Slashdot Mirror
MySpace Down Due To Power Surge
BenelliShooter writes "MySpace.Com - Undergoing Maintenance
"hey everyone! there's been a power outage in our data center. we're in the process of fixing it right now, so sit tight. -Tom"
That about says it... I suppose we'll see if they had proper back-ups. " Hah. The site says it was supposed to be back up as of ... 7:40 PST PM. Which was something like close to nine hours ago.
There must be something more to this. Wouldn't a site with this many subscribers be co-located?
I don't understand where there's a problem. >.>
Hell, with a fairly limited budget, I set up two datacentres in an active/active configuration for the last bank I worked at, and that was only handling a 10 million hits a day. It took a while to get the database replication working right, but once we'd done that, it was all fine, and gave protection against total datacentre failure[1]. MySpace is way larger that we were, and they can certainly afford multiple datacentres to prevent an outage such as this. So why didn't they? As I said, the only explanations I can see are ineptitude, or that they're using this as an excuse to mask some other reason for the outage...
[1] Not that a power failure should ever happen in a datacentre anyway. All of the ones I've used have had multiple power feeds from different suppliers, entering on opposite sides of the building, plus redundant UPSes with diesel generators for when the UPS runs out. If you're still having power outages with that sort of infrastructure in place, then something's seriously wrong. And if you don't have that sort of infrastructure in place, then you've chosen the wrong datacentre.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I use this to maintain loose connections with friends from highschool/college.
Honestly, you know how addictive this site is if someone posts a story about it going offline to Slashdot and it's accepted!
That site was making some crazy loads of cash. The advertising department was saying "we need web traffic!" and the developers were saying "oh, we'll get you web traffic!" and now the hardware department is saying "wtf?"
Perhaps MySpace should be renamed to IcarusSpace?
My work here is dung.
It went down at the same time my UPS decided to explode. I was on the internet at the time. I must have broke it.
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Please do NOT email me about this. Just wait it out. 7/24/2006 -Tom
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Ironic... When I first clicked the story link here on
Kinda like MySpace itself. Too funny.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
The site went down sat night, came back up then went down again sunday night. The page saying it would be back up is actually from when it went down Saturday.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
How long until this becomes a reality, at least for people who can't afford Akamai (surely Myspace could...?)
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
...am I the only one praying they *don't* have proper backups?
I notice that both Questionable Content and Penny Arcade are also down this morning. Someone suggested to me that they were all at the same datacenter. Is this true?
Even though it could just as easily happen to me, it's still satisfying to say "haha, n00bs".
Although I also note that the datacenter holding my server has on-property generators, which I assumed was pretty standard practice.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
Obi-Tom: I felt a great disturbance in MySpace, as if millions of emo kids suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Well done Hemos, you just gave everyone another chance to slag off MySpace. People need to remember that just because something isn't for them (we have our blogs people), that is isn't instantly lame. Sure the web designs suck and 90% of the people there are guys just out for vaginal offering (like slashdot would be any different if it had women).
Just remember, not everyone has the same values as Slashdot. A lot of the people on MySpace don't care if it's ugly or poorly written because they're having fun. Now as much as we geeks like to claim to be superior to everything short of the pope riding a giant panda, we need to learn to accept others values even if we don't take them.
MySpace's subtitle should be "The social person's easy-blog" and maybe geeks here would grasp it's name better, but wouldn't that be dumbing it down so a geek would understand it? Hmmm....
I like muppets.
That's the sound of thousands of emo kids crying because myspace is out. I can only imagine all the catch up posts.
Anyone got a mirror of myspace?
-- Boycott Shell
Wouldn't a data centre have a number of UPS and a standby generator? I figure they did an 'upgrade' that didn't take.
davecb5620@gmail.com
They're not exactly running ASP code on IIS servers. They run Cold Fusion code in a third-party .NET thingy. As to be read here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=15703724&sid=1 90912&tid=95
a great disturbance in the Space, as if millions of camera-whoring teenagers suddnley cried out in terror...
Spoken like somebody who's never been there :-)
Kids, while mySpace is down and out, please visit your parents, greet the yellow light in the great blue room, and take a dip at the swimming pool. There's more to life than hanging out at a website. Enjoy your freedom while it lasts!
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
I"m fReaAKing OUT!!!! This cant be happening.
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
And here I thought it was because everyone, myself included, was testing the MySpace Data Mining tools released on Freshmeat last night.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
...millions of emo kids go sit in the corner and cry.
Tom logged in to his own account, realized that everyone had taken him out of their friends list, screamed like a woman, ran into the server room (flapping his arms about as he did so), grabbed the main fiber, and with a scream of "If I can't have them, no one can!" pulled with all his might.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
This may have to do with the banner exploit that appeared across who knows how many myspace profiles. http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-6097156.html
Probably not: "Hacked MySpace Server Infects a Million Computers with Malware"
The message I got when I visited there (and this is a coincidence, since I don't use my MySpace account except when a friend on another site specifically needs me to, in this case to check out an unrelated technical problem): "hey everyone! there's been a power outage in our data center. we're in the process of fixing it right now, so sit tight. hopefully we'll be back online within the hour. its 6:40pm PST now. wanna place a bet? -Tom"
When I reloaded half an hour later, "Tom" had removed the "its 6:40pm PST now. wanna place a bet?" part. I guess they knew they were having problems that'd take a while.
...cried out in vague angsty alarm, and suddenly were silenced.
They have to answer to the advertisers. The advertisers are their customers. The teenie-boppers are the product that they sell to the advertisers.
When commenting, logging in, etc was broken here a week or so ago, we didn't even get an official announcement about it after the fact, let alone a "hopefully all will be fixed by..." page.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Not caring about the content on a site shouldn't mean it going down isn't significant.
That's why I first joined - I have several friends whose bands have pages there.
The irony of it is that MySpace is a great way for non-RIAA bands to promote themselves and network with other bands, finding new places to play, organizing shows, etc. Slashbots continually harp about how bands should be doing that kind of thing, bypassing the RIAA in favor of self-promotion - but when the bands actually start having a little success in doing so, the slashbots all line up to rag on them for it.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
"The building provides 'UPS' to all of the tenants, and has *massive* diesel generators as well. Only problem - the failover system failed. This is the second time that this building's "UPS/Generator" system failed at a critical time - the last time was Sept 12th last year during the big ol' blackout"
Boy that is just wrong.
I used to work for a hospital back when I was in college. Once a month we tested the backup power systems for the IT department. Life critical systems where on a differn't system. Those got checked once a week.
The fact that this is the second failure means someone really messed up. There really isn't any good excuse for a second failure of the backup system. As you said excuses suck and in this case are unbelievable.
Also why does MySpace have it's data center in LA? With all the fiber running around now I expect to see data centers moving to more rual areas with cheaper power and land.
Doesn't LA have expensive land, power, and earthquakes, and high cost of living? It would seem to me that there are many places better suited for a datacenter. I mean it isn't like you have to have your developers next to your servers.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Most "real" (read: expensive) routers and switches have an AC input, and a DC input. The latter can be used together with the AC input to provide redundant power.
For servers, come on. Everything non-budget class has two power supplies (or, at least the space for a second one for you to buy). You can even get 1U servers with two power supplies.
I help out at a local bar and am closely connected to alot of the local bands... We USE myspace to aid in our booking, keeping track of shows, advertising for the bars and local bands as well as touring bands that will be playing in the area... MySpace has done wonders for this... before myspace, we had to try to track bands down by more word of mouth, talk about a headache... I don't care how myspace looks, I don't care how the code is written... does it work? yep.. thats all that matters to me...