We apologize for the poor website performance today.

[Skinner]

As you may know, we upgraded our database server earlier this year in order to keep up with the expected increase in traffic this election year.

It just so happens that last Friday -- the day after Barack Obama's acceptance speech, and the day of John McCain's disastrous VP choice -- was our busiest day since election day of 2006. And our servers handled the massive traffic increase much better than we expected. We had to institute some minor limits on functionality, but overall we were very pleased with the results. We believed that we were probably going to be fine until November.

Or, um... until Monday.

It seems that the double-whammy of Hurricane Gustav and Governor Palin's soon-to-be-grandparent status has hit us even harder than the epic news day we had last Friday. The good news is that our new database server is handling the traffic very well. The bad news is that our three front-end servers are not keeping up with the stress. I suspect that this spike will be relatively short-lived, and we should be back to normal by the end of the day today.

I have instructed Elad to upgrade our three front-end servers as soon as possible. Because today is a holiday, he cannot start the process until tomorrow morning. We hope that we can have our upgrades finished relatively soon so that we will be ready for the next news spike. Which, if the track record of the McCain campaign is any indication, ought to be sometime in the next week or two.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

And while I have your attention: Our hearts go out the members of our DU family who live on the Gulf Coast. Be safe.

David Allen
DU Administrator

[BlooInBloo]

1. Heh - it's all good....

EDIT: HAHAHAHA! Error while saving this message (the kind that stops it from showing up in MyDU).

:rofl:

[Starry Messenger]

2. Thanks Skinner.

All the hard work is appreciated. Enjoy the day with family!


MPK

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Thanks, Skinner et al. You guys are doing a great job

[Auggie]

6. Seconded!

[SalmonChantedEvening]

37. Thirded!!

DU Admins and Mods, you all do a great job.

[NYC_SKP]

4. It's a good thing, really.

Increased traffic?

Here's to DU having more of that particular problem!

And best wishes to the Gulf Coast families, DU and others.

:toast:

[MercutioATC]

5. No apologies necessary. The site's doing really well.

Frankly, I've been impressed.

Thanks!

[greguganus]

7. I thought the repug convention overloaded the site. LOL. n/t

[grantcart]

8. With McCain's Gaffe Orama "Were going to need bigger front-end servers"

[blogslut]

9. Thank you

I was wondering why we were in Defcon mode.

[Patiod]

10. Plus DUers not having work to occuy themselves

Some of us are stymied in our pursuit of DU by the stupid need to WORK during the workweek.

Thanks Admins!!!!

[jazzjunkysue]

11. They don't make front-end servers big enough for the avalanche...

But we all appreciate your hard work, as I'm sure Sarah Palin, herself does.

Bravo, DU!!!!

[H2O Man]

12. How does this

tie in with the Palin baby scandal?

[Barack_America]

13. Quite a Labor Day, eh? nt

[ChazII]

14. Thank you

for the hard work you are doing for us.

[wandathewitch]

15. Hi David..

Now that I know this, I will stop shooting my mouth off on here. We have been ill, but better now. Gotta tell you that we appreciate all you do for us all. I will get back to my sewing until things get easier to handle. Mrs. Moose

[jhain]

16. You guys are the BEST! How's

life with two little ones??

[tbyg52]

17. From a dialupper - it's still better than anything else on teh Internets!

Really, the whole rest of the web needs to hire you as consultants.

[RoadRage]

18. Well DAMNIT - I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!

Wait.. this site is er... free? Ohh.. in that case, ummm thanks for the free website with good conectivity where I can voice my political opinions. ;)

[XOKCowboy]

19. Kudos folks!

Hey at least the anti-hunting threads cooled off. :)

[greyghost]

20. Thank you

[yowzayowzayowza]

21. Thx, guys. n/t

[NJmaverick]

22. Keep up the good work Dave and all the rest

these things happen, we all understand and appreciate all you do (and that you keep us informed as to what's going on).

:applause:

[BrklynLiberal]

23. Thanks for keeping us in the loop. I was wondering if it was my PC.

:thumbsup: :hi:

[1Hippiechick]

24. "...and the day of John McCain's disastrous VP choice... so that we will be ready for the next news

spike.."

