How does this change how you view FastMail?

mescanne · 14 Nov 2005, 07:33 AM

During this mail outage I have spent a lot of time investigating alternatives. And there is not much out there, aside from doing your own solution, that can provide the same capabilities of FastMail. There are many reasons I'm here and not using GMail or Yahoo or any of the other alternatives.

My conclusion is to not rely so much on FastMail but I will, more than likely, renew next year as well. I'm now forwarding all of my email to gmail.com which then forwards on to FastMail. That way I have a copy at GMail.

That's how I'm taking it for now. Ideally I'd have my own server again .... !!

Mark

kastaway · 14 Nov 2005, 08:58 AM

I'm very surprised to have to agree. I thought email was more or less a commodity. Turns out that either I've become addicted to a couple features of FM, or else it really does a good job differentiating itself in the market, with useful features.

In seconds I set up a forwarding "mailing list" for a small group. I hand out multiple permutations of my domain using subdomains. There is nothing I can't do from the web interface, wherever I am.

But don't get me wrong -- this outage was really bad. It's just that it was so incomprehensible, that I still don't understand how it could happen.

**Gankaku** · 14 Nov 2005, 09:18 AM

To be honest there's not much else out there. Otherwise we'd have all heard of it and it'd be talked about here frequently.

I'm not going anywhere; I love Fastmail and what's been done with the service. I feel it's really personalized for ME (as I'm sure many others feel that it's personalized for THEM.) However, I am going to update my procedures and how I receive email.

And I have to agree with others that for a paid-for service (and not cheap, either, at the Enhanced level!) that I expected some type of RAID/fault tolerance procedures in place that would keep this kind of thing from happening. So many customers rely, truly rely, on FM for their business and work, and it really hits one in the pocket if we cannot work. If we're relying upon them for a professional service, and paying for such, the FM folks must provide us in kind with a service in which breaking points are reduced as much as possible.

I would like the FM team to implement procedures so this does not happen again, and to consider other areas that could break and then implement procedures to prevent outages before they happen. This is what I expect from a professional service.

Dim · 14 Nov 2005, 09:38 AM

I agree on the majority of the points.

Yes, this outage was a major inconvenience, but I will continue using this service.

I'll just set my external aliases to point to an additional account for safety.

Dim · 14 Nov 2005, 09:40 AM

In short, FM still rocks :0)

CyberSaint · 14 Nov 2005, 11:15 AM

I'm still waiting to hear something from the FastMail folks as to what they intend to do to prevent this kind of thing from occurring in the future. I do also have a fear of losing all my data that I THOUGHT was safe on a "professional" server.

My view of FM has changed in that I still like the product overall, but my confidence in it has taken a huge hit.

I'm not bailing yet, but I am very busy exploring my options in case a satisfactory response from FastMail isn't forthcoming.

CS

William9 · 14 Nov 2005, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dim
In short, FM still rocks :0)

Still rocks -- not quite. Somewhat crumbled in my opnion. I use an "Enhanced" FastMail account for business/professional e-mail. This last outage of about 3 days duration diminshed my opinion of FastMail. I was astonished to find that when one lousy server fails and your account is on it, you're without service until they get that server fixed -- and it can take 2 or 3 days to fix it. The outage was so long that it interferred with vital communications with some of my clients.

William9 · 14 Nov 2005, 11:35 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by CyberSaint
I'm still waiting to hear something from the FastMail folks as to what they intend to do to prevent this kind of thing from occurring in the future. I do also have a fear of losing all my data that I THOUGHT was safe on a "professional" server.

My view of FM has changed in that I still like the product overall, but my confidence in it has taken a huge hit.

I'm not bailing yet, but I am very busy exploring my options in case a satisfactory response from FastMail isn't forthcoming.

CS

I agree completely with this assessment. I will need reassurance that FM has mitigated this type of failure before I renew my FastMail accounts.

rajivpant · 14 Nov 2005, 11:40 AM

What do you mean there is not much out there? There are several services comparable to FastMail.fm:

Here are a few examples:

Runbox. They offer 10GB of email and have equal or more features to Fastmail.fm! I'd argue Runbox is a direct competitor, feature by feature, to FastMail.fm. There is a Runbox forum right here on this site. Check it out.

1 and 1 hosting: They are MS Exchange Server based and being on Microsoft technologies, more expensive, but if you like the MS Outlook world, they are very feature rich and give you the full power of MS Exchange messaging.

