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Subject: Re: Hosting Preference
From: Jeff Charette <iomatix@yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: 
 <CAN-3CB+BWdzoT9JmTFOQf8qfFg_trTMtyLaetLSZ0d977354Fw@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:45:15 -0400
Cc: Iris Couch <us@iriscouch.com>
Message-Id: <BB8267A7-663B-4149-B879-1A821CBAE301@yahoo.com>
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 <CAN-3CB+BWdzoT9JmTFOQf8qfFg_trTMtyLaetLSZ0d977354Fw@mail.gmail.com>
To: user@couchdb.apache.org

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I figured you guys were under fire.  Glad to hear you are on the other =
side of that.  I am still on and sticking with iris and probably will =
use cloudant too eventually.  I hope my questions didn't cause any =
issues, just had to launch 6 months of work and I myself am under that =
support load as we speak.  Looking forward to the premium service when =
you guys get to it. =20

Also, anything I can do to help, let me know.  We are a lot better at =
design than development.
Jeff Charette | Principal=20
We Are Charette
web / identity / packaging

m  415.298.2707
w  wearecharette.com
e   jeffrey@wearecharette.com

On Mar 12, 2013, at 8:21 PM, Jason Smith <jhs@iriscouch.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 2:01 AM, Jeff Charette <iomatix@yahoo.com> =
wrote:
>=20
>> What is your CouchDB host preference?  Here has been my experience =
which
>> leaves me as a loss for hosted services.
>>=20
>> Cloudant
>> - doesn't support newest couch techniques like require and I can't =
find a
>> tutorial to port my couch app.
>>=20
>> Iriscouch (currently using)
>> -  I have nothing but love for these guys, but have had a lot of =
issues
>> lately.  I've requested an upgrade with no response unfortunetly.
>> - they are on 1.2.1 which would be great, but 1.2.1 has a big issue =
which
>> has been fixed for 1.2.2
>> https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-1651
>=20
>=20
> Thanks for your love. Regarding Iris Couch, I am biased; but I myself =
have
> nothing but love for the people at Cloudant, too. Of course, =
ultimately,
> you don't need people, you need the stuff they make and do (i.e. =
CouchDB
> service).
>=20
> You are right that we have had issues lately. We've always had random
> failures; but this is the first time things have gotten bad enough =
that
> general users felt prolonged slowness or unavailability.
>=20
> Long story short: these issues are behind us and we are back to our
> well-known quality of service.
>=20
> I thought our failure would be a boring story, but maybe I'll tell it
> anyway.
>=20
> The big problem was that we failed to support people, not that we =
failed to
> run software. Do you know how lots of stuff runs just fine from 0% to =
about
> 90% or 95% capacity, then it collapses horribly (e.g. memory, =
filesystems,
> disk i/o)? We experienced a similar collapse with customer support.
>=20
> The past two weeks, due to vacations and traveling engineers, we were =
doing
> less regular maintenance than usual. Then, also randomly, a few =
machines
> crashed badly. As a sysadmin I like CouchDB, because only safe =
operations
> are allowed. (For example, CouchDB has no JOINs, therefore every read
> operation is guaranteed to complete in logarithmic time.) That is =
usually
> the situation; however there is still the occasional memory leak or =
out of
> control process or whatever. Anyway, we exhausted memory on several
> machines which crashed many people's couches.
>=20
> That's fine; but the real collapse happened when everybody began to =
inquire
> about their server. Fixing stuff over SSH is quick, but supporting =
people
> takes much more time. When we saw the support volume spike, I decided =
to
> enter triage mode: make a priority list of technical and personal
> obligations and work from the top down.
>=20
> All software has real-time constraints. In fact, all human activity =
has
> real-time constraints. Right? Right? Hello? Hello! Can you hear me? =
After a
> certain time, if something is not done, it may as well never be done. =
That
> is how I approached our support load.
>=20
> I have learned from many trusted advisors (Hi, Jan and Noah and =
everyone!)
> that "support load" is a terrible phrase. CPU load is CPU load; but
> "support load" is people. So, I have learned my lesson, and we are now
> working through the entire backlog. Some people emailed to tell us
> nevermind, they had moved to Cloudant. I think they wanted to twist =
the
> knife a bit, to blow off steam. Okay, but that put them near the =
bottom of
> our priority list (they are no longer using the service; outstanding =
issues
> are moot). However they are still people. We will be emailing even =
them, to
> say the issue has been resolved. If you ask a question, I should =
respond,
> otherwise it's rude.
>=20
> --=20
> Iris Couch


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