Loving it.

And grateful to DU and the internet! We, the people, would have absolutely NO power if the internet were controlled by corrupt corporate America. DU and all the other messageboards and bloggers should be proud of ourselves today. The TRUTH had to be TOLD--at least part of it--due to or diligence.

[Ikonoklast]

25. Wait until Obama is elected President

I see flashes of actinic blue electric lightning arcing from the servers.

[TheDonkey]

26. Palin is certainly a STAR!

hard to believe that the highest trafficked days are due to her

[Cha]

27. Thanks, Skinner, for the heads up.

It's not only Gustav and baby news.. Gov Palin's record as governor was not vetted by the mccain "researchers" and we've had freeper trolls galore.

I'm hoping the Universe and the weather will be kind to those who would be in Gustav's path. I've been in Cat 5 Hurricane on Kauai in '92 and appreciated every kindness that was shown in the aftermath.

[dkf]

28. Kick...just came across this for the first time..

Thx.

[grantcart]

29. Nothing gives stronger proof that you are not a Republican than the first 2 words of this post

Something this administration has never said regardless of how many lives they have ruined.

[underpants]

30. tell Elad to get to freakin' work

:evilgrin:

Just kidding.

Kinda figured we would be on heavy traffic the last few days.

BTW- It must have taken a strong will not to come in an shut down all the whacked out Palin threads. Thanks.

[PBS Poll-435]

31. Thanks for letting us know

And expect another donation in 4Q.

[KoKo]

32. Do the best you can..it's all crazy out there these days.....

I figured all the stuff would "crash" or cause "blips" on this website.

[DeepModem Mom]

33. No prob!! K&R!

[proud2BlibKansan]

34. Took me three attempts to even click on this thread. LOL

Thanks Skinner. Hope it all works out by election day at least.

Now go play with that baby. :hi:

[Jade Fox]

35. Apologize to my computer. I called it some very bad names....

Just kidding, of course. Thanks for your hard work!!

[Plucketeer]

36. S'OK guys

Still my favorite spot on the net. Period! :patriot:

[madmax]

38. Heck of job - Davie

:evilgrin: :hi:
I hope these emoticons show!

[SeattleGirl]

39. Thanks Skinner. It has been very frustrating today, but I had no

doubt that you guys would be on top of it.

[POAS]

40. It's a labor day labor of love...

no apology necessary.

[spanone]

41. why, i oughta.......hey, the fact it works at all is amazing...thanks for du skinner et al

[endthewar]

42. We understand. This Palin train-wreck is attracting a lot of viewers.

:rofl:

[yardwork]

43. I've been totally impressed and appreciative of how well the site has worked today!

And.....The mods are doing an incredible job! Thank you!

[RedLetterRev]

44. Much gratitude for all you do

I maintain a genealogy server that gets maybe .001% of the traffic you do. I live and breathe PHP and answer emails all day. Old folks beeyotch if there's a single blip. I don't know how you cope, but I'm deeply grateful that you do. DU is my refuge and my best source of information.

At home, I'm on satellite internet and the connection is always iffy. (I live so far out in the country, I have to have daylight piped in.) I hadn't noticed any performance problems on DU specifically. So, all's well that ends well, I say! Hug everyone you can reach from our household to yours.

[cliffordu]

45. No worries, this is the best run site on the innernet tubes, far as I'm concerned.

Y'all got some crazy mad skeelz.....!!

:headbang:

[TexasObserver]

46. So it's not the Illuminati targeting me personally? Thank God.

Whew!

[Spiffarino]

47. Upgrading three servers, eh?

Sigh...

OK, I'll send you another donation as soon as I get paid. Really, America's best forum is getting SOOOO needy.

;-)

[berni_mccoy]

48. No Apology Necessary. Keep Up The Good Work!

[hay rick]

49. Growing pains a good thing n/t

[mogster]

50. You do a very good job

Kudos! :-)

[HamdenRice]

51. I thought you meant the performance of us as posters

:rofl:

I thought you were apologizing to the world for the babygate stories.