What was the issue?

[JMarr]

OMG.!! I pride myself on not blaming the refs, but WOW, that was way out of control.

Refs were in the bag to at least keep it close. Never seen it so obvious. The league needs to look into it.

 

[Bella*chick]

That's the Redskins official forum so I'm sure their hardware is great. Daniel Snyder has big pockets

Is it? I thought Hog Heaven was?

Just tell us what you need, we can out-Snyder Snyder.

 

[Big-T]

Ian, please stop apologizing. Thanks for all you do. Any chance we can help out with more than the Membership Fees?

Something like a tiered membership? Something like:
Free
Subscriber
Donator
Premium
Elite

I know if I had the money spare I'd gladly chip in and when some does become available I'll be donating.

 

[ddanny1992]

Maybe have like a vip section, but I'm not sure what would be vip here lol.

 

[blackglass3]

Something like a tiered membership? Something like:
Free
Subscriber
Donator
Premium
Elite

I know if I had the money spare I'd gladly chip in and when some does become available I'll be donating.

Not a bad idea, IMHO. I spend so much time on hear reading and learning, at $18 a year it feels like a steal. Add in the free Patriots SWAG and t-shirt and I feel like I am ripping Ian off.

 

[IcyPatriot]

Why did this forum not accessible? Yes, I know there was definitely many people trying to log on, but I am interested to know what why this website could not handle it?
It is money issue? I can chip in big time if it is a money issue.

2280 posts and because you have access issues you want to donate now?

why not before because your happy to be here.

Same goes for others who don't donate ...step up ...

We have a class forum with a class owner in Ian ... top notch always and he brings effort ... lots of effort and devotion to keeping it first rate.

 

[Ian]

2280 posts and because you have access issues you want to donate now?

why not before because your happy to be here.

Same goes for others who don't donate ...step up ...

We have a class forum with a class owner in Ian ... top notch always and he brings effort ... lots of effort and devotion to keeping it first rate.

It was a valid question and I don't fault him for asking it regardless of someone's post count or whether or not they donate. There's no way it should ever have been down for an entire game, and it's my job regardless to make sure it doesn't happen again. As I said, it was one of those freak times where I couldn't be here and it figures that's when the issue happened. I'll spend this week trying to see what I can do to make sure we don't have a problem next week during the Ravens game.

 

[loofasisgeek]

Ian, I might suggest that you also talk to someone beyond your current host. Your current host is not going to tell you how to get to the cloud (Amazon AWS , etc). They will sell you what they have. You could build something on AWS that would scale seamlessly (balancer spinning up new server instances). You could expand and contract based on near term demand.

I haven't looked at how vbulletin would play, but the point is that current host isn't the only conversation to have.

You've got a great board. It's an asset that can attract capital if you're worried about raising the dough to invest in the site.

 

[DaBruinz]

This forum has been crumbling consistently in big games (kind of like the Falcons). Its usually not for the entire game like today but there are times where the forums been down for a good quater. Maybe its for the better because there was certainly a period of time where I probably wouldn't have wanted to read what was going on here.

This is false. Ian had done a tremendous job over the past few years making sure it didn't go down during big games the way it did today. Today reminded me of a Denial of Service attack, which Patsfans.com has suffered in the past. Not sure if that is what it was, but that's what it seemed like to me.

 

[DaBruinz]

Ian - On a different note, please let the data center know that they need to have someone monitoring the system next Sunday from 5pm to 10pm EST..

 

[Ian]

Ian, I might suggest that you also talk to someone beyond your current host. Your current host is not going to tell you how to get to the cloud (Amazon AWS , etc). They will sell you what they have. You could build something on AWS that would scale seamlessly (balancer spinning up new server instances). You could expand and contract based on near term demand.

I haven't looked at how vbulletin would play, but the point is that current host isn't the only conversation to have.

You've got a great board. It's an asset that can attract capital if you're worried about raising the dough to invest in the site.

