Stick 'em up-time!

Eye Media was recently invited to quote for hosting with the requirement of 99.99% uptime.  To achieve a cast iron guarantee of this uptime involved multiple servers, redundant links and automatic failover to an alternative data centre in case of catastrophic data centre disaster.

The client advised us that they had found a cheaper alternative with a 'guaranteed 99.99% uptime' but neglected to read the guarantee conditions which had the following exclusions (translated from legal-speak):

- unless there is a hardware failure somewhere
- unless there is a software failure somewhere
- unless the power fails
- unless the client makes a mistake
- unless we call it unannounced maintenance after the outage takes place
- unless hackers or vandals break in
- unless we have some problems with our systems
- unless we change our rules

The result is the 99.99% guarantee allows for any amount of uptime from 0% with no penalty and no recourse by the customer. Until this was brought to the client's attention, neither the project manager, I.T department or contracts people took a moment to look at the guarantee conditions.  It's yet another example of the difficulties obtaining competitive quotes, and buyer-beware.