What's an Outage?
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"Some folks here have stated they consider the power out to b an outage with their ap becuase the custmer is unable to use it.
OK, what if the customers machine blows up (hard drive dies, power supply dies, motherboard issue). In the logic of the above this is an outage of the application. Now the person who just said they can go to a different machine keep in mind, power out at the house doesn't mean no power at the starbucks with WIFI down the road. The fact is they can use the application by just changing their position even if it means driving 50,100,200 miles out of an external issues affected area."
"Now another one. Suppose a user get's into a accident today after they leave work. When they next come in both arms had to be amputated. So now thru no issues of your own and evn thou the software is working as designed and actively running, with the same principal as the power outage thing te customer cannot use it. Thus in yor statemen this too is an outage???????"
These are amusing extremes, but I think ultimately the bulk of the "outage" burden still lies with the application provider, in that the ultimate test of a business is whether the customers are happy and accept the explanations. One can easily win the outage definition battle but still end up losing customers.
Regarding the first example: I think the issue is (1) what defines outage and (2) does the customer have the right to blame the company for the problem. If the customer's computer blows up (or if there is a regional blackout), most reasonable people will agree that this is an outage of some kind but that they won't blame the specific web site company for it. It is not an outage of the application, but it still makes the site unavailable for anywhere from one to large numbers of people.
However, I don't think most customers would suddenly say it is not an outage just because they are directed to a site 50 miles away to get service. I think they'd be almost as likely to get upset if they are told to go so far out of their way as they would be if they were simply told that the service was unavailable for the night. It depends on the customer and the situation of course, but to me that would not be the time to start parsing outage definitions to them.
As for blackouts, I still think those should count as outages from the company's point of view, but again, reasonable customers would not single out the company as blameworthy for customers not being able to reach their site. And I do concede that even from the company's point of view they could be put into a different category - "outage beyond company control" or something like that, covering large blackouts, storms, etc.
Regarding the second example, I think I covered that one with my statement "for any reason not due to their own inability or lack of training." Losing arms would count as inability - or rather, disability. Same with training. It's not an "outage" if the customer ignores or hasn't been taught the steps that have been given to them to use the application properly. But the training still needs to be addressed or else they can't really use the application.
My point was that one cannot ignore the customer when defining outage. Of course for company statistics outages will not include things like customers' computer exploding, but in terms of dealing with the customers, it is very risky to start saying, "Well, no, technically that wasn't an 'outage'..." That response is bound to tick off customers and doesn't serve any external purpose.
webrunner
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A SQL query walks into a bar and sees two tables. He walks up to them and asks, "Can I join you?"
Ref.: http://tkyte.blogspot.com/2009/02/sql-joke.html -
"but in terms of dealing with the customers, it is very risky to start saying, "Well, no, technically that wasn't an 'outage'..." That response is bound to tick off customers and doesn't serve any external purpose."
Well, based on that statement, I'd guess the final definition of an outage is what the contract language says it is.
He who pays the bills decides.
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* Noel -
How many MS programmers does it take to change a light bulb ?
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
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Outage = perception
... or ...
Outage = contract stipulations
On the perception side, if you can't do your job because some system is down, I'd consider that an outage.
I won't get into contract lingo...
--Jeff Moden
RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally) -
NONE. It's a hardware problem.
If it was a software problem we would need a failure analysis meeting, a change scope determination conference adjenda meeting, a buy-build-outsource commitee, an environmental impact analysis, a user interface impact study. I could think of more but I'm late for our daily SCRUM.
ATBCharles Kincaid
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Charles, your answer is correct
However your reasoning is a bit off
To recap the correct Question/Answer/Reason scenario:
Q. How many MS programmers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. None
Reason: MS declares darkness to be a new standard
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
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Ah, but if they're working in the dark, will they know when a light bulb needs to be changed?
Lots of bright guys up there, maybe they just hire another one (I know, groan)
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Typical of Microsoft to still be trying to tweak old technology light bulbs (version 1.1) instead of using a more modern CF or LED technology.
And if they work in the dark, then that would explain the patches we get.
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"Your lightbulb has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down"....
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again? -
So with the light bulb metaphor if the power went out do you assume the outage is the light bulb and thus replace it until you find one that works? Due you call the light bulb maker and ask for a refund (CF's have a 5 year warranty so don't laugh too much on this stretch) due to an outage?
Or is the Light Buld working as designed and thus is not itself suffering an outage? It may be suffering from an outage but is the light bulb itself having an outage itself?
The big issue is semantics. Some will say an outage is one thing and others will see it as something entirely different. This isn't to say those who see it not as an outage as wrong it is a matter of the wrong statement being used repeatedly until the correct usage is pretty much dead. Check out dictionary.com and see if you are any less confused as to the proper usage. But all in all a customer can suffer an outage without the system having an outage itself. And perception drives the customer not neccessarily the business.
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Richard Nixon once had an outage. 18 minutes long as I recall...
Not much became of that except he lost his job and a few people went to jail.
Just this morning, our e-mail server went down. Was that an outage? An inconvenience yes. People were still able to work, they just had to use a device called a phone instead. It took about an hour an half to correct the problem. Nobody went home and while e-mails were delayed, they eventually were all sent or received. Not much worse than when the mail is late.
I think the words inconvenience and outage are sometimes misapplied.
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<quote>
Just this morning, our e-mail server went down. Was that an outage? An inconvenience yes. People were still able to work, they just had to use a device called a phone instead. It took about an hour an half to correct the problem. Nobody went home and while e-mails were delayed, they eventually were all sent or received. Not much worse than when the mail is late.
</quote>
Well - it would be an outage IF your job consisted solely of answering, processing or sending e-mails. This would be a "partial" outage: while you weren't able to send e-mail, you did have OTHER things to do not involving e-mail. Outage entails a loss of a service required to perform their task. It happens to have also only been an inconvenience because of how short the outage was, and everyone had something else they could do.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again? -
Heh... hell no
According to some of the people I work with, you need to rebuild the power company --Jeff Moden
RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally) -
I think everyone's getting a bit confused with "outages" from different perspectives;
1) From a user's point-of-view, an outage simply involves them being unable to use the system at all.
2) For the company, it's when the system fails because of something they've caused, (whether deliberately, (!), or not).
[So power failures, etc., aren't normally counted by businesses, even though users see the same thing as if the server crashes].
Unfortunately, that's how I think most people see how this works, even though it doesn't make sense to me when it's written down!
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