Network Problems Resolved…Kinda…Sorta…Maybe…
You may have noticed problems here off and on over the past 3 or 4 days, up to and including a great white void when nothing would load. When I finally realized there were serious ongoing problems at Dreamhost (still one of the best hosting companies out there, IMHO), my priority became completion of a full backup. About 3 weeks had lapsed since my last complete backup, and who knows what drivel I’ve spewed forth in that 3 weeks that might strengthen, yea verily, even save, humanity in the future. Ergo, it must be preserved for all time…
This morning I awoke to happily find Dreamhost on smooth seas again and nobody asked… sitting up proud and straight. Checking Dreamhost’s Status Site, which resides on a different server at a remote site (what a great but simple idea — why don’t all ISPs and hosting companies provide such a useful tool?), I read the final chapter (hopefully) of this saga, and it does seem they have the problems under control with only a few cosmetic issues left to deal with. Here is the wrap-up posting from their Status Site. It reads like a techie’s worst nightmare…
Network problems resolved.
July 17, 2006 at 7:01 pm PST by jeremyToday’s network problems were caused by not 1, not 2, not even 3, but 4 separate issues.
First, one of our older distribution switches decided to give up on life.
After replacing it with newer hardware, everything ran just fine for a couple hours. Then, it decided our network topology had changed (apparently due to a different default configuration since the old days when it was deployed), and started dropping a good percentage of traffic.
This issue also affected another switch that some of our file servers plug into, so customer data was unavailable to a good portion of our hosting servers.
Consequently, one of our more active mail servers tried to dump all of the backed up email all at once, saturating some of the network that it’s on.
Once these configuration issues were resolved, one of the network interface cards in our main firewall machine died, requiring a quick swap.We’re still working on some of the after-effects, and there may be some slowness while things get caught up, but everything should be back to normal later tonight.
While I feel for all of Dreamhost’s customers (including me) whose sites were down or affected, I have the most sympathy and empathy for the group of techies, the server farmers, who worked day and night on these problems, catching a few winks here and there. Been there. Done that. No fun. They probably fought over who got to make the next supply run. These kind of problems require a lot of M&Ms (Peanut), coffee, Jolt Cola, Mountain Dew, Red Bull, pizza, etc.
5 Comments so far
Oh Yeah…the Kings and Queens of Caffeine! Isn’t it nice to get an explanation Winston? So many times you NEVER get any. Your side bar is back in place…all is right with the world! These techies are GODS!
To Joy…
I agree. Except I cannot let them take credit for getting my sidebar back where it is supposed to be. I had a dream. And in that dream a vision came to me. A vision from hell sent by Lucifer hisownself. A vision in which I was falling, spiraling downward, being hooked and gouged and scraped and cut by the dreaded SQUARE BRACKETS… When I awoke, lathered in sweat, head spinning in panic, it occurred to me… “deja freaking vu”.
Once before I had visited this strange land where nothing is as it seems, where everything is out of kilter. I don’t even know what a kilter is, but it sounds good here, so I’ll stick with it. The answer back then, and the answer still, is the dreaded SQUARE BRACKETS. I like using them instead of the more commonplace parentheses. But, alas, Word Press does not like them for some strange reason. A quick search of the last few postings uncovered a faux pas, a senior moment, a blonde moment (’cept I ain’t) in which I absently minded used the freaking SQUARE BRACKETS. Then a quick edit of that post to change the ^7y#&! freaking SQUARE BRACKETS, and my sidebar was back where it was supposed to be, conjoined up and down the spine with the main posting window.
All seems to be OK now in Firefox and IE, regardless of resolution. The gods are in their respective heavens. Alls right with the world. Life is beautiful. Que sera, sera…
You have got to be kidding! That was it? Winston…YOU’RE A TECHIE…Oh, yes you are…and maybe sans the caffeine. I BOW DOWN TO YOU. Doesn’t it make you feel great when that ONE moment of awareness dawns and Voila…It doesn’t happen nearly as often as it should; but when it does…Kudos Winston, my man. -Joy
Grazie! Grazie!
Some of us, especially moi, are not technoligically savvy; therefore you and Dreamhost can tell us anything and we won’t understand any of it. But if I were you and/or Dreamhost, that whould have been my story.