Re: Limits of reliability or is 99.999999999% realistic

["Brian W." <bri () sonicboom org>]

The reason for this perception is that non engineering folks don't
understand the enginnering behind almost perfect uptimes.  Typical Joe
executive just knows he believes his business is mission critical and must
always be available.  If you give someone two router ports running hsrp,
connect an alteon or similar 1 public many private ip switch to each of
these, and put at least 2 servers behind each switch, provide instant
generator power backup, and multiple links thru different providers to the
net, this can provide the 99.bazillion 9s level that customers
desire.  Some slas are meaningful.  Just make it so as time goes on in the
outage, an increasing portion of the customer's costs are waived.  Nothing
talks like money in business or politics.

        Brian

> In today's internet world they're just marketing drivel.
>
> Naturally such strong statements beg for counterexample; please,
> someone, tell us about providers that offer SLAs with big enough
> payoffs to provide some sort of incentive, who deliver on the
> service levels they boast about. Please!
>
> -Bennett