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If I was your cloud provider, I'd never let you down

joyent.com

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Re: If I was your cloud provider, I'd never let you down

#141

Post by rsync »

carson wrote: post #92

Anyone remember Joyent's Strongspace service? http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/01/21/joyen...

They got a free thumper from Sun through the "try and buy" program, loaded it up with customers, and ... failed to operate it properly. IIRC, it wasn't just a service outage - some data was irrevocably lost.

ZFS on Solaris was a non-beta, prime time product at that time, so it's not fair to blame it on "a ZFS thing". Deploying customers on loaner hardware is scrappy and admirable, in a way, but Sun wasn't giving those away two by two - there was no redundancy.

The joyent blog, in those days, alternated between enterprise cloud bullshit-bingo posts and facebook game development. I thought it was a clown operation back then and I suspect it still is.

Re: If I was your cloud provider, I'd never let you down

#142

Post by rsync »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #40
anonymouz wrote: post #25

With the lifetime account fiasco still ongoing [1], they should probably shut up. [1] Joyent/Textdrive sold lifetime shared hosting accounts for a one time payment in the beginning. Those accounts would exist "as long as we exists". A couple of months back they sent an email that they are "discontinuing" lifetime accounts. After uproar from the community they offered refunds. Many people (including me) agreed to the…

"lifetime" "unlimited" "forever" etc products should always been looked at sceptically for that reason. Anything that is either finite or requires up-keep cannot be offered on these terms, it is just impossible. I actually avoid unlimited products on purpose because I think a lie is a bad way to start doing business together. Be it web-hosting, broadband, or anything else. I would prefer they just be up front and the…

Lifetime provision, or its counterpart: flat rate provisioning (unlimited X for $5/mo) puts the customer into an antagonistic relationship with their provider:

http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2009/11/flat-rate-stora...

If your needs for service are serious, you should avoid such arrangements.

Re: If I was your cloud provider, I'd never let you down

#143

Post by bitcartel »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #40
anonymouz wrote: post #25

With the lifetime account fiasco still ongoing [1], they should probably shut up. [1] Joyent/Textdrive sold lifetime shared hosting accounts for a one time payment in the beginning. Those accounts would exist "as long as we exists". A couple of months back they sent an email that they are "discontinuing" lifetime accounts. After uproar from the community they offered refunds. Many people (including me) agreed to the…

"lifetime" "unlimited" "forever" etc products should always been looked at sceptically for that reason. Anything that is either finite or requires up-keep cannot be offered on these terms, it is just impossible. I actually avoid unlimited products on purpose because I think a lie is a bad way to start doing business together. Be it web-hosting, broadband, or anything else. I would prefer they just be up front and the…

I actually just posted (before I saw this thread) about how to roll your own online storage using a BRIC (Bunch of Redundant Independent Clouds). By striping data across different clouds, you spread the risk of any one storage provider letting you down.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4689238

Re: If I was your cloud provider, I'd never let you down

#144

Post by codewright »

staunch wrote: post #21

My new startup, Uptano ( https://uptano.com ), is a cloud provider (still hurts me to write "cloud"). ..and we've had 100% uptime in our short run so far. Our systems are highly redundant and as decoupled as possible. Still, I wouldn't for one second claim that I, or anyone else, could do better than AWS on reliability. AWS does a great job on reliability. I do think EBS is a terrible technology that should die in a…

Could you please explain the tenancy/virtual servers mechanic of your service? The copy on the website isn't clear. (Also, OH GOD that font. OH. GOD.)

It's not clear to me whether I'm getting my own server (effectively dedicated?) for $136/month or not.

Further, what if I don't want multiple-tenants on the hardware? What does it cost me to effectively treat each physical server a single logical unit? Is that even possible?

I mostly want a more elastic alternative to dedicated servers. Is your service along those lines?

Re: If I was your cloud provider, I'd never let you down

#145

Post by vampirechicken »

enoch_r wrote: post #140
vampirechicken wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you abuse "lifetime, unlimited"? I want a plane ride, I book a ticket. I cannot book multiple simultaneous tickets. So abuse can only be defined as "They used it more than we'd anticipated." That school of thought is very much like the oversubscribed phone lines of yore, which made the phone companies highly intolerant of long modem sessions.

IIRC, some people were selling their free companion ticket--you could make pretty decent money flying someone along with you whenever you flew. And that was definitely prohibited in the original agreement.

Selling the companion ticket falls outside of my definition of "reasonable use".

The article I read said they were annoyed that some of these guys would actually use the tickets to, you know, fly places, all the time. As if they had unlimited access.

Did they really expect to sell a $400k item so somebody and for the buyer to fly three times a year?

