RunningAHEAD - Topic: Outage update (Jan 2, 2007)

eric :)

posted: 1/2/2007 at 3:06 PM

Hello everyone! I hope your New Year is going well so far. Such was not the case with RunningAHEAD.com today, as many of you have noticed. As with the last outage, it was an ISP issue. Here's what you might not know about Internet Service Providers (ISP). My server is hosted by my ISP, but my ISP does not have a direct connection to the Internet as we know it. It too, has an ISP, and it was this ISP that was having problems this morning. These two recent outages has got me thinking. I need to provide a way to notify you of what's going on if the site is down. As you know, I try to be as open with all of you as I can, because you deserve to know what's going on. This will be something I will look into in the future. eric Smile

zoom-zoom

rectumdamnnearkilledem

posted: 1/2/2007 at 3:10 PM

Hey, no sweat...I got most of our tree undecorated, finally! Had RA been up as usual I'm sure I wouldn't have accomplished that today. It's all good! Big grin

k

Getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to

remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.

~ Sarah Kay

derek

posted: 1/2/2007 at 3:55 PM

Quote from eric :) on 1/2/2007 at 3:06 PM:

These two recent outages has got me thinking. I need to provide a way to notify you of what's going on if the site is down. As you know, I try to be as open with all of you as I can, because you deserve to know what's going on. This will be something I will look into in the future.

One option would be to have a blog on a different hosting company. If you wanted, I would be happy to host such a blog (or simply web site) that people can check to get the RunningAhead status. I use hostgator.com. You can have your own domain name (e.g, status.runningahead.com) or I can host it under one of my existing domains. I will do this for free. Let me know if you're interested and we can try and work out the logistics.

Derek

johnnypebs

posted: 1/2/2007 at 4:00 PM

Oh thank God! I was starting to get the DTs. Big grin

The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare. -- Juma Ikangaa, Tanzanian marathoner

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eric :)

posted: 1/2/2007 at 4:05 PM

Derek, thanks for the offer! It has to something that's transparent to everyone. That is, you don't have to remember that it's status.runningahead.com. What I was thinking of was to create a sister site with another ISP, maybe even my home machine. If anything happens, you'll be redirected to this alternate site automatically instead, and it'll have periodic updates of the site's status.

Trent

Good Bad & The Monkey

posted: 1/2/2007 at 4:07 PM

You DO have all of our email addresses. I would not mind a note during outages...

I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.

Poor baby

zoom-zoom

rectumdamnnearkilledem

posted: 1/2/2007 at 4:09 PM

Quote from eric :) on 1/2/2007 at 4:05 PM:

Derek, thanks for the offer! It has to something that's transparent to everyone. That is, you don't have to remember that it's status.runningahead.com. What I was thinking of was to create a sister site with another ISP, maybe even my home machine. If anything happens, you'll be redirected to this alternate site automatically instead, and it'll have periodic updates of the site's status.

That would be cool. Or Trent's idea sounds good, too. Smile

k

Getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to

remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.

~ Sarah Kay

Berner

posted: 1/2/2007 at 4:12 PM

If the outage is merely a few hours, or even a half a day, my view is that its no big deal. Even the largest, most popular sites on the internet have intermittent outages from time to time. For anything more serious or lengthy, a blog or backup site makes a lot of sense. Obviously, be sure that wherever you host the blog, it doesn't use the same ISPs as RunningAhead.com. Also, I hope that you keep a backup file of your user's email addresses on a local machine ... you might want to contact us all directly in case RunningAhead gets bought up by Microsoft for eleventy billion dollars. Wink

How To Run a Marathon: Step 1 - start running. There is no Step 2.

eric :)

posted: 1/2/2007 at 4:12 PM

Quote from Trent on 1/2/2007 at 4:07 PM:

You DO have all of our email addresses. I would not mind a note during outages...

