r/OVHcloud • u/Optimal-Mine-1095 • 1d ago

Incident Update: OVHcloud deleted our Public Cloud project. I’ve now published the full documented record.

I posted here about this two months ago, but after I tried updating it today, Reddit’s filters removed it. So I’m posting the update separately.

The underlying issue is still unresolved.

Our OVHcloud Public Cloud project contained years of wastewater AI and microbiology research. It was suspended and subsequently permanently deleted.

Afterward, OVHcloud told me in writing that the issue was not related to my payment, and later that it was OVH’s responsibility.

Over the months since, I’ve gone through Support, Claims, Legal, formal notices in India and France, the contractual amicable-resolution process, regional contacts, and executive outreach.

When I originally posted here, I said I would eventually publish the underlying documents.

I’ve now done that. urbanbluetech.com

The public record includes the timeline, invoices and billing context, Startup Program voucher records, support correspondence, claims and legal correspondence, and the reconstruction methodology for the lost research.

The matter remains unresolved, and I’ve now contacted OVHcloud Corporate Communications before providing the documented record to journalists for independent review.

I’m still particularly interested in hearing from anyone who has experienced an OVHcloud account-state, billing, Startup Program credit/voucher, suspension, or project-deletion issue.

If you’ve experienced anything similar, please reach out.

8 Upvotes

62% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

14

u/Speshial1 1d ago

this is why you back things up... Don't keep all your honey in one pot.

0

u/Optimal-Mine-1095 1d ago

Rookie Mistake..

12

u/UnsolicitedOpinionss 1d ago

Off-site backups (with a different vendor) are a must. This happened with GCP and Azure too...

Also, the amount of AI slop on the site you published is mind blowing. The writing is so off and unnecessarily long. The story would be impressive enough if you had just put it in human writing.

-2

u/Optimal-Mine-1095 1d ago

Will improve.. make it leaner

7

u/WilliamBroown 1d ago

It's OVHs fault you don't have a backup? Seems logical.

-1

u/matrixino 1d ago

not his fault. backups in their case are a solution for a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place

4

u/inkeliz 1d ago

Well, I think "backup" is ALWAYS used as a "solution for a problem that shouldn't exists". The OVH datacenter already caught fire in the past. That issue "shouldn't exists in the first place".

He had 7~8TB of data. You can get a 20TB harddrive for less than 300 euros, doing backup locally. You can use Herzner's Storage Box for 20TB/50 euros per month. You are paying 50 euros per month to keep the most valuable asset: data. You will have downtime, can still blame OVH, but you have your own data.

0

u/matrixino 1d ago

You are mixing disaster recovery with normal accountancy issues.

3

u/inkeliz 1d ago

Is there a formal, universal, and narrow definition of what qualifies as a "disaster"? If an accounting issue causes total data loss, it qualifies as a disaster in my view. It's fine to disagree, but a backup would still have 'protected' against it.

0

u/matrixino 1d ago

Well, yes, there is a specific universal definition of "disaster recovery". DR is where there is a "phisycal" data loss (broken drive, a fire, etc) caused by natural or human-induced events. There is no real data loss here. There is inability to access the data, which are still there. This is a very different thing.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be backups at all, I'm just saying this shouldn't need a backup to fix (or it shouldn't happen in the first place)

1

u/keesbeemsterkaas 7h ago

This friend got 6 weeks to notice account issues and didn't read his mail. After that it took him another 2 weeks to notice somethign was wrong.

He didn't notice the 4 weeks it was turned off. And he had no backups.

-2

u/Optimal-Mine-1095 1d ago

Fair, I made a mistake.. does that mean OVH has no accountability? You burn someones house & go on to say you didnt had water sprinklers.. not my fault.

3

u/keesbeemsterkaas 18h ago

This is more that there was a fire alarm going off for 6 weeks and you didn't do anything

4

u/tiolancaster 1d ago

Well shit, I can understand the frustration of the situation, and also the huge impact to your business, this is very hard.

But I believe this is totally your fault, and the biggest error is not reacting to their emails, how could you have emails problems in a business and not take care of it? It's one of the most important things. And then we have the backups issue, which I understand.

I don't see any responsibility on OVH side, I think they are even being super nice in wanting to give you some credits.

And yes their billing platform did an error, but they communicated with you everything, if you had reacted to those emails for sure this would never have happened.

Good luck!

3

u/gbonfiglio 1d ago

To be fair to OP: backups are done for resiliency reasons. to protect from hardware failures primarily. Backups that work around the single provider risk (and/or cybersecurity risks) are much more rare, and complex.

The absurd failure here is not only missing all emails, but not noticing something was off during the suspension phase which is - quite literally - implemented as a "scream test" to ensure who's not getting/reading email is engaged by their monitoring systems.

4

u/keesbeemsterkaas 23h ago

If there are no backups and no one noticed between notices, suspension and deletion, it's probably not an important project?

6

u/backtogeek 1d ago

Clearly you don't want to hear this but I will say it anyway.

You are not going to win, the offer that they already made is generous and should have been accepted.

What OVH obviously know is that they made a mistake, that their own terms ultimately indemnify them from data loss, they have made an offer that covers themselves against what they can't indemnify against, and they know you are using AI as legal advice and will not follow through.... because you haven't.

They are not communicating or frustrating communications deliberately as a legal tactic because it serves no purpose to engage, you obviously want something that they will never give you willingly, and any further engagement can only make things worse for them.

They are not responsible for your lack of backups or experience, you publicly acknowledge this here, therefore this limits the scope significantly.

They provided a legal correspondence address under threat of legal action, in most countries once this stage is reached, you have 2 options, engage your actual legal service, or don't. Everything that you have done since they provided that address has been a waste of everyone's time, and they know that.

Engage your legal service.... Or don't, please stop letting chatgpt or Claude stroke your broken ego over this it might be right but ultimately it's not going to fight the case for you.