11 points by brk 29 minutes ago | link
Although I sometimes get downvoted for this, I'll say it again:
You can't outsource your liability.
Posted Here:
If your product is a webapp, then the underlying messy bits of backups, hardware, availability and redundancy also require some amount of conscious thought on your part. Not every site/app needs it's own mini-datacenter, and you might not even need your own dedicated server (though you probably do when you reach a certain minimal amount of scale). But you DO need to have someone who is thinking about backups and availability, and a valid solution is not to assume that the smart folks at Amazon or Rackspace or any other hosting provider are going to be completely and consistently working with your best interests and uptime in mind.
EVRYTHING fails at some point. Every server, every generator, every upstream connection, every hosting provider big or small. And in this case I mean fail as in goes dark for some period of time not covered by backups or hot-spares.
So, plan accordingly.