99% Uptime Guarantee

It seems as though nearly all web hosting providers promise 99% uptime. Therefore, the promise alone does not make the choice any easier. While there are sites that provide monitoring services that rate the actual uptime of hosts, the real question you should ask a web host is what the guarantee entails.

There is no question that even the best web host will have some down time. That is why no host promises 100% uptime. When your server does go down, what are the consequences? Will the web host say nothing and just eventually turn it back on, pretending like nothing happened? Will they apologize after a reboot? Will they assure you that it will never happen again?

The truth is, when a website is critical to an organization or business, a web host, which is also a business, should compensate the customer for downtime. That guarantee should include a clause about compensation. It may take the form of pro-rating a monthly fee or some other form, but the ultimate outcome should satisfy the customer.

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The ICANN Salary Debate

CircleID published a noteworthy article yesterday about salaries at ICANN.

The author, George Kirikos, raises some interesting points. Though ICANN is a non-profit, it gives its employees salaries and job security on par with the corporate sector. Despite the presence of a recession, ICANN has laid off no one and has actually raised salaries!

Kirikos argues that ICANN salaries should be scrutinized against those at other non-profits like hospitals and universities. He believes ICANN employees shouldn’t be compensated any higher than workers at these places.

While there is considerable doubt about whether the organization deserves non-profit status, ICANN employees deserve higher salaries than the industry norm. Why? These are the people running the Internet. We want the most qualified, competent individuals making the decisions that determine the future of the web.

In the coming months and years, ICANN will face more and more competition from the private sector. If it intends to survive, it needs to be able to lure professionals from the highest paying jobs. Just because it’s non-profit doesn’t mean it has to be stuck with the applicants who didn’t get jobs at Google/Microsoft/IBM.