Offer them a 100% up-time guarantee for a year if they also promise to avoid being sick for the entire next year. If they can't avoid succumbing to a virus, why would they expect your service to avoid it (or any other sort of bug)?
Client asks for 100% uptime
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Re: Client asks for 100% uptime
#72I would agree to this but charge them infinite money.
And then the client gives you a cheque that says "infinity" on it. They have fulfilled their end of the deal, now you must. What, your bank won't accept that cheque? Not our problem, get back to work.
Re: Client asks for 100% uptime
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
There also was this comment on the SO thread: I would personally RUN from this client as fast as possible. I suspect this won't be the last crazy idea they may have (from a technology standpoint). Why run though? They probably just don't understand what 100% means and it just takes you explaining it to them. Or simply state that you cannot meet that requirement and see if they still want you to bid on the project.
You've just quoted the reason why: it won't be the last crazy idea they may have. That's pretty much an absolute certainty. Even if you can convince them with reasonable arguments to accept a few point less uptime, you're going to be having the same kind of discussion many times after on different subjects. You have to be really, really sure you want and need this kind of client. Most of the time (around 100%...) the…
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Re: Client asks for 100% uptime
#74I liked the dude that said "i wish i could down vote your client".
Re: Client asks for 100% uptime
#75I don't understand what the issue is. The client wants you to plan for disaster, and they aren't math oriented, so asking for 100% probability sounds reasonable. The engineer, as engineers are prone to do, remembered his first day of prob&stat 101, without considering that the client might not. When they say this, they aren't thinking about nuclear winter, they are thinking about Fred dumping his coffee on the office…
This is the answer missing from SF. This is the true "what would it take" that could be presented back to the client. Would the client go for the cost? Who knows,but that's the client's decision. Add a little more data on the DNS failover and it would be a good community wiki entry there.
Aiming at 100% uptime opens up all sorts of scope issues. Consider that 'failover' does technically cause a small amount of downtime as you restart the session. If you acknowledge that, it throws out most of the current model of fault tolerance from helping you acheive 100% uptime.
It's not different from any other system really. Try designing a car that can drive 100% of the time? Or a power grid that's up 100% of the time.
Re: Client asks for 100% uptime
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm getting better than 95% up time on my home network. If you told me that and I was your client, I'd be going elsewhere. Over 99% costs lots of money, yes. How much is dependent on how close to 100 you are looking to get, but that's the client's decision. 99% though is a perfectly acceptable standard.
There is a big difference between getting >95% up time and being able to actually back up an SLA for > 95% up time.
There is? What exactly are you doing that you need 20 days a year of downtime to accomplish? That's a full business day a week.
If you can't commit to that low of an SLA, you're doing it wrong.
Re: Client asks for 100% uptime
#77I don't understand what the issue is. The client wants you to plan for disaster, and they aren't math oriented, so asking for 100% probability sounds reasonable. The engineer, as engineers are prone to do, remembered his first day of prob&stat 101, without considering that the client might not. When they say this, they aren't thinking about nuclear winter, they are thinking about Fred dumping his coffee on the office…
Maybe it would be good to write the custom an email explaining stuff like 99%=Well run server 99.9%=Multiple backups, will cover most hardware failures 99.99%=Top grade commercial 99.999%=What companies like Google or Yahoo can achieve 99.9999%=Hopefully the US strategic defense systems are this reliable Also, you're assumption about the servers are entirely independant. That's a reasonable assumption in terms of fir…
You need to add a line:
100%=Thank you for investing so much in me that my grandchildren's grandchildren are set for life.
Re: Client asks for 100% uptime
#78100% uptime is not an operational requirement – it's contractual. A client that demands 100% uptime isn't being unreasonable; they're looking for a contract remedy (most likely a termination right) if/when the site goes down. 1. "Uptime" is defined in many, many ways. In the OP's article, it's the definition of uptime that seems unreasonable. Normally, the demarc points for the network segments and equipment being me…
Laypersons often misunderstand that there's a difference between promising 100.00000% and delivering 100.00000%.
The client needs to understand what their contractual remedy is when the promise falls short, and the method that will be used for evaluating the difference between the promise and the delivery.
Re: Client asks for 100% uptime
#79I would agree to this but charge them infinite money.
And then the client gives you a cheque that says "infinity" on it. They have fulfilled their end of the deal, now you must. What, your bank won't accept that cheque? Not our problem, get back to work.
Now you're just being silly. Clearly I would have them pay in a series of monthly instalments each one infinitely smaller than the total.
Re: Client asks for 100% uptime
#80I can't post on serverfault, since the question's been locked, so I'll put useful things to consider here:
* 100% SLA doesn't always mean 'It has to be up all the time'. Depending on the customer or the supplier, it can mean 'We'll aim to have it up all the time, but if it's not, we'll pay you compensation according to a predefined scale'. Clearly, in this case, you need to define quite firmly what 'up' and 'down' mean, how you measure them, how you time them, and how you decide what compensation to pay.
* DNS failover or load balancing is often nearly good enough. It won't get you instantaneous failover, since you'll need to have a finite (albeit small) TTL, and some client stub resolver libraries cache stuff anyway in violation of the TTL. But it's an easy step on the way
* If you want true 100% uptime, ultimately, you need a single IP (or range of IPs) which will be permanently reachable. That pretty much means the IPs need to come from one AS number - in other words, one ISP or one company.
* You can choose an ISP or company which has multiple internet connections, peers with a lot of people in multiple locations, and has a well-designed network such that you feel confident they won't go offline. Amazon may be a good example, but they've had several recent high profile failures!
* You could do it yourself - in which case, you'd need to become an ISP, get your own AS number, and set up peering arrangements with multiple suppliers in multiple locations. This can be very costly, and you still have to run a network and servers yourself in a reliable way
* You might be able to find a supplier who peers in multiple locations, and anycasts their protected IPs within their AS. That way, the same IP comes from multiple locations and should be reliable. Akamai might do something similar to this, I think.
* Ultimately, however you do it, you'll have a very difficult time making it impossible for it to fail. You're into the game of making it exponentially less and less likely that it'll fail, but you can't eliminate all risk. At the end of the day, your contract with your customer needs to define what happens if you should fail to reach 100% uptime. Is it breach of contract? Or do you need to pay a penalty fee? In either case, however you host it, you ideally need to make sure your suppliers compensation to you if they have a failure will cover the losses you incur.