And all SLAs aren't meaningless? Try reading Joyent's. It includes such gem exceptions as:
* scheduled maintenance and emergency maintenance and upgrades
* failure of access circuits to the Joyent Network
* inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of this SLA
So, power outages aren't their problem. If the server goes down and they perform emergency maintenance, but can't get the equipment they need for 48 hours that isn't their problem. If the network goes down, that isn't their problem.
While Amazon is being a little cheap with their SLA, at least there are circumstances where it could be triggered. That's why I always respected Slicehost's SLA:
"Do you offer an SLA?
Not for Slices and here’s why: most hosting SLA agreements are just plain silly. They promise things like 99.9% uptime, but downtime excludes: scheduled maintenance, network outages, hardware failures and software trouble. Well what exactly is left to cause downtime? Here’s our SLA: we’ll do our best to keep your machines running smoothly for as long as possible and get them up ASAP should something go wrong."
And in over a year I've never had any downtime that wasn't me rebooting the box.
/I have no affiliation with Slicehost beyond being a customer.
eh, I've given most customers a free month more than once, on my 99.5 sla. there's no reason why you can't have a real SLA, the company in question just needs to have the financial reserves to lose a months revenue without going into default. I see it as a way to gain credibility while I'm still small (and my reliability isn't what I'd like.)
* scheduled maintenance and emergency maintenance and upgrades * failure of access circuits to the Joyent Network * inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of this SLA
So, power outages aren't their problem. If the server goes down and they perform emergency maintenance, but can't get the equipment they need for 48 hours that isn't their problem. If the network goes down, that isn't their problem.
While Amazon is being a little cheap with their SLA, at least there are circumstances where it could be triggered. That's why I always respected Slicehost's SLA:
"Do you offer an SLA?
Not for Slices and here’s why: most hosting SLA agreements are just plain silly. They promise things like 99.9% uptime, but downtime excludes: scheduled maintenance, network outages, hardware failures and software trouble. Well what exactly is left to cause downtime? Here’s our SLA: we’ll do our best to keep your machines running smoothly for as long as possible and get them up ASAP should something go wrong."
And in over a year I've never had any downtime that wasn't me rebooting the box.
/I have no affiliation with Slicehost beyond being a customer.