There are three main problems with the email approach. One is I would have to create an opt in service because I doubt everyone would want to receive these broadcasts. And even if I add that, there'll still be too many of you to send emails to. The server already has trouble sending to certain ISPs such as AOL. Another problem, and this is definitely the biggest problem is if the server has no Internet access, I have no way of getting to your email addresses other than physically going to the server and getting the email addresses. So having a sister site might not be a bad idea anymore Big grin

eric :)

posted: 1/2/2007 at 4:16 PM

Quote from Berner on 1/2/2007 at 4:12 PM:

If the outage is merely a few hours, or even a half a day, my view is that its no big deal. Even the largest, most popular sites on the internet have intermittent outages from time to time. For anything more serious or lengthy, a blog or backup site makes a lot of sense. Obviously, be sure that wherever you host the blog, it doesn't use the same ISPs as RunningAhead.com. Also, I hope that you keep a backup file of your user's email addresses on a local machine ... you might want to contact us all directly in case RunningAhead gets bought up by Microsoft for eleventy billion dollars.

Ooh, that reminds me. I do have a copy of your email addresses. Big grin

Emailing is a possibility. I forgot that I have daily remote backups of database. The entire backup process is so automated that I rarely have to think about it, other than my occasional test restore to prepare for the worst case scenario.

derek

posted: 1/2/2007 at 4:20 PM

Quote from eric :) on 1/2/2007 at 4:05 PM:

Derek, thanks for the offer! It has to something that's transparent to everyone. That is, you don't have to remember that it's status.runningahead.com. What I was thinking of was to create a sister site with another ISP, maybe even my home machine. If anything happens, you'll be redirected to this alternate site automatically instead, and it'll have periodic updates of the site's status.

I could setup an alternate www.runningahead.com site, but obviously if there is an outage, you would have to do some DNS re-routing which may not be practical for brief outages. The alternate site would only be for status info. My offer still stands if you're interested.

Derek

woodlandsprite

Finished!

posted: 1/2/2007 at 4:41 PM

yow! Thank goodness RA is back up! I was all in a panic there for a moment Wink

Walk + Jog = wog.
I'm trying to Lose 5% at a time
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dillydoodles

posted: 1/2/2007 at 4:48 PM

Eric, I agree with Kirsten and Matthew. Having server problems for a half day now and then is no biggie. We knew you didn't up and leave town without us, LOL! I too took advantage of the down-time to start undecorating the house :-) A re-direct to a status page would be cool, but if it's too much hassle don't worry about it. Glad you're/we're up and running again.... Thanks for the update. Arlene

ChrisCaputo

posted: 1/2/2007 at 4:49 PM

Eric: I feel your pain. I am the Dir. Technology for an ASP company providing business intelligence/CRM software. We struggle to maintain 99.99% up-time. Multiple data centers, load balanced, redudant everything, blah blah blah... Recent hits: - Our DNS provider which has servers in 12 different countries had a DOS attack at ALL 12 locations. - Our secondary provider (Verio) fell victim to some construction work mishap destroying a main power line for an extended period of time - Two switches simultaneously failing in our primary data center You're a saint (martyr?) whose job is never done.

SkBunny

posted: 1/2/2007 at 6:43 PM
modified: 1/2/2007 at 6:45 PM

Quote from woodlandsprite on 1/2/2007 at 4:41 PM:

yow! Thank goodness RA is back up! I was all in a panic there for a moment

I think we are all a little addicted to this site. Just a litle Wink

Still, I think we gave Eric so many things to worry about even when the site is running (you know, all the suggestions and stuff) that maybe if the site is down for a while instead of panicking we could go for a run instead? Big grin

Now, I am the first one who needs to listen to this advice. So I will add to my 2007 resolutions to start panicking only when the site is out for more than a day. There! Ewa

I would rather wear out than rust out. - Helen Klein You create your own universe as you go along. - Winston Churchill

Outage update (Jan 2, 2007) (Read 1836 times)