Every hosting provider advertises 99.9% uptime. But what does that number actually mean, and what happens when they miss it?
Uptime Math
| SLA Level | Allowed Downtime/Month | Allowed Downtime/Year |
|---|---|---|
| 99.0% | 7 hours 18 minutes | 3 days 15 hours |
| 99.5% | 3 hours 39 minutes | 1 day 19 hours |
| 99.9% | 43 minutes | 8 hours 46 minutes |
| 99.95% | 21 minutes | 4 hours 23 minutes |
| 99.99% | 4 minutes | 52 minutes |
The difference between 99.9% and 99.99% is massive: 43 minutes of downtime per month vs 4 minutes.
What SLAs Cover (and Don't)
Typically Covered
| Component | Covered? |
|---|---|
| Network connectivity | Yes |
| Hardware failures | Yes |
| Hypervisor (virtualization) | Yes |
| Power outages | Yes |
| Cooling failures | Yes |
Typically NOT Covered
| Component | Covered? |
|---|---|
| Your software crashes | No |
| DDoS attacks | Varies |
| Scheduled maintenance | No |
| Your configuration errors | No |
| Resource overuse (your fault) | No |
| Third-party DNS issues | No |
Read the SLA carefully. "Network uptime" is not the same as "your website being up."
How Credits Work
When uptime falls below the SLA:
| Uptime | Typical Credit |
|---|---|
| 99.5-99.9% | 10% monthly credit |
| 99.0-99.5% | 25% monthly credit |
| 95.0-99.0% | 50% monthly credit |
| Below 95.0% | 100% monthly credit |
Credits are applied to future invoices. You don't get cash refunds.
The Real Cost of Downtime
| Business Type | Revenue/Hour | 1 Hour Downtime Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Small blog | $0 | $0 |
| Small e-commerce | $50-200 | $50-200 |
| Medium business | $200-1,000 | $200-1,000 |
| Large e-commerce | $5,000+ | $5,000+ |
A 10% monthly credit on a $20/month VPS = $2. Your actual downtime cost is almost always higher than the SLA credit.
Monitoring Your Uptime
Free Monitoring Tools
| Tool | Checks | Alert Methods |
|---|---|---|
| UptimeRobot (free) | 50 monitors, 5-min intervals | Email, SMS, webhook |
| Hetrix Tools (free) | 15 monitors, 1-min intervals | Email, webhook |
| StatusPage.io | Status pages |
Self-Hosted Monitoring
# Simple uptime check script
#!/bin/bash
URL="https://yoursite.com"
STATUS=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" "$URL")
if [ "$STATUS" != "200" ]; then
echo "Site down! Status: $STATUS" | mail -s "ALERT: Site Down" you@email.com
fi
Run every minute with cron:
* * * * * /opt/monitor/check.sh
What to Monitor
| Check | Frequency | Alert Threshold |
|---|---|---|
| HTTP response code | 1 minute | Not 200 |
| Response time | 1 minute | > 3 seconds |
| SSL certificate expiry | Daily | < 14 days |
| Disk space | Hourly | > 85% |
| CPU load | 5 minutes | > 90% sustained |
| Memory usage | 5 minutes | > 90% |
Maximizing Your Actual Uptime
| Action | Impact on Uptime |
|---|---|
| Keep software updated | Prevents security-related outages |
| Configure auto-restart for services | Reduces human response time |
| Set up monitoring with alerts | Faster incident awareness |
| Test backups regularly | Faster recovery |
| Use redundant DNS | Prevents DNS-related downtime |
Your hosting provider guarantees infrastructure uptime. Your application uptime depends on your configuration, updates, and monitoring.
Space-Node's VPS hosting provides reliable infrastructure with NVMe SSD and premium hardware. Combine that with proper monitoring and application management for maximum uptime.
