuff? To where? And why am I in this handbasket?

Re: Joyent: 54+ hours of downtime

#80

Post by tylerritchie » Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 4:12 AM UTC

fingerprinter wrote: post #78

FOR JASONHOFFMAN I see you posting quite a bit here...you keep saying the same thing: "take the free upgrade that is being offered". There also seems to be quite a few old textdrive lifetime members here. Perhaps the best approach would be for you to outline the steps for those textdrive folks to migrate off of those servers and take the free upgrade you are offering. I personally have no idea how...so if you could e…

From one of the very many forum posts on the exact topic:

"If you have not sent in a request and would like to get a jump on the migration, please send an email to support [at] joyent [dot] com with the following information:

- Subject line: migration request + plan type if known (startup, plus, premier) - Full Name - User Name(s) / Primary Domain(s) (please note new info if you want to change it at this time) - Existing Server(s)

If you wish your username or domain name to be changed, please include this in the email and we will process when we send your golden ticket. Waiting until after your account is set up will incur a $50 fee and you will receive a brand new account (old one will be blasted).

Please do not send follow up requests as it only slows the process down. If you asked questions when you sent in your migration request, we will answer those when we send your golden ticket out.

Once you receive your 'golden ticket', you will have 60 days to migrate to the OpenSolaris environment. If you need the second account for more than 60 days, regular monthly charges will apply."