Showing posts with label week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label week. Show all posts
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Twice in One Week Disaster Recovery beyond our Control
Twice in One Week Disaster Recovery beyond our Control
It has been a busy week for disaster recovery so far - we had an outage on Monday and we had another one today.
Mondays Email Outage
On Monday, we lost our e-mail services. No, it had nothing to do with the Lotus Domino server. That was fine.
At first, it looked as if wed forgotten to renew our domain name. This was quickly followed with a back and forward check of various DNS services out there on the Web, our domain registrar and our Internet service providers. All seemed ok with our domain name but there was definitely something weird happening.
Eventually we discovered that our Internet service provider had their DNS running off a domain which they had forgotten to renew. Since they were providing our primary DNS, all of our inbound mail was getting confused when it went to resolve our domain.
After being told by us (yes, they were unaware of the situation despite the fact that it had occurred during the night and it wasnt noticed immediately in the morning), they quickly got to work renewing their domain. Of course, given the sorts of problems associated with domain name propagation, our problems persisted in one form or another for several hours.
Years ago, such a problem wouldve been effectively "over" within a matter of hours but unfortunately, more and more companies are outsourcing their services overseas, and it takes more than fixing the local domain services to resolve the problem.
Todays Building Outage
Our Wednesday problem occurred while I was at lunch. I hurried back and arrived at a darkened building. Luckily, since we moved offices, we arent as high up as we used to be and I only had to run up six stories worth of stairs (although immediately after lunch, it felt like more than that).
It turned out that the entire local grid had lost power. Our domino server and our main file server were happily running off UPS but unfortunately the UPS handling our communications gear was not up to scratch. It didnt matter because there was no way that the UPS would be able to power our systems for more than 30 minutes. Even if this was possible, the temperature inside the computer room was rapidly climbing now that the air-conditioning was off.
We had no choice but to start shutting down the servers. It took us a little while to make that decision because we knew we had a little time and we were hoping for the power to come back on. Of course, as soon as we got halfway through the shutdown procedure, the power came back on. This was after a 45 minute outage in the centre of Sydneys CBD.
Once again, the problem was "environmental" and out of our control. We could have switched to our offsite systems but it is a hard call to make because although our systems are clustered, we have a few special requirements which make a partially manual cut-over desirable. When the cut-over is not automatic, it becomes very difficult to make a decision as to when to flip the switch.
Out of Control Problems
The thing that these stories brings to mind is the fact that I keep reading anti-cloud computing "horror" stories from various vendors. In particular, they talk about Googles Gmail outages. I dont personally understand how people can think that cloud computing is any more or less unsafe than normal computing. As I said before, the problems had nothing to do with the Domino server. In fact, I cant remember a time when weve had an outage due to the Domino server.
I can remember plenty of times when we had hardware failures, ISP failures, power, air-conditioning, gas leaks and DNS failures. Weve had problems with Anti-Virus and Anti-Spam services running on the domino server - and when we moved them off the server, they still caused us the occasional problem at the gateway. Weve even had problems because of Windows itself and device driver updates. Its never domino though. The server product is entirely stable.
In some respects, our Domino mail is in exactly the same position as Gmail. Its not the product that is at fault, its the underlying infrastructure - and its out of our hands.
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Sunday, August 13, 2017
Two Nintendo Switch Video Events Coming Next Week
Two Nintendo Switch Video Events Coming Next Week
Next week Nintendo will finally be showing off more information about the Nintendo Switch. With its release getting closer and closer, two events are scheduled, along with a country wide tour to let gamers demo the console for themselves.
First up is the Nintendo Switch Presentation. This event will be live streamed from Tokyo on the 12th at 8 PM PT/11 PM ET. This is the main show where we expect to learn nearly everything about this console, from the release date and price, to the upcoming games. If youre interested in the console, this is the live stream you wont want to miss.
After the main Switch Presentation, Nintendo Treehouse will be having a follow up show on the 13th at 6:30 AM PT/9:30 AM ET. This event will focus on the games shown during the Switch Presentation, but will give us a more in depth look at whats to come.
Finally, once everything is said and done, the Nintendo Switch Preview Tour will begin starting on the 15th. Nintendo will be demoing the Switch in multiple cities across the United States over the course of the next few months. If youre lucky enough to live close to one of the locations listed on Nintendos website (See Below), then this may be your chance to play it before its official release.
For more information, preview tour schedules, and links to the Live Streams, check out the Official Nintendo Switch page.
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Thursday, August 3, 2017
Two Fighters out this week Super Smash Bros 3DS and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
Two Fighters out this week Super Smash Bros 3DS and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
If youre a fan of fighting games, then this week is going to be a busy one! Of course it depends on what you like, but if you follow just about everything--then youll be happy to hear there are two major releases coming up; one of which will be here as early as tomorrow. So, just what are these two games? Well....
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax-
The first game (coming out tomorrow) is Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. This one is a must have, not only for fighting fans, but for Persona fans as well. The game itself is a sequel to Persona 4 Arena, and it features a full visual novel styled story mode taking place after the events of the original game (and before the Golden ending in Persona 4 Golden). On top of that, the game features brand new gameplay modes, new characters, shadow versions of the characters (both new and old) with different move sets, massive online lobbies (PS3 version only), and other general gameplay updates you might expect from a fighter.
While the game is a part of the Persona series and aimed at fans in general, it is still a solid fighter just about anyone can enjoy. Even if you arent a Persona fan, but enjoy fighters by Arc System Works (Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, etc), then it may be worth checking out.
Super Smash Bros 3DS -
This is the big one. After a long (LONG) wait, Super Smash Bros for the 3DS finally hits western shores. Since the release of the original back on the N64, the Smash Bros series has been one of the most well known games among gamers, and a must have for Nintendo fans. Featuring a wide range of characters from a wide verity of game series, Smash Bros is a game both casual and competitive players can enjoy, and now the full experience can be found on a handheld for the very first time. Of course a full HD release will be coming to the Wii U later this year, but for now those itching to play on the big screen will just have to settle for the 3DS.
While at their heart both versions of Smash Bros are the same game, the 3DS version and Wii U version do have their own gameplay modes and stages to play on, so you do get a bit of a different experience depending on your console of choice. (Which gives you a reason to pick up both versions if you can.)
So, if youre into fighting games, or love crossovers--get ready to play some great games this week! Rather it be Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, or Smash Bros 3DS (or both), dont forget to mark the date on your calender because the wait is almost over.
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