504 and 503 errors

[Workingman]

VV is usually open when I am on the computer, though I might not be logged in.

I know that there have been problems and they are still about, but this one gets me.

I can be on VV cruising the boards when I will get '503 Service unavailable'. If I try the back button I get the same, but if I close the tab and then go in to VV again all is OK. As a techie I am scratching my head coz I can't figure it out.

[Kaz]

Something to do with the server according to Mick, he says if it carries on he'll report it xx

[Workingman]

I know it's a server problem, Kaz, and that it is also intermittent.

It is the way that is intermittent that is bugging me because I cannot figure it out. It was an academic observation on my geeky part.

[Suff]

Yes I was seeing them too.

It feels like a server resource issue, either CPU (unlikely) or Disk/RAM. In fact it really feels like paging to a disk which is already stressed, causing time-outs on java based server side software.

Some of the biggest issues I've faced with the crop of java stuff on modern systems is that the developers are not handling the response times and are treating extensive time-outs as a failure. I noticed this a lot when Lotus Notes went Eclipse and Java based. We were all getting odd spurious errors which were inconsistent and meaningless. In the end they all came down to the same thing "I timed out". I really began to notice this when I upgraded my personal hardware to massively faster specs. Multi core cpu, quadrupling RAM and putting in SSD, as the error messages that everyone else was still getting slowly vanished on the same version of the software.

The last one, the SSD, was the golden bullet. Because no matter how the system was trying to fail, the SSD was always 50 to 100 times faster than the old drive and so everything always made it in time.

I know this is Geek talk which you won't understand much of Kaz, but Mick might want to go check the server diagnostics logs to see if that is the problem....

Brain dump over.

[Diflower]

I don't see that Mick needs to bother doing anything, surely it's a server issue and nothing to do with him

No criticism of you two for mentioning it Wm and Suff, I understand you're interested, but I've seen the same thing happening this week on another phpbb forum (I think it must have been the knitting one I was on the other day) so it's presumably not a vv problem.
Just as well to put it on here though, so other members can see it's been noted

[Kaz]

Thank you Di, I was just thinking the same

I can understand you techie chaps finding it interesting but TBPH I really don't like to bother Mick with VV stuff unless it's crucial to the running of the site - he does this kind of stuff all week for a living and I hate to ask him unless I have to

[Suff]

I don't see that Mick needs to bother doing anything, surely it's a server issue and nothing to do with him

Without trying to get technical about it, it is true that this is a back end server issue and the server team should deal with it.

However, as I found out when writing service level agreements, 99.7% uptime (working and usable), may sound good but it is, in reality, 52 minutes down per year. Of course if it's down for 52 minutes in one day and up for the whole year, then it's not a problem.

In the case of intermittent faults though, it's likely to be down for 30 - 60 seconds 8 times a day once or twice every two weeks.

When the spreadsheet analysis has been done, no matter how irritating it is to us, the server provider has met their service levels and don't need to do anything at all.

Only whey you do the analysis and show that their system is failing and point out to them that a larger failure is probably likely if they don't fix your problems; will they act.

That's why I put that brain dump in here. Sorry, but it touched my sore point.

Kaz, I wouldn't want you to bother Mick with it. I live that life too and Mrs S doesn't quite feel the same way. She feels that when some of the technology fails it is my job to fix it immediately over the phone and she can just say "no I don't want to do that" and it's still my problem to fix it.... <sigh>....

All I was doing was leaving my thoughts in case it helps. It is what I would do in this situation.

[Kaz]

I appreciate that Suff, and thanks x

[Suff]

I must admit that whilst it was a bit wearysome having the site offline for so long, I had a small wry smile over two things I said above...

In fact it really feels like paging to a disk which is already stressed, causing time-outs on java based server side software.

And

Only whey you do the analysis and show that their system is failing and point out to them that a larger failure is probably likely if they don't fix your problems; will they act.

When I heard their disk infrastructure had gone down, it was a bit amusing amongst the chaos. Remember I'm not supposed to be a geek any more, I drive a project plan and tell people what to do, when and for how long. Which is kind of boring and not very satisfying.

So it was nice to know that my geek credentials are still there. Somewhat tarnished, but functioning. Just as well really as my home infrastructure looks more and more like a small business as every year goes by..

Sorry for the sidetracking, I was just enjoying the cerebral intuition moment. I've been on the other side more times than I want to think about..