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Can we stop with the uptime percentages?

146 points · 115 comments · surprisetalk

  1. proxysna · · focus · HN ↗
    Wider audience started to use status pages because the service unreliability became so much more noticeable than before and not the other way around. I never had to use a status page for bear blog or protonmail because i never had and issue with it or just i never noticed.

    I am now _required_ to consult status page of github, circleci or MS services etc because i need to know why a build is not passing, why i cannot open a repo, why is my work stalling.

    Percentages matter, it is just so much more obvious why they matter when it comes down to important pieces of the internet like github. And i highly doubt the number of 12 hours in the last month. MS has been downplaying the issues they have with GH performance for a while now and i don't think it is time to start to believe them yet. Maintaining these pieces of infrastructure is responsibility and a burden.

    Overall i would be careful with "nonlinear significance of numbers near 100%" we are talking gh being well into the 90's this year and one number that infra people are also often being reminded about is that "1% is 3.5 days".

    Things are tough for gh people and i feel for them but they are not a startup or a underdog of some sort to receive sympathy in that case.

    1. SoftTalker · · focus · HN ↗
      > 1% is 3.5 days

      I think that illustrates the author's point quite well. 99% uptime sounds good, but when you think about a 3+ day outage that doesn't sound very good. Imagine Facebook or TikTok being down for 3 days.

      Of course most of the time it's not all one outage, but a bunch of short ones. Still, it might communicate the impact better, especially depending on the argument you're trying to win.

      1. Melatonic · · focus · HN ↗
        It used to be that " 5 nines " was the gold standard. I cant believe were now down to 0 for a major service........
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