Do standard uptime stats include or exclude network issues?

[~ The 34 Year Buzz!!]

Tonight my VPS was "100% down" for ~3 hours, yet the host was quick to point out "the server has been up for over 20 days and counting."

The problem was a network issue, and all access to the server was "down."
Do standard hosting related uptime stats include or exclude network issues?

• I'm fairly certain the answer will be "exclude", and in that case what good are the (bogus) stats as a reflection of actual service availability?

Most hosts will want to stick with the current "standards" of reporting, but I'm sure nearly 100% of your customers would be interested in a more accurate way to judge the quality of a hosting service.

 

[XeHSean]

You have to read the providers TOS/SLA as the answer to this question can vary from provider to provider

 

[DragonADR]

And depends from System to System, depends on what OS and Panel your Hoster is using. Actually most of the Systems are not considering Network issues as Downtime, as the Server is up.

 

[XeHSean]

And depends from System to System, depends on what OS and Panel your Hoster is using. Actually most of the Systems are not considering Network issues as Downtime, as the Server is up.

I don't believe that there are any systems that crash if the network goes down - the server remains up but there is simply no connectivity to it. It really depends on the provider if he considers this downtime or not

 

[DragonADR]

I don't believe that there are any systems that crash if the network goes down - the server remains up but there is simply no connectivity to it. It really depends on the provider if he considers this downtime or not

Some Systems are verifying the Network, they don't crash. And if it sees, that Network is not available it considers this as downtime. But I agree, Provider can turn this off, so it is very rare that Provider are using this.

 

[SiberForum]

Some Systems are verifying the Network, they don't crash. And if it sees, that Network is not available it considers this as downtime. But I agree, Provider can turn this off, so it is very rare that Provider are using this.

They can crash and I suppose no one will be able to guarantee 100% everything will be working as that is simple impossible

 

[WebIntellects - Rob]

Any system can crash, but at the same time you always have possibility to learn reviews about the system. I think that would be more then enough to make decision

 

[tristanperry]

It also depends what monitoring system the host use.

We primarily use an external one - HyperSpin - which tries connecting to the server from various locations around the World. Here, a network issue would be counted as downtime.

 

[WebIntellects - Rob]

It also depends what monitoring system the host use.

We primarily use an external one - HyperSpin - which tries connecting to the server from various locations around the World. Here, a network issue would be counted as downtime.

I think that depends on the web hosting solution customer use. Some times customers are allowed and can integrate that personally

 

[fcolor]

The network reliability and uptime are the core of good service. The "99.99% uptime" of the network or why not say 100% when it comes to redundant networks are even more important than uptime of any physical or virtual machine part of this network.

 

[vectro]

I personally check both. I use host-tracker.com to monitor the uptime. They ping the site from 50 different locations and check if it's up and also test the response time. I also use the 'w' command and 'uptime' command from the Linux shell to see the server's uptime. If your VPS has shell access, those commands might be available to you.

 

[Virtuous_Host]

Actually in most cases downtime simply refers to your site going down with out notice. If your hosts says he's gonna upgrade your server or network etc. then they wouldn't consider that downtime.

 

[Royalty Hosting]

As long as the downtime was not planned or scheduled (maintenance for example), it should be counted against the uptime guarantee. Saying that a network issue does not count as downtime is simply dishonest, whether or not the web server was still up.