northeast US power outages impacting FM???

[noelos]

Originally posted by Edwin
This Java-powered application shows electricity flows across the Eastern US. NYC is lit up like a Christmas tree with massive over-demand rings (110%+) compared to available supply.

http://www.powerworld.com/Java/Eastern/

I spent half an hour looking at that diagram zooming in and panning around. Kept on checking back after too.

It took me quite a while to figure out that it's just a sample map - not a real-time representation of what's going on right now! Update you post Edwin, you prankster.

[Edwin]

Originally posted by noelos
It took me quite a while to figure out that it's just a sample map - not a real-time representation of what's going on right now! Update you post Edwin, you prankster.

I've updated it - to tell the truth, I didn't spend long enough using it to realise it wasn't "live"

[erimess]

Originally posted by Jeremy Howard
When we looked into this we found we would have to, at a minimum, triple our prices to maintain such an environment (due to bandwidth, maintenance, sysadmin, and admin costs). We felt that most of our customers would not be prepared to pay that amount extra to avoid occassional outages due to major events like this.

I am one such customer. I'd rather deal with the few outages we've had, especially when you consider something like this could not possibly have been foreseen. And if you did triple the prices, and yet something else unforeseen happened that was even worse, you'd probably have people screaming even louder.

You'll just have to work on finding a way to be "perfect." You could start by practicing walking on water.

[snakpak]

Originally posted by bitequator
Incidentally I think I can do the same thing. I have my domain MX set to FM, but the DNS is still managed by eNom (or ZoneEdit, etc). I can simply reroute the MX now (for example to use eNom's own email forwarding again) and it will take effect immediately (past experience shows change takes effect w/in 30secs). These DNS services advertise instant real-time changes (as part of so called "dynamic DNS" capability)...

True, and for the three domains I use with my fastmail.fm service I can do this as well (thank goodness!). However, where do you transfer the MX to??? I'd have to have either three different mail servers running through web hosting companies or else have my own server ready and configured so that I can flip the switch, open a hole in the firewall and start receiving mail with Postfix/qmail/sendmail.

The problem, at the moment, is that I have nowhere else to change my MX to. I hate to be so disappointed with fastmail.fm but reliability is the most important thing with my email. The contingency plan is brutal. You can't have a couple of servers within the same city block and expect to have real redundancy, even with backup generators and multiple pipes to the Internet. Why not turn the server in Europe into a something useable for more than just queuing mail?

If I kept hosting my main domains with Yahoo, I'd pay a higher price, have less storage and far fewer features, sure, but I'm absolutely certain my mail would still be working right now. As a consumer that's all I care about.

I hope the fastmail team seriously looks at a new contingency plan going forward. I really don't want to switch to another mail provider because (aside from periodic outages) I really like fastmail's service. I hope the power grid comes back online soon and we can hear from the team about future plans.

[bitequator]

Originally posted by snakpak
However, where do you transfer the MX to??? I'd have to have either three different mail servers running through web hosting companies or else have my own server ready and configured so that I can flip the switch, open a hole in the firewall and start receiving mail with Postfix/qmail/sendmail.

The problem, at the moment, is that I have nowhere else to change my MX to.

In the particular case I mentioned, I would just go to eNom control panel and switch from external MX (the messagingengine.com servers) back to eNom's own email forwarding. So the MX record for that domain would then list eNom's "eforward[x].name-services.com" forwarding servers. And of course you'd be able to set the forwarding to any existing email acct like Yahoo or whatnot. What's good about eNom system (and its resellers) is that your email forwarding config is saved even if you had later switched to external MX. So when you switch back to their forwarding, everything is there so you don't have to re-enter the forwarding settings (although if you switch back to external MX later you'd have to re-enter the external MX servers again).

And actually, for most of my domains -- whether managed on eNom, GoDaddy, RegisterFly, NameCheap, ZoneEdit, MyDomain, etc (I use them all), I've already pre-configured all the redundant email forwarding settings as much as I could, just for this kind of need For example for our primary own-domains I might have DNS managed, say by eNom, where I had configured the appropriate email forwardings (for example, targetting my FM account). But now I actually set the MX directly to FM so eNom's forwardings aren't used, but if I decided to not use FM MX I can always go back to just forwarding in just a few moments.
Furthermore I'd also have the same domain redundantly set up with, say ZoneEdit and/or MyDomain email forwardings, but those forwardings would target my Yahoo Mail Plus acct instead.

I'd originally sat down and tried to think through these redundant reserves in case if any node in the chain (mail service, fowarding service, DNS, etc) goes down, then I can minimize the difficulty and time in re-routing or switching things around w/ the email path...

Sorry I realize my explanation is way convoluted... Maybe I'm confused myself

[erimess]

Originally posted by snakpak
If I kept hosting my main domains with Yahoo, I'd pay a higher price, have less storage and far fewer features, sure, but I'm absolutely certain my mail would still be working right now. As a consumer that's all I care about.

Try remembering you're one consumer. I'm another, and that my email may not be working right this second is not all I care about. I'd rather have a lower price, more storage and a lot more features. In fact, those features are quite important to me, and are why I picked Fastmail to begin with. If they were down all the time then I might concern myself with that issue, but they're not.

