True... but Subscriber agreements written by the providers lawyers are notoriously one sided and designed specifically to protect the provider. Many times provisions in these agreements are not enforceable. The only stipulation that matters is... "Subscriber does not guarantee that they will remain a subscriber".
-----Original Message----- From: Newbie [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 9:08 AM To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds] Post-outage thoughts -- [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ] One thing constantly being missed is that section C of paragraph 9 of Steam Subscriber agreement which every one of us agreed to states that: VALVE DOES NOT GUARANTEE CONTINUOUS, ERROR-FREE, VIRUS-FREE OR SECURE OPERATION AND ACCESS TO STEAM, THE STEAM SOFTWARE, YOUR ACCOUNT AND/OR YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS(S). It means we all agreed with the fact that we can not demand Valve to support Steam at all. The fact that Valve restored the service reasonably quick means they don't want to loose customers and profit but does not mean they had obligations towards us to do so. Another thing that should be considered is overall network downtime throughout the year. What was that? less than 12 hours overall? Meaning availability is about 99.8%... Not the best figure for mission critical application but pretty much reasonable for gaming services. Regards, Newbie -----Original Message----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <hlds@list.valvesoftware.com> Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 7:36:13 -0600 Subject: Re: [hlds] Post-outage thoughts All of these post on this subject and still NOTHING FROM VALVE!! Any bets on what their gonna do? My moneys on nothing.... > > From: "Edward Luna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: 2006/12/19 Tue AM 07:18:14 CST > To: <hlds@list.valvesoftware.com> > Subject: RE: RE: RE: Re: [hlds] Post-outage thoughts > > Very well said Frazer, as always. However, I'm obligated to point out, whatever fault tolerance Valve may or may not have built in... it was insufficient for this event. Until we are informed to the contrary by Valve, we must conclude that they were not geographically redundant... furthermore, to assume they considered a wide-spread power outage in the Northwest "not very probable" does not bode well for their level of fault tolerance analysis. We needn't wonder if their plan would work, we know it failed. The salient question to be answered now is "do they intend to bring their redundancy inline with the need" and if not... will their customers accept that position? > > -----Original Message----- > From: Frazer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 7:43 AM > To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com > Subject: RE: RE: RE: Re: [hlds] Post-outage thoughts > > > Whether or not a service provider chooses to deploy redundant services is a > decision that is generally made as part of an overall risk-management > analysis. Factors such as probability of component failure, business impact > and cost are weighed in reaching a decision as to how much money a provider > should (and can afford) to invest in redundant service elements. While a > systemic power outage is a possibility, it may not be very probable. In > fact, there is every likelihood that service elements which would be > affected by such a wide outage are not all within Valve's control. We have > no information regarding Valve's service infrastructure, but we might assume > that it includes fault-tolerant elements (e.g. clustered servers, redundant > network paths, etc.) which have been chosen to provide protection from more > probable outages (for example, individual hardware failures, network outage > of a given carrier). > > Given the funding resources to do so, most service providers would eagerly > embrace "geographic redundancy". However, no business has unlimited > financial resources and in the end, Valve has to strike a balance between > cost and risk, in delivering its services. Valve has an obligation to its > investors to make balanced spending decisions and deliver sustainable > profitability as much as it needs to deliver reasonable service levels to > its customers. As well, the cost of complete redundancy would almost > certainly have to be borne in the price of the product. While the end-user > impact was certainly real, it is not, after all, an air traffic control > system. last night, our servers were full again. > > I think Valve did a respectable job in restoring services in a timely > fashion. No doubt they were extremely motivated to do so. It appeared to > me that they followed a prioritized approach, first restoring services > critical to supporting game-play. While this simply may have been a sequence > imposed by the situation, versus any kind of altruistic service policy, the > net effect was the same. > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Scott Tuttle > Sent: Monday, December 18, 2006 4:23 PM > To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com > Subject: RE: RE: RE: Re: [hlds] Post-outage thoughts > > Such redundancy is Networking 101 and Programming 101... You can choose to > ignore it if you like... But in the real word it is fact . > > Valve is probably making enough money to make it reasonable for them to > invest in a redundant system for that "money making" aparatus. That is > Economics 101. You think it looks good to investors that the "backbone" of > the system went down for the entire world because of one geological > disaster? You think that's a good selling point for software developers > that want to bring their product to market? 273,468 game players couldn't > play because Valve had all their eggs in that one "geographical" basket. > Wise business decision? You decide... > > Ok maybe they are 500 level courses but you still get the point :D > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Monday, December 18, 2006 2:57 PM > > To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com > > Subject: RE: RE: RE: Re: [hlds] Post-outage thoughts > > > > All I'm seeing is whining, pettiness, and monday morning > > quarterbacking. > > > > Lets try this. If anyone out there has a diagram of the > > Valve infrastructure, and a complete understanding of who > > they contract with for what services and facilities, then lets see it. > > > > I only am reading people bitching about what Valve should > > have done over the last 10 years, and "I could do it better", > > without any reguard or perspective on what the real world > > impact things may be having in the Seattle area. _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds [http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds] -- _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
