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Uptime Guarantee - Good Idea?
When looking for a Web Host there are lots of factors
that come into play. Usually the deciding factors are price
and bandwidth. A common overlooked item is the uptime guarantee.
This is the percentage of time your account will be up and
running
What do these numbers really mean?
If we look at these percentages and convert them into the
amount of time your site is going to be down we get some
very telling information. The chart below lists the uptime
gurantee percentage and how that equates to time.
99% - 5256 Min/Yr or 87.6 Hours/Yr - 438 Min/Month or 7.3
Hours/Month
99.5% - 2628 Min/Yr or 43.8 Hours/Yr - 219 Min/Month or
3.65 Hours/Month
99.9% - 525.6 Min/Yr or 8.76 Hours/Yr - 43.8 Min/Month
or .73 Hours/Month
99.95% - 262.8 Min/Yr or 4.38 Hours/Yr - 21.9 Min/Month
or .365 Hours/Month
99.99% - 52.56 Min/Yr or .876 Hours/Yr - 4.38 Min/Month
or .073 Hours/Month
As you can see that while 99% uptime sounds like a lot,
it actually allows for the host to have over 7 hours of
downtime per month, or a whopping 87.6 hours per year. Your
host could be down for over 3 ½ days over the course
of a year and still hit their target of 99% uptime. As you
go to 99.5% and 99.9%, it gets much better, and with 99.95%
and 99.99% you would have little or no downtime.
Is this realistic?
Is it realistic to get 99.99% uptime? Probably not, but
it is always nice if you can get compensated for downtime.
However, if the host only compensates you for the actual
downtime you have, it probably won't be a large amount.
Let's assume you pay $20 a month for your hosting, which
is probably on the upper end of what you'd be paying ofr
a hosting account. We will also assume there a 30 days in
the month. Breaking that down, you're paying roughly 3 cents
per hour for your hosting. This means if you site is down
for 24 hours, 1 full day, you will only get 72 cents of
compensation. By no means is this good if it means your
site goes down and you get some pocket change.
So what does this mean to me?
So the more decimal places, the better the uptime guarantee.
We also now know that we probably won't be getting lots
of money back if our site goes down. The ultimate goal is
to find a web host that has an uptime guarantee and maintains
that level of service. You don't need the money back but
you do need the peace of mind of having your website up
and running.
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