AtariAge Downtime

[Sniderman]

Before it went down again, I thought I read a post that said Al was shopping around for a new server - or he had actually chosen a new service and was in the process of a switchover. Does anyone else recall a post like that?

EDIT: AA's back up but I couldn't find that post. I guess I was hallucinating again.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

You did see it Tim - on the site's main page, not in the forums.

There's been some bad weather in the south over the past 24 hours, so perhaps The Planet unplugged again for safety reasons, or they're installing a new P-38 overdrive modulator or something.

[tcv]

I can appreciate that people want him to move to another site, but is that really the answer? I don't know anyone from The Planet nor do I claim to know what it takes to run a hosting company but this event seems pretty extraordinary to me. The sad reality is that he could go somewhere else and the same thing happens again. Even if it turns out that this was the fault of The Planet, something similarly catastrophic could happen anywhere.

Probably the best answer is to have servers in mutiple locations and use nightly site replication. If someone like this happens, you repoint your IPs. But maybe that's too much work and too much money for a site that's not all that critical.

I mean, I want to talk about the 2600 as much as the next person, but people ain't gonna die if I can't tell them about my Chase The Chuckwagon flea find or my new 1040ST midis.

[Sniderman]

I can appreciate that people want him to move to another site, but is that really the answer? I don't know anyone from The Planet nor do I claim to know what it takes to run a hosting company but this event seems pretty extraordinary to me. The sad reality is that he could go somewhere else and the same thing happens again. Even if it turns out that this was the fault of The Planet, something similarly catastrophic could happen anywhere.

Probably the best answer is to have servers in mutiple locations and use nightly site replication. If someone like this happens, you repoint your IPs. But maybe that's too much work and too much money for a site that's not all that critical.

I mean, I want to talk about the 2600 as much as the next person, but people ain't gonna die if I can't tell them about my Chase The Chuckwagon flea find or my new 1040ST midis.

I think people (and Al himself) are less upset over the catastrophic event itself and more upset with The Planet's handling of it. No real communication to speak of, and their emergency steps have been less than reassuring.

When the backup generator breaks down so you need a backup for the backup, it's time to begin weighing other options, I would think.

[ProgrammingAce]

The backup generator failed under load. I think that's all you need to know about The Planet. When parts of your electrical system explode, it may take months before you can work all of the kinks out of the infrastructure and find out what exactly was damaged. The datacenter may not be stable for a long time, time to move your server.

[tcv]

Disaster planning is one of the most difficult and most ignored aspects in business. It's hard to do and most companies, I imagine, hope for the best. It seems The Planet did have such a plan and, in this case, it was only moderately adequate. Time to rethink it. But I promise they won't be able to imagine _every_ contingency. Heck! Amazon.com was down today for nearly three hours. And what of the stories of people storing data backups in other World Trade Center buildings?

Sure, communications could have been better, but it was pretty decent. Even if The Planet had sent personal representatives with updates to every business owners' homes, people would have still found fault somehow. The bottom line it's a crappy situation and no one feels especially happy at the moment. That colors everything.

Maybe when Al hires another host, he can check into the business' disaster recovery plans.

[iwan-iwanowitsch]

The server is down again! Anybody knows why??

[AtariAge]

The server is down again! Anybody knows why??

Yes.

..Al

[Richter Belmount]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!! *ahem*

[AtariAge]

Looks like there might be a hardware problem. It's being investigated now.

..Al

[iwan-iwanowitsch]

Looks like there might be a hardware problem. It's being investigated now.

..Al

Thanks for the info, Al! I hope that the problem will be fixed soon..........

[RangerG]

Thanks for the update Al. AtariAge will just have to wait to start a Michael Jackson memorium.

[Greg2600]

There is a whole swath of websites which are down at the moment. I don't know if it was the "news" of the day that did it, or some larger web virus.

[Kaboomer]

I can sympathize with Al. Shit happens when you have a site like that. I have had the Chuckwagon go down, but thank god not recently. But I went through a time where my host was upgrading servers and doing crazy amounts of "middle of the night" site transfers and we would go down. My heart used to about stop when it happend, but now I just realize that it will happen occasionally. Major sites go down periodically. It's just a part of being on the net. I hope he gets it straightened out though. Gotta get my AA fix.