[AusNOG] Telstra Network Down

[Mark Foster]

Much snippage of extra and inconsistent quoting below, but to amplify 
Robert's point - cloud really is, someone elses computer. There should 
be no inferred level of resilience.

When you subscribe to a cloud service you are also selecting a service 
level (most cloud providers will explain their level of service 
availability under normal conditions), and you are also, basically, 
outsourcing the overheads of maintaining your service to someone who is 
presumably benefiting from 'scale' - the ability to run multiple tenants 
on the same systems, and 'buy in bulk' where smaller operators cannot do 
so competitively.

But it's still outsourcing. If the offering doesn't provide the SLA you 
want, if the level of control and influence you have over the level of 
resilience provided is insufficient, vote with your feet and find a 
position that's adequate for you.

It's relatively easy to offer a fairly resilient service (say, 99.9% 
availability) if you use some HA components and remove most single 
points of failure. That's pretty decent availability, more than enough 
for many applications.  But not enough for others.

Operating >99.9% is doable, but can rapidly spike your costs - and 
depending on what you're doing, can also spike complexity. You have to 
choose whether it's worth the time and expense of that additional 
engineering.

So it's possible to use cloud without also being a Highly Available 
service with multi-site resilience. No-one should mistake cloud for HA, 
unless the option you choose, stipulates as such. And presumably has to 
charge commensurate to the level of investment put in to achieve that HA.

Mark.


On 2/02/2017 9:16 p.m., Robert Hudson wrote:
> In most cases, cloud is just someone else's computer...

> A group of us were discussing the true meaning of cloud in terms of 
> web hosting the other day, I basically said that if the server isn't 
> setup with load balancing across multiple DC's that it isn't really 
> proper cloud hosting. It needs to be setup with high availability.
>
>     A lot of providers use the term cloud when its not.
>
>
>     -- 
>     Chad Kelly
>     Manager
>     CPK Web Services
>     webwww.cpkws.com.au <http://www.cpkws.com.au>
>     phone 03 9013 4853
>
>
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