[rescue] web server loadbalancing...

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Friday, August 3, 2001 at 22:06:18 (+0100), David Cantrell wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [rescue] web server loadbalancing...
>
> Not personally, but I am assured that it has been tested.  Of course,
> even if your system is perfect there's still human error - like maybe
> the grunt who was meant to change the oil in the backup generator decided
> to slope off for a ciggie instead.  There is no reasonable system on
> earth that can account for that.  But even so, the resulting downtime
> is unacceptable.

Rudundant generators and redundant grunts?  :-)

> Oh, and of course I should have said that it was *unscheduled* downtime
> that is unacceptable.

Well of course -- but how's a web user half-way around the world,
someone who just found your link on some other page (perhaps a search
engine) going to know whether your downtime was scheduled or not?  :-)

> I was talking specifically about webshites there.  If I am looking for
> a particular piece of information and google is down, then I'm not going
> to wait, I'll go to another search engine.  If I am looking to buy a
> particular book and amazon aren't working, then they have plenty of
> competitors of approximately equal quality eager for my wallet.  The
> great thing about the interweb is that there are choices.

Yes, that's exactly what I was talking about too.

I won't go to any other search engine unless google's down for much
longer than my tolerance level for such outages, or unless my need for
the result is far higher than my annoyance at the other engines,
etc. (eg. I'm on a critical long-distance support call or something).

I also won't buy from chapters.ca either, even if indigo.ca was down for
a while (well, make that "wouldn't buy", past tense of course since
the've now merged and luckily Indigo is the one now mostly in control).
(I still won't buy from amazon.com either, though I might buy from B&N
except I try not to buy from foreign sites when perfectly good local
alternatives exist and the prices are comparable).

> I know that.  However, in the real world, have you noticed just how angry
> people get when they are let down?

Yes, but oddly that only hapens to some people.  Seems there's an
extremely high correlation between people's stress levels and their
tolerance for disruption.  I try very hard to keep my stress level low,
and as a result I hope I have a very high tolerance for abberations in
my daily life.  I wish more people would at least try.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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