Operationally speaking I sure think you're right. In a perfect world all people would have burial power and fiber, too.
Since the dollar (or bitcoin) speaks a lot louder than my server can beat up your server, people are going to choose one over the other. If you don't mind it's cloud based, Sonar is a great choice. If you don't want to do cloud based, find something else or deal with it ;) Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 10:04 AM, Simon Westlake <[email protected]> wrote: > One final thing to add here is that both Cameron and I have dealt with > this for many years, so it's not like our objections are philosophical, > they are based in the constant reality we had to deal with. I'm going to > end with one story about an issue I spent a long time troubleshooting that > is my goto when people ask me what the difference is. > > In a previous job, I once had a customer who would have their billing > randomly fail in the middle on seemingly random nights. They believed there > were all kinds of different factors contributing to it, but all I would see > in the billing logs were that billing just stopped at some point, and then > later on, there would be seemingly unrelated errors hours later. After > looking at these for a while, I came to the conclusion that something must > be hanging the billing process on this customers server, and then when it > came back to life hours later, things started failing due to disconnected > SQL connections, etc. > > So I start digging through and trying to correlate the customers that it > fails on. Did they all have some kind of special event happening? Were they > in some group that was triggering a background process that caused a > failure? Was it bad memory, or some kind of CPU issue? I was dredging > through dmesg, syslog, the billing logs, everything I could find, and > nothing added up. So I added a ton of logging to the billing process and > pushed a patched version to the server. It didn't happen again for days, > but when it did, all my logging would stop at the same time - it was like > the whole billing process was just seizing. So I started putting external > logging in. Was cron killing something, was some external process like > MySQL locking up? Waited days again, and looked at the logs - everything > was puking. So then I start thinking, it must be some kind of hardware > error, but I really don't like to go to a customer and say 'your server is > broken' when I don't have any evidence. I spent a lot more time reading > Stack Overflow, looking for examples of other people having these kinds of > problems, until eventually I had to tell them 'I just can't figure it out. > It seems like your server is completely freezing. Do you have any > monitoring in place that you can look at, or can you call me right when it > happens so I can SSH in and take a look?' > > Customer says, 'What server?' > > I say, the server your system is running on. > > Customer says, 'Oh. It's not on a server. I'm running it in a VM on my > laptop.' > > Me: ... > > 'Yeah, I just close the lid at night when I'm done working and go home.' > > On 10/18/2017 8:51 AM, Cameron Crum wrote: > > We did do a couple of on-prem installations for people, but there were > always issues and plenty of finger pointing at times. When the customer's > server reboots in the middle of a billing run who gets the blame, and how > are we, as the software provider, even supposed to be aware of it? Am I now > responsible for setting up external monitoring processes just because you > don't understand or aren't comfortable with cloud based services? It's hard > to defend yourself against things like that even though the answer seems > obvious. Also, on prem people want the same level of support, but also a > discount because you don't have to host it anymore. The truth is, most of > the time, the on-prem guys require more support, not less. Tracking down a > problem and trying to determine if it was the software's fault or the > hardware's fault is time consuming. We won't have easy access to server > logs and other diagnostic tools, and time spent acquiring that data means > more support hours. Support, as in man-hours, cost a lot more than hosted > servers. And to be clear, Wispmon didn't go out of buisiness. We were > approached by Sonar for an acquisition and it was a good deal for all > involved. Nobody from Wispmon was or will be left high and dry. We, at > Sonar, are working hard to ensure transitions are as smooth and hands off > on the customer end as possible. With that, have a good day, I have a lot > of data to move ;) > > On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 8:22 AM, Mike Hammett <[email protected]> wrote: > >> IIRC, version 3 you could have some of their services (not billing) >> on-prem. Version 4 had an on-prem ability, due to the very reasons I >> stated... a VM on your host is no different than a VM on my host from an >> OS\application perspective. >> >> >> >> ----- >> Mike Hammett >> Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/> >> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL> >> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb> >> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions> >> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL> >> Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/> >> <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix> >> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange> >> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix> >> The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/> >> <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp> >> >> >> <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg> >> ------------------------------ >> *From: *"Josh Luthman" <[email protected]> >> *To: *[email protected] >> *Sent: *Wednesday, October 18, 2017 8:20:17 AM >> *Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] Sonar >> >> Wispmon was cloud only wasn't it? >> >> Josh Luthman >> Office: 937-552-2340 <%28937%29%20552-2340> >> Direct: 937-552-2343 <%28937%29%20552-2343> >> 1100 Wayne St >> <https://maps.google.com/?q=1100+Wayne+St+Suite+1337+Troy,+OH+45373&entry=gmail&source=g> >> Suite 1337 >> <https://maps.google.com/?q=1100+Wayne+St+Suite+1337+Troy,+OH+45373&entry=gmail&source=g> >> Troy, OH 45373 >> <https://maps.google.com/?q=1100+Wayne+St+Suite+1337+Troy,+OH+45373&entry=gmail&source=g> >> >> On Oct 18, 2017 9:16 AM, "Josh Reynolds" <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> He always has a choice. >>> >>> On Oct 18, 2017 7:14 AM, "Matt Hoppes" <mattlists@rivervalleyinternet >>> .net> wrote: >>> >>>> He didn't have a choice. His cloud-based billing provider went out of >>>> business and sold to sonar. So he doesn't even really have the option of >>>> running old software, he's being forced to upgrade. >>>> >>>> On Oct 18, 2017, at 07:55, Josh Reynolds <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>> Please don't become a Sonar customer just to demonize them because you >>>> don't like their service model. >>>> >>>> Seriously. That'd be a super shitty thing to do. >>>> >>>> On Oct 18, 2017 6:52 AM, "Mike Hammett" <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I will be using it shortly as Sonar bought WISPMon. >>>>> >>>>> All of the major billing\OSS platforms with modern features are also >>>>> cloud-based, so there's not really anywhere else to go. >>>>> >>>>> That's fine for you that it works that way, but many WISPs are >>>>> increasing their use of on-premises virtualization. What about your >>>>> monitoring, DNS, RADIUS, syslog, Unimus, mail, etc., etc. servers? >>>>> >>>>> Yes, my reasons do outweigh arbitrary reasons to keep it in a cloud >>>>> environment. >>>>> >>>>> Actually, I've been fairly quiet on this particular issue and will be >>>>> increasing my advocacy efforts in this regard to all billing\OSS >>>>> platforms. >>>>> As I said, it's the SFP port of the billing\OSS world. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ----- >>>>> Mike Hammett >>>>> Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/> >>>>> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL> >>>>> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb> >>>>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions> >>>>> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL> >>>>> Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/> >>>>> <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix> >>>>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange> >>>>> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix> >>>>> The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/> >>>>> <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg> >>>>> ------------------------------ >>>>> *From: *"Darin Steffl" <[email protected]> >>>>> *To: *[email protected] >>>>> *Sent: *Tuesday, October 17, 2017 10:08:47 PM >>>>> *Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] Sonar >>>>> >>>>> I'm in agreement with Simon that it's much faster and reliable to host >>>>> in the cloud than a server on site. It would cost me many more hours, hand >>>>> holding, and worry if I had to host this server in my network. If I went >>>>> on >>>>> vacation and something happened, I'd be stressed. >>>>> >>>>> With sonar living in the cloud, there's less to worry about as it's >>>>> hosted in a much more reliable datacenter than I could afford to build. >>>>> It's also managed by sonar's team so if there's an issue, they take care >>>>> of >>>>> it. Stress free for me. >>>>> >>>>> I see why you might want to host it in house but those reasons do NOT >>>>> outweigh all the benefits of letting sonar host it in the cloud for you >>>>> and >>>>> take care of the problems. >>>>> >>>>> Mike, if you don't like Simon's decision to leave it in the cloud, >>>>> shut up and move on. There's no reason for you and Matt Hoppes to keep >>>>> beating a dead horse and sound like a broken record. Use something else >>>>> you're happy with and let the rest of us grow our business and make more $ >>>>> while you two complain about a product you don't even use. Jeez ha >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Oct 17, 2017 8:31 PM, "Seth Mattinen" <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> On 10/17/17 6:14 PM, Mike Hammett wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Expect repeated harassment until a good reason is presented or you >>>>>>> capitulate. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> It's the SFP of the billing\OSS world. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I always welcome my competitors to have external dependencies. When >>>>>> they try to hand wave their problems away as vendor or cloud problems it >>>>>> helps me gain new customers. >>>>>> >>>>>> ~Seth >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >> > > -- > Simon Westlake > Email: [email protected] > Phone: (702) 447-1247 US / (780) 900-1180 CA > --------------------------- > Sonar Software Inc > The future of ISP billing and OSShttps://sonar.software > >