Oddly enough I've thought about that but from what research I have done, I've found that moving to that type of hosting would be even costlier than what I currently spend, not to mention the magnitude of data that would need to be moved and the costs involved in doing that. But I agree eventually that's what I'd like to do - although Amazon crashed Netflix last week so nothing is 100% .

 

[Ian]

Ian - On a different note, please let the data center know that they need to have someone monitoring the system next Sunday from 5pm to 10pm EST..

LOL - way ahead of you

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Why did this forum not accessible? Yes, I know there was definitely many people trying to log on, but I am interested to know what why this website could not handle it?
It is money issue? I can chip in big time if it is a money issue.

you don't have to "chip in big time." You could just do what many of us do and become a PatsFans.com Supporter. I'm sure Ian would be very appreciative.

 

[DaBruinz]

LOL - way ahead of you

Figured you were.. BTW, did you get my PM ?????

 

[Fencer]

Ian,

I'm sure a lot of members have relevant technical expertise. If you shared some details, such as what you spend and what some of the usage metrics are, they might have ideas.

 

[loofasisgeek]

Oddly enough I've thought about that but from what research I have done, I've found that moving to that type of hosting would be even costlier than what I currently spend, not to mention the magnitude of data that would need to be moved and the costs involved in doing that. But I agree eventually that's what I'd like to do - although Amazon crashed Netflix last week so nothing is 100% .

True. Nothing is 100%. That said i dont think the AWS crash was from load. But it's moot. The load you get here is not going to be a problem. That's a fundamental difference. You are pegging your architecture (maxing it) and to solve it you will buy capacity that sits idle 99% of the time...

Regarding costs... Yes it will be costly. It probably wont get cheaper down the road.

 

[loofasisgeek]

Ian,

I'm sure a lot of members have relevant technical expertise. If you shared some details, such as what you spend and what some of the usage metrics are, they might have ideas.

I'm not the guy (but know some people who could be) I think the most pertinent data will be throughput (bandwidth) logged during the time around failure and some record of simultaneous sessions (max) up to the fail point. If your host can't get you that data ask them why. I have more experience with IIS but could ask around for tools for LAMP. PM me if you want to talk. Otherwise good luck and thanks for the site.

 

[Ian]

True. Nothing is 100%. That said i dont think the AWS crash was from load. But it's moot. The load you get here is not going to be a problem. That's a fundamental difference. You are pegging your architecture (maxing it) and to solve it you will buy capacity that sits idle 99% of the time...

Regarding costs... Yes it will be costly. It probably wont get cheaper down the road.

I know - and you make a lot of great points and I completely agree with you. It's just having been down this road back in '06 or whenever it was when I first moved over to my own server, I remember what a nightmare it was and the database is 5 times what it was back then. Needless to say the idea of going through it again nauseates me

 

[Ian]

I'm not the guy (but know some people who could be) I think the most pertinent data will be throughput (bandwidth) logged during the time around failure and some record of simultaneous sessions (max) up to the fail point. If your host can't get you that data ask them why. I have more experience with IIS but could ask around for tools for LAMP. PM me if you want to talk. Otherwise good luck and thanks for the site.

That's exactly the issue (simultaneous connections and requests), which is why we split things up to start with. The last time it happened we found out it was due to the fact the HTTP server wasn't handling the I/O requests fast enough and it caused it to lock up. The original SCSI drives we first went to worked great, but they're now several years old and need to be replaced with newer and faster ones. Obviously every few years hardware improves, so it's obviously time now to upgrade yet again.

 

[Ian]

Thanks to everyone in this thread for their kind words and again, I apologize for the fact the site wasn't available during the game. Thank you also to those of you for your PM's - I really appreciate it. As I've said this was just a freak incident where I couldn't be here to make sure there were no issues, but I'll take the necessary steps this week to make sure we don't experience anything like it again heading into next weekend and moving forward. I'm going to lock the thread so we can focus on talking about the game and yet another AFC Championship match-up. It's amazing that we're in this position, and like the rest of you I'm looking forward to next weekend's game