Different strokes for different folks. Perhaps they ought to do a poll after this is over and find out just how many customers would like to pay triple so things like this don't happen, and how many would just assume it stays as is.

[m5comp]

I get about 75% of my e-mail via my FM account, and I was hoping there'd be some sort of contingency plan for this type of situation. It could be tomorrow, or even days, before power is restored. I just hope no e-mail is being lost.

[lunastrixae]

Originally posted by erimess

You'll just have to work on finding a way to be "perfect." You could start by practicing walking on water.

Just a note, I used to work on designing disaster recovery plans. These backup systems and recovery plans are NOT usually designed to handle ALL circumstances. Why not? Because in general it's too much of an investment to spend on something that will sit around unused most of it's time. Companies consider how much risk they are willing to take vs. investment risk. Notice those huge banks and even the friggin' nuke plants where all shut down? I know they must have disaster plans, but someone decided an electrical outage of a day wasn't worth the lost revenue vs. investment of a backup plan for that circumstance. That's business, folks.

As far as data centers going down, I'm *not* suprised. I was a wide area network admin, and I've seen many city wide outages over the years due to data center problems. This one was just unusual because it was so widespread.

Also, just a note for people who want to 'switch' to Yahoo, I used to be a customer there before I signed up with fastmail. I suffered many outages, email loss due to a server corruption, etc. The Yahoo site may have been up, but the indivdual servers sure have
issues. Worst of all, just try to contact tech support. No friendly admin like Jeremy logs in to help you out there. Status? Ha! All I ever got was a canned 'we are having problems and will be fixing soon' message. I never got my mail back. This from a paying 'customer'.

I'm willing to deal with a smaller service with personal tech support. I accept the risks that a comparitivley small operation can't invest in 25 international datacenters.

Be realistic. If you want a 'perfect' provider, be prepared to shell out cash like big folks such as the Stock Exchange or defense department. Your not going to find a "perfect plan" with anyone less.

[jwyfchan]

Originally posted by lunastrixae
Also, just a note for people who want to 'switch' to Yahoo, I used to be a customer there before I signed up with fastmail. I suffered many outages, email loss due to a server corruption, etc. The Yahoo site may have been up, but the indivdual servers sure have issues. Worst of all, just try to contact tech support. No friendly admin like Jeremy logs in to help you out there. Status? Ha! All I ever got was a canned 'we are having problems and will be fixing soon' message. I never got my mail back. This from a paying 'customer'.

I'm willing to deal with a smaller service with personal tech support. I accept the risks that a comparitivley small operation can't invest in 25 international datacenters.

Be realistic. If you want a 'perfect' provider, be prepared to shell out cash like big folks such as the Stock Exchange or defense department. Your not going to find a "perfect plan" with anyone less.

I couldn't agree with this more.

I'm baffled by the expectations that people have of FM for US$40 at the enhanced level. I've read people mentioning the cost of living, tight budgets, etc., but if your budget is that constrained, so should your expectations.

At the end of the day, I believe you should vote with your wallet. If you're not too happy with FM, be proactive and take your money somewhere else. I'm not happy about the power outage and what happened here, but I think there are bigger fish to fry. And I think my friends living in the Northeast with a fridge full of spoiled food this morning would agree with me today.

[elvey]

Originally posted by snakpak
Why not turn the server in Europe into a something useable for more than just queuing mail?

It wasn't up to even that task, actually.

But I concur with Jeremy: full sync would drive costs up too much.

[robert@fm]

Originally posted by Onno
Confirmed.

With my vertigo, I'd hate to be one of the poor souls stuck about 150 feet up on the lift hill of the Magnum XL-200...

[erimess]

Originally posted by lunastrixae

Be realistic. If you want a 'perfect' provider, be prepared to shell out cash like big folks such as the Stock Exchange or defense department. Your not going to find a "perfect plan" with anyone less.

Excuse me, but has anyone explained to you what the use of smileys is for? I was KIDDING. Do you even get the joke about learning to walk on water, i.e. the ridiculousness of the idea of being perfect?

Did you bother to read the rest of my post? Did you notice that I was agreeing with Jeremy that the tripling of costs to implement some plan or other (that I don't remember) would not be a good idea?

[lunastrixae]

Originally posted by erimess
Excuse me, but has anyone explained to you what the use of smileys is for? I was KIDDING. Do you even get the joke about learning to walk on water, i.e. the ridiculousness of the idea of being perfect?

That's what the comment "just a note" was for. I was supporting/ expanding and/or agreeing with your 'perfection' wisecrack. Just because someone quotes you it doesn't mean they are flaming you. If I'm going to flame you, I'll be a heck of a lot more obvious about it.

[erimess]

Originally posted by lunastrixae
That's what the comment "just a note" was for. I was supporting/ expanding and/or agreeing with your 'perfection' wisecrack. Just because someone quotes you it doesn't mean they are flaming you. If I'm going to flame you, I'll be a heck of a lot more obvious about it.

I didn't take it as a "flame" -- I've seen too many real flames.

When you quote someone, usually means you're talking to them, and you said "if you want perfect..." You see my connection? (Not trying to argue - just explaining.)

Anyway, sorry. I was so angry at people's unrealistic expectations of FM that it really urked me to think someone thought I was on that side of things.