... several others that have been mentioned in other threads here. Fastmail.fm is far from being the only service of its kind.

William9 · 14 Nov 2005, 11:41 AM

I think how one reacts to the outage depends on whether your account was affected (i.e. on server 4) and whether you use your account for casual e-mail or for business or professional purposes in which case it was more than a bump in the road -- more like your rental car failing in the middle of the Mojave Desert on the way to an important business meeting.

Trip · 14 Nov 2005, 11:44 AM

First, hope you don't mind that I'm using your words here to make my point, Lisa. Please trust that my reply is made in a positive light. Cheers!

Quote:

Originally posted by Gankaku
To be honest there's not much else out there. Otherwise we'd have all heard of it and it'd be talked about here frequently.

I'd say there are a lot more services out there for hosting your email than you may think (at least for those with their own domains), but they aren't mentioned here mostly because the clients using them are out of the profile of those who would be at a forum like this (this leads to my point below, so don't speculate quite yet

). Yeah, not many can match Fastmail with a web-interface, featurewise at least, but there are plenty of services with the essentials that get it done, and do it quite reliably. You just have to look to find them, and be willing to pay their rates...

Quote:

And I have to agree with others that for a paid-for service (and not cheap, either, at the Enhanced level!) that I expected some type of RAID/fault tolerance procedures in place that would keep this kind of thing from happening. So many customers rely, truly rely, on FM for their business and work, and it really hits one in the pocket if we cannot work. If we're relying upon them for a professional service, and paying for such, the FM folks must provide us in kind with a service in which breaking points are reduced as much as possible.

My answer to this is NOT, I repeat NOT a slam on you or anyone in particular, but just my response to the general consensus around here, naively accepted by most, that 1) Fastmail is relatively expensive for that you get and 2) one should get better performance out of the deal. My answer is this post (don't read for emotion there, just for content, I was quite purturbed at the time I wrote it because I was attempting to wade against the current of stupidity which I saw overflowing in the FM forum).

* Of course, the risk I run by including the link above is that I know somebody is going to react emotionally to it, as if I am advocating that the word "cheap" is inherently "bad" and "expensive" is inherently "good." And once they go down that road, they're lost from the point I was trying to make about the bigger picture at play. I hope we can try to see things objectively, in light of that.

Trip

William9 · 14 Nov 2005, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by rajivpant
What do you mean there is not much out there? There are several services comparable to FastMail.fm:

Here are a few examples:

Runbox. They offer 10GB of email and have equal or more features to Fastmail.fm! I'd argue Runbox is a direct competitor, feature by feature, to FastMail.fm. There is a Runbox forum right here on this site. Check it out.

1 and 1 hosting: They are MS Exchange Server based and being on Microsoft technologies, more expensive, but if you like the MS Outlook world, they are very feature rich and give you the full power of MS Exchange messaging.

... several others that have been mentioned in other threads here. Fastmail.fm is far from being the only service of its kind.

Runbox's uptime was slightly less than FastMail's on one rating list. However, that was before this current 3 day hiatus. I would accept shorter downtimes (an hour or two for example) but not this long one.

InResponse · 14 Nov 2005, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by William9
Runbox's uptime was slightly less than FastMail's on one rating list. However, that was before this current 3 day hiatus. I would accept shorter downtimes (an hour or two for example) but not this long one.

What list or lists did you find?

Could you give a link or some links here?

Thanks.

Trip · 14 Nov 2005, 01:14 PM

I think will may have been talking about something I had posted....

Do a SEARCH (top right link) for "uptime report" and peruse a couple of those results. I am sure you'll see what he saw, at some point.

Trip

mikev99 · 14 Nov 2005, 01:48 PM

I am as unhappy as anyone over the problems we had this weekend and have so stated in a couple or so threads.

On the other hand,

FM support was on top of it, kept us in the loop about what was happening, admitted they need to review their procedures, and apologized for the problems.

I still have an eraser on my pencil and did appreciate their attitude and efforts.

The market always decides, but I think I will hang around for a while.

