OT: Dealing with a hosting company with it's head up it's rear end

[Aryeh Friedman]

On Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 3:43 AM Olivier <Olivier.Nicole at cs.ait.ac.th> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am jumping a bit late in the conversation but if the problem is mainly
> a communication between your 3 VM, can't they provide a vitual switch.
> have a second virtual NIC on your VMs connected to that virtual switch
> and used for all your internal communications.
>

That is only one problem.   There are also the devices that are scattered
all over the US and connect to machines via the cell network (need a public
IP).   Our ability to automatically deploy new versions of the software.
The ability of the client's staff to connect to a windows desktop (since
the front end to the devices only runs on windows and does not have a web
interface).



> Given their lack of help, the sanest solution is to get out of there as
> soon as possible. While there is a 3 years contract, they were providing
> a service and they changed something so that service is not provided
> anymore.
>

Tried and their answer is if we insist on breaking the contract then they
will terminate it and ask for additional penalties under the breach clause.


> Even if you were using some "unsupported features", it was working and
> they broke it. So obviously they are failing their side of the contract.
> (unless you signed despite they informed you beforehand that it was
> unsupported and could be blocked anytime).
>

Their claim is it was in the contract so no need to tell us.    One such
unsupported operation is correct backups of MySQL (not just backing up the
files in whatever snapshot they were in when done -- even mid transaction
... don't get me started about their idiotic idea of using object storage
vs. block or NFS)


> You mentionned that your application is something medical, you could
> document the fact that what they did is breaking the regulations about
> medical confidentiality and since they cannot provide that, it is a case
> of "force majeure" that you must leave.
>

There website claims they are in full compliance with HIPAA (the relevant
regulation in the US) and use it as a marketing point.


> A side question, who is chose that hosting company? You or your client?
>

The client based on a) recommendations from our old hosting provider who
decided to go out of business due to the owner retiring, b) the maker of
the devices we have connectected to the system (actually the manufacturer
is another fine example of head up the ass... stuff like not even knowing
what "concurrency" was when asked a question about how the devices interact
with the vendor provided front-end/DB [which sucks and thus our ground up
rewrite of it] and when we pressed the matter where told "don't go down
that rabbit hole", this confirms something another poster said that any
software company that uses MSSQL get weird quickly -- the version of the
devices we have current use MySQL but the next generation only "support"
MSSQL since it is "better" than MySQL) and 3) by the fact that they were a
publicly traded (NY Stock Exchange)


-- 
Aryeh M. Friedman, Lead Developer, http://www.PetiteCloud.org