We discussed my belief that the nines (99.99…%) are more marketing than the real deal today – What do you think? The market and tools used to measure your uptime immature or do not really exist. The concept of availability in the cloud is determined by the level of responsibility and liability that the vendors have for their customers. These notions include the ability to monitor, proactively fix and maintain continuous communication with users, giving them clear and genuine visibility into what exactly is going on and when the system is expected to return to normal. It is also necessary, here, to define the concept of downtime. At a very basic level, it is when the system is not available. However, the more precise answer depends on the criticality of specific features and components of an application or service.
On that note, we are interested in hearing your point of view. First and foremost, it is essential to ask, what do you consider “downtime”? How do you approach the matter of downtime with your customers? How do you compensate, if at all? Maybe even before discussing compensation, let us ask how or if you measure downtime? If so, are you able to calculate your own availability over the past week, month, or year? With your help, we can gain even greater insights on the topic.