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The Year In Downtime

Posted by samzenpus on from the down-but-not-out dept.

1sockchuck writes "Lightning, floods, car crashes, and coding snafus had starring roles in major Internet outages of 2010. Data Center Knowledge reviews the year's business downtime, including outages for banking and e-commerce sites and several incidents that knocked state government services offline. Meanwhile, Pingdom focuses on downtime for major social media sites and Wikileaks. Then there's the guy who got drunk and shot up a server."

32 comments

  1. First post? by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 1

    Unless the Server is down.

    1. Re:First post? by socz · · Score: 1

      ... for me to poop on!

      At my place of business, the power cuts out when you plug in too many service into the battery back up system, and it blows a fuse!

      --
      My abilities are only limited by my imagination
    2. Re:First post? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At my place of business, the power cuts out when you plug in too many service into the battery back up system, and it blows a fuse!

      Cool story bro.

  2. Lack of funding by DigiShaman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And then you have the cheap bastards and/or business without money. Time and materials are often needed to perform preventive maintenance. So, I'd say were seeing a lot more reactive vs proactive support as a result.

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
    1. Re:Lack of funding by icebike · · Score: 1

      And then you have the cheap bastards and/or business without money. Time and materials are often needed to perform preventive maintenance. So, I'd say were seeing a lot more reactive vs proactive support as a result.

      Preventative maintenance on server farms has pretty much been proven a losing proposition.

      Nothing is usually done on a routine basis in medium to large server farms until some automated reporting software indicates a significant malfunction.

      With today's fail over technology, even that is often easier to deal with AFTER a blade fails and its work load is instantly migrated to a hot spare.

      There is just not that much preventative work you can do these days. Its all AFTER the fact replacement.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    2. Re:Lack of funding by DigiShaman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you think firmware on modern devices is perfect, you're sorely mistaken. Just as with any other software, firmware on shipped servers can be buggy and lead to data loss. That can range from a nuisance to extended downtime. Things like BIOS, back-plane, RAID controllers, and HDDs may require updates to prevent data corruption or total loss. These are all things can be scheduled ahead of time in a controlled manor rather than be blindsided with issues during normal business operation.

      And that's just strictly hardware. OS, backup job review, and patching are all part of the preventive maintenance routine. If you wait till it's too late, you could be kicking yourself later and wishing you HAD spent the money over time rather than one lump sum in man hours with extended down time.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    3. Re:Lack of funding by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Having fail-over tech IS preventative maintenance.

    4. Re:Lack of funding by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      No! It is not. That's like saying having two bridges side-by-side is preventative maintenance. But that would be incorrect. While it's great for down-time mitigation, in totality the infrastructure still must be maintained.

      You wouldn't let your company limp along on the last remaining failed over server for an extended period of time, would you? The answer should be "No".

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    5. Re:Lack of funding by afidel · · Score: 1

      Of course you can do PM. You check the charge level of each cell in your battery packs, you check the temp in all the critical portions of the converter stages of the UPS's, you test the ATS by killing the utility power and run the generators under real production loads which also tests your AC units ability to quick cycle and that's just the infrastructure side.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    6. Re:Lack of funding by rankgatente1979 · · Score: 1

      And that's just strictly hardware. OS, backup job review, and patching are all part of the preventive maintenance routine. job review .

  3. Unimpressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    These sites should be embarrassed. My wife had 100% uptime in 2010. Did not go down once.

    1. Re:Unimpressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My wife had 100% uptime in 2010. Did not go down once.

      ITS A TRAP!!!

    2. Re:Unimpressed by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      Ditto

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    3. Re:Unimpressed by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 1

      What about your mistress?

    4. Re:Unimpressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What talking to 2 women??

    5. Re:Unimpressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am sure your wife doesn't serve millions of users on the internet.

    6. Re:Unimpressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      she tried, but she couldn't pass the test of thorough /.ing.

  4. Add Skype by Luthair · · Score: 4, Informative

    to the list, apparently today they're running into problems. I've had Skype crash while idle a first for me, intermittent connections and now BBC is covering it.

    1. Re:Add Skype by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The fact that the BBC is covering the (apparently ongoing) Skype problems, while we get this shitty article, shows just how bad Slashdot has become.

    2. Re:Add Skype by phantomcircuit · · Score: 2

      MEGA SUPER NODES

      What are we doing to help? Our engineers are creating new ‘mega-supernodes’ as fast as they can, which should gradually return things to normal.

      http://blogs.skype.com/en/2010/12/skype_downtime_today.html

  5. Dang Sewer Project by memyselfandeye · · Score: 2

    I would like to add our brand new little 'stimulus' rural sewer company that cut the main, and ONLY, fiber line to our little M&P ISP's backbone while digging a hole. No internet for 2,500 people and businesses on "Main Street" (we actually have one of those) for about a day. Keep in mind the fiber is actually above ground here - and runs right past my house, which is not fun to think about when I pay the bill for my 12/2.5 MB line, but that's neither here nor there.

    Then they cut it again, in the exact same spot a couple months later when they came back to fill the hole.

    1. Re:Dang Sewer Project by KUHurdler · · Score: 1

      Man, someone might want to think about redundancy. (And I don't mean redundant power outages).

      --
      Fix Your Own TV - RiddledTV.com Avoid the Landfill
    2. Re:Dang Sewer Project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Build another sewer? Good idea!

    3. Re:Dang Sewer Project by baegucb · · Score: 1

      Thank you for your anecdote. (undoing mod points too, oh well)

  6. Skype down on Dec 22nd... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Considering how pervasive Skype is, I think it's pretty bad...

  7. Re:strange brew that's also good for you by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 1

    Are you one of those Californian hippies? Kombucha is some good shit, man. We've had such bad downtime lately from all the storming and flooding, epecially in San Diego.

    Some people would be happy to postpone their field tests until the next year, but for me it's a missed opportunity to get the hell out of the office for fresh air. Plus, the street leading to my gym is also flooded. I'm having a sad.

  8. Too bad... by f.ardelian · · Score: 1

    BBC is covering it.

    ... BBC doesn't work for me.

    --
    I'm being Insightful or I'm trying to be funny. Seriously, no trolling! Maybe!
  9. Reality Check Network with Torrent / Tubes by ian_from_brisbane · · Score: 1

    Most noticeable one for me was when Reality Check Network went down knocking over hundreds of torrent and tube sites as well as thousands of other non-torrent and non-porn sites.

  10. And on a related note, Skype is down... by eagl · · Score: 1

    Getting dizzy watching the little skype connecting arrows go round and round today...

  11. In his defense... by b0r0din · · Score: 1

    the guy who shot his server found out it had been voting for Bristol Palin on Dancing with the Stars.