We had a big day today. We've been working on a project with
MediaNet, formerly Musicnet. MusicNet was formed almost ten years ago by Real Networks, EMI, Warner Music, and BMG, three of the then-five Major Record Labels.
We've worked with MediaNet for about five years. Our players power many of their clients. About a year ago, we were asked to take on some of the server work they had previously done. Since July, we've been working on that project. It has been slow-going, tedious, and time-consuming. It has been a formidable challenge.
In the last month, we've begun to enjoy some success. A few weeks ago, we moved some of the customers onto our
server(s) for some of the functions they needed from MediaNet.
Today we moved the rest.
To describe what this would take a while, but you might imagine that some of us haven't slept well for a few weeks.
Today, we moved to the new servers. It worked. Then it didn't. Then it did, but that was a mistake. It wasn't working. We found we had a small internal machine that wasn't able to keep up. It was a server we've relied on for our daily bread for years, but today it saw a flood of new transactions and, lifting its skirts, tried to climb to higher ground. She was getting hundreds of request a second, and the load average began to climb higher and higher. What customers saw (and there were thousands enjoying the view) was a player that loaded pages in minutes, not seconds.
We spent about 10 minutes considering possible solutions. I was for going home and seeing what happened next. Others said we could switch a language to gain speed. Bob, our network/hardware go-to person, finally said, "Let's put it on that [under-the-table 64 bit AMD] machine."
Three minutes later, we had decided to follow Bob and the new machine. We carried the carcass into the server room, pulled the trusty server from her slot, powered her down, unplugged the cables, unscrewed the top and surgically removed her drives, controller, and Ethernet card, and transferred them to the under-the-table machine.
Seven minutes later, the new server booted. Some fiddling with the Ethernet card, a reboot, and the loveable old server was running in new gear.
It was fast. It was beautiful. 256MB to 2GB of RAM. 7 year old processor to 2 year old state-of-the-art processor. Jet lag peeled off. Everything began to hum.
So now, I can write this, relax a little, and think of the superb team I work with. And I can look forward to a good night's sleep.
That was our day today. Tomorrow will be another.
Author
Topic: Our day today, or, why things may have seemed a little slow lately (Read 3025 times)