14 Nov 2005, 07:33 AM	#1
mescanne Junior Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 9	How does this change how you view FastMail? During this mail outage I have spent a lot of time investigating alternatives. And there is not much out there, aside from doing your own solution, that can provide the same capabilities of FastMail. There are many reasons I'm here and not using GMail or Yahoo or any of the other alternatives. My conclusion is to not rely so much on FastMail but I will, more than likely, renew next year as well. I'm now forwarding all of my email to gmail.com which then forwards on to FastMail. That way I have a copy at GMail. That's how I'm taking it for now. Ideally I'd have my own server again .... !! Mark

14 Nov 2005, 11:40 AM	#9
rajivpant Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 5	There are many altenatives to FastMail.fm What do you mean there is not much out there? There are several services comparable to FastMail.fm: Here are a few examples: Runbox. They offer 10GB of email and have equal or more features to Fastmail.fm! I'd argue Runbox is a direct competitor, feature by feature, to FastMail.fm. There is a Runbox forum right here on this site. Check it out. 1 and 1 hosting: They are MS Exchange Server based and being on Microsoft technologies, more expensive, but if you like the MS Outlook world, they are very feature rich and give you the full power of MS Exchange messaging. ... several others that have been mentioned in other threads here. Fastmail.fm is far from being the only service of its kind.

14 Nov 2005, 01:48 PM	#15
mikev99 Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 658	FM's Support Was There! I am as unhappy as anyone over the problems we had this weekend and have so stated in a couple or so threads. On the other hand, FM support was on top of it, kept us in the loop about what was happening, admitted they need to review their procedures, and apologized for the problems. I still have an eraser on my pencil and did appreciate their attitude and efforts. The market always decides, but I think I will hang around for a while.

14 Nov 2005, 08:58 AM	#2
kastaway = Permanently banned = Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 128	I'm very surprised to have to agree. I thought email was more or less a commodity. Turns out that either I've become addicted to a couple features of FM, or else it really does a good job differentiating itself in the market, with useful features. In seconds I set up a forwarding "mailing list" for a small group. I hand out multiple permutations of my domain using subdomains. There is nothing I can't do from the web interface, wherever I am. But don't get me wrong -- this outage was really bad. It's just that it was so incomprehensible, that I still don't understand how it could happen.

14 Nov 2005, 09:18 AM	#3
Gankaku Moderator Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Virginia, USA Posts: 3,265	To be honest there's not much else out there. Otherwise we'd have all heard of it and it'd be talked about here frequently. I'm not going anywhere; I love Fastmail and what's been done with the service. I feel it's really personalized for ME (as I'm sure many others feel that it's personalized for THEM.) However, I am going to update my procedures and how I receive email. And I have to agree with others that for a paid-for service (and not cheap, either, at the Enhanced level!) that I expected some type of RAID/fault tolerance procedures in place that would keep this kind of thing from happening. So many customers rely, truly rely, on FM for their business and work, and it really hits one in the pocket if we cannot work. If we're relying upon them for a professional service, and paying for such, the FM folks must provide us in kind with a service in which breaking points are reduced as much as possible. I would like the FM team to implement procedures so this does not happen again, and to consider other areas that could break and then implement procedures to prevent outages before they happen. This is what I expect from a professional service.

14 Nov 2005, 09:38 AM	#4
Dim Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Eastern Nebraska Posts: 69	I agree on the majority of the points. Yes, this outage was a major inconvenience, but I will continue using this service. I'll just set my external aliases to point to an additional account for safety.

14 Nov 2005, 09:40 AM	#5
Dim Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Eastern Nebraska Posts: 69	In short, FM still rocks :0)

14 Nov 2005, 11:15 AM	#6
CyberSaint Essential Contributor Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Hurricane, WV Posts: 206	I'm still waiting to hear something from the FastMail folks as to what they intend to do to prevent this kind of thing from occurring in the future. I do also have a fear of losing all my data that I THOUGHT was safe on a "professional" server. My view of FM has changed in that I still like the product overall, but my confidence in it has taken a huge hit. I'm not bailing yet, but I am very busy exploring my options in case a satisfactory response from FastMail isn't forthcoming. CS

14 Nov 2005, 11:41 AM	#10
William9 The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: San Francisco Posts: 2,281	I think how one reacts to the outage depends on whether your account was affected (i.e. on server 4) and whether you use your account for casual e-mail or for business or professional purposes in which case it was more than a bump in the road -- more like your rental car failing in the middle of the Mojave Desert on the way to an important business meeting.

14 Nov 2005, 01:14 PM	#14
Trip Master of the @ Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: USA Posts: 1,347 Representative of: Runbox.com	I think will may have been talking about something I had posted.... Do a SEARCH (top right link) for "uptime report" and peruse a couple of those results. I am sure you'll see what he saw, at some point. Trip