Re: Amazon.com Failure Demonstrates Poor Design

From: Jim Reardon <jim_at_amusive.com>
Date: Wed 24 Nov 1999 14:29:31 -0600

JAMES CARLINI WROTE:
>Yesterday, amazon.com was down for awhile with the
>message saying that they would be back shortly. Does
>anyone think about downtime as well as reliability and
>redundancy when hyping all of this e-commerce approach?

This sounds like something my old manager would say.

"Our website is down! The website should never be
down!"

Unfortunately, this is the view of a lot of people that
don't understand the technical side to a technical
world... and if any Amazon techs were on this list
they'd want to jab you with a long pointy stick.

Every website, no matter how popular, goes down.

I doubt the Amazon downtime had anything to do with
reliability or redundancy. Last time this happened a
week ago, the servers were down for a good 10 minutes.
When I finally got in to order what I needed, I was
greeted with an entire new layout and a completely new
ordering system. In 10 minutes.

While a manager (or marketer) would say "Amazon was
down for 10 minutes, what about reliability and
redundancy!", I was just left aghast at all they
accomplished in 10 minutes (and that they convinced a
tech to do it at 2 in the morning, their least busy
time).

Every website, no matter how popular, goes down.

Here's probably what happens at the Amazon camp: techs
work on something on a development server (say, a new
layout... or a new shopping cart system). They tweak
it and test it, so the public doesn't have to
encounter bugs and other such annoyances. They get it
all working on this development server, but then they
need to move it to the real world.

Unfortunately, moving and updating important and core
system files can make things get a little...
strange... while they're being updated. So instead
of subjecting their visitors to oddities, they put up a
"we're down for a bit page." They do the deed as fast
as possible, and then put the system back up. Nothing
is as simple as flipping a switch.

And remember... Every website, no matter how popular,
goes down.


--
Jim Reardon <jim_at_amusive.com> 815-744-3119
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Received on Wed Nov 24 1999 - 14:29:31 CST