Re: If I was your cloud provider, I'd never let you down

#146

Post by patrickgzill »

jaggederest wrote: post #17
tzaman wrote: post #4

They should send this open letter to Heroku as well :)

Historically, running Ruby on Joyent was an exercise in frustration. Heroku isn't only Ruby these days, but operating as a stable ruby platform is still a requirement I think. Among other things: Solaris threading libs with crashy bugs when you pop a new thread open. Took quite a while to figure that one out.

It is perhaps a difference in thread creation semantics, or something like that. But, Solaris threading has been rock solid for many, many years.

Re: If I was your cloud provider, I'd never let you down

#147

Post by vampirechicken »

chc wrote: post #136
vampirechicken wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you abuse "lifetime, unlimited"? I want a plane ride, I book a ticket. I cannot book multiple simultaneous tickets. So abuse can only be defined as "They used it more than we'd anticipated." That school of thought is very much like the oversubscribed phone lines of yore, which made the phone companies highly intolerant of long modem sessions.

This kind of sentiment is why everything nowadays comes with 20 pages of fine print that nobody can wade through. It's not enough just to expect people to be reasonable — everything must be clearly spelled out in excruciating detail, as people will feel free to do any insane thing that comes to their mind if you do not restrict it explicitly, and they will loudly object if you tell them that what they're doing is not…

A contract does not provide for what is reasonable. It stipulates the relationship between two parties. if you say unlimited personal use, with no right of resale, then I can fly all day every day without worry. I don't see how flying a lot on an unlimited lifetime ticket can be legitimately called abusive.

If I buy a lifetime, fly anytime ticket, and use it all the time, you don't get to call that abuse. If I use the maximum physical quantity of something, for which I have purchased an unlimited supply, that is not abuse. If I am in breach of contract, then I am in breach of contract, but that's not abuse. Abuse implies that you don;t like what I'm doing but I'm not in breach of contract.

Calling something abuse generally means that I've found a use of the service that you didn't forecast for and despite being contractually acceptable, it means you aren't getting the advantage you thought you would from the contract. Expecting me to not use the service to my full advantage is naive at best.

Re: If I was your cloud provider, I'd never let you down

#148

Post by vampirechicken »

tedunangst wrote: post #139
vampirechicken wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you abuse "lifetime, unlimited"? I want a plane ride, I book a ticket. I cannot book multiple simultaneous tickets. So abuse can only be defined as "They used it more than we'd anticipated." That school of thought is very much like the oversubscribed phone lines of yore, which made the phone companies highly intolerant of long modem sessions.

Order a ticket plus companion ticket to London for every other day of the month. Sell the companion ticket on craigslist for $200 and ferry people you've never met to Europe.

I never read anything that talked about this as part of the problem. It was always "We didn't expect them to use it so much."

That's an awful lot of strangers to make transatlantic flights with at 200 bucks a pop, and it would take quite a long time to recoup the multi-hundred-thousand dollar investment in the companion ticket. Hardly seems worth the time for somebody who can afford half a million for a couple of lifetime passes.

Re: If I was your cloud provider, I'd never let you down

#149

Post by dredmorbius »

xentronium wrote: post #74
irahul wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Red herring. Here is a company with a history of making tall claims and then doing an 180. How is pointing that out a red herring? > Besides, as far as I understand, Textdrive is in the process of being relaunched, honoring all the lifetime plans. From what I know of the story, if they do honor lifetime plans, it isn't out of the goodness of their hearts. They had every intention of flipping the lifetime planholder…

> Here is a company with a history of making tall claims and then doing an 180. How is pointing that out a red herring? That isn't particularly relevant to service quality and stability, is it? Maybe it's just me, but I try not to pay much attention to PR bullshit, since they have to make bold claims in order to succeed. p.s. that their blog was down for the last three hours is somewhat ironic, though.

Failing to live up to your service commitments is exactly what quality and stability are about.

Re: If I was your cloud provider, I'd never let you down

#150

Post by tedunangst »

vampirechicken wrote: post #148
tedunangst wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Order a ticket plus companion ticket to London for every other day of the month. Sell the companion ticket on craigslist for $200 and ferry people you've never met to Europe.

I never read anything that talked about this as part of the problem. It was always "We didn't expect them to use it so much." That's an awful lot of strangers to make transatlantic flights with at 200 bucks a pop, and it would take quite a long time to recoup the multi-hundred-thousand dollar investment in the companion ticket. Hardly seems worth the time for somebody who can afford half a million for a couple of lif…

Click through and read the LA Times article.

When bond broker Willard May of Round Rock, Texas, was forced into retirement after a run-in with federal securities regulators in the early 1990s, he turned to his trusty AAirpass to generate income. Using his companion ticket, he began shuttling a Dallas couple back and forth to Europe for $2,000 a month.

"For years, that was all the flying I did," said May, 81. "It's how I got the bills paid."

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