Journal PerlJedi's Journal: Long Week - Small delay in launch 2
Well its been a very long week. Last weekend's move of our back-end database on to a modern MySQL version, and totally updated hardware went very smoothly. I know the editors, my team, and even some of our readers have noticed the improvement in site performance and stability. Awesome.
This weekend we were going to push our luck and try for two in a row, but we have decided to back off slightly, and delay the Apache 2.2 upgrade until the beginning of next week (probably Monday). During the course of the last week we were hitting all of our milestones in getting prepped for the launch, and things were looking good. However our first attempt at putting a fully load of traffic through the new system yesterday uncovered a few minor issues. Some late night coding and lots of caffeine got us ready for a second round of load testing the new setup today. While today's test did show marked improvement over yesterday's, there were still a few issues I was not able to resolve with sufficient confidence today. Another late night and more caffeine, and I could probably have everything ready to launch tomorrow, but I think it is wise to back up a bit, take our time, and be 100% sure that when we roll this launch out it will be rock solid.
On a fun note:
I just loved Spark Fun's new product video for today. I grew up in Boulder, and seeing the fun it looks like these guys get to have at work, if I ever move back to Colorado, that's where I want to work.
But working for Slashdot can be pretty fun too... I'm hoping the coming weeks will include a few episodes of Slash TV that I'll be helping out with... Going to check out The Maker Works here in Ann Arbor, and perhaps some fun with Lasers in the Slashdot/SourceForge parking lot in Dexter.
This weekend we were going to push our luck and try for two in a row, but we have decided to back off slightly, and delay the Apache 2.2 upgrade until the beginning of next week (probably Monday). During the course of the last week we were hitting all of our milestones in getting prepped for the launch, and things were looking good. However our first attempt at putting a fully load of traffic through the new system yesterday uncovered a few minor issues. Some late night coding and lots of caffeine got us ready for a second round of load testing the new setup today. While today's test did show marked improvement over yesterday's, there were still a few issues I was not able to resolve with sufficient confidence today. Another late night and more caffeine, and I could probably have everything ready to launch tomorrow, but I think it is wise to back up a bit, take our time, and be 100% sure that when we roll this launch out it will be rock solid.
On a fun note:
I just loved Spark Fun's new product video for today. I grew up in Boulder, and seeing the fun it looks like these guys get to have at work, if I ever move back to Colorado, that's where I want to work.
But working for Slashdot can be pretty fun too... I'm hoping the coming weeks will include a few episodes of Slash TV that I'll be helping out with... Going to check out The Maker Works here in Ann Arbor, and perhaps some fun with Lasers in the Slashdot/SourceForge parking lot in Dexter.
Testing (Score:3)
Sounds good; as a user I'm looking forward to the upgrade. The less spinning wheels, the better.
From experience, I'd suggest to do an extra final test in the morning, when you're fresh and wide awake :-)
In the midst of another test run. (Score:2)