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*:[[w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-03-21/Database disk space|''More downtime analysis.'']]
*:[[w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-03-21/Database disk space|''More downtime analysis.'']]


*'''Wikimedia servers down on February 22.'''
* On February 22, two circuit breakers blew, removing power from most of the Wikimedia servers and leading to the loss of all service for several hours, no editing for most of a day and slowness for a week. Full recovery of database robustness took the better part of a month. Uninterruptible power supplies could have reduced the effect of this incident (but not all power incidents; law requires an emergency power-off switch, which has caused outages for other sites, most notably for LiveJournal not long ago). Additional UPS systems will be used for key systems, fire code willing. <small>-''[[meta:User:JamesDay|James Day]]''</small>
* On February 22, two circuit breakers blew, removing power from most of the Wikimedia servers and leading to the loss of all service for several hours, no editing for most of a day and slowness for a week. Full recovery of database robustness took the better part of a month. Uninterruptible power supplies could have reduced the effect of this incident (but not all power incidents; law requires an emergency power-off switch, which has caused outages for other sites, most notably for LiveJournal not long ago). Additional UPS systems will be used for key systems, fire code willing. <small>-''[[meta:User:JamesDay|James Day]]''</small>



Revision as of 07:57, 22 October 2005

2005 Q3 report

General report

By Domas Mituzas - September 2005

Already in March it was clear that we needed more hardware to solve our main performance bottlenecks, but there was lots of hesitation on what to buy. This somewhat ended in mid-April, when we ordered 20 new application server (Apache) boxes, which were deployed in May. Then again, our main performance bottleneck happened to be our database environment, which was resolved by ordering and deploying two shiny new dual-Opteron boxes with 16GB of RAM each, accompanied by an external Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD) enclosure. In this configuration we eliminated previous bottlenecks, as disk performance and in-memory caches were critical points. These two boxes have already shown to be capable of handling 5000 queries per second each without any sweating and were of great aid during content rebuilds during the MediaWiki 1.5 upgrade (we could run live site without any significant performance issues).

Lots of burden was removed from databases by using some more efficient code, disabling really slow functions and, notably, deployment of the new Lucene search. Lucene can run on cheap Apache boxes instead of our jumbo (well, not that really in enterprise scale) DBs, therefore we could scale up quite a lot since December with the same old, poor boxes. Archives (article history) were also placed on cheap Apache boxes thus freeing expensive space on the database servers. Image server overloads were temporarily resolved by distributing content to several servers, but a more modern content storage system is surely required and planned.

There were several downtimes related to Colocation facility power and network issues, of which the longest one was during our move (on wheels!) to a new facility, where we have more light, power, space and fresh air. Anyway, acute withdrawals were cured by working Wikis.

There was some impressive development outside Florida as well. A new datacenter in Amsterdam, generously supplied by Kennisnet, provided us with a capability to cache content for whole Europe and neighboring regions. Moreover, it enabled us to build distributed DNS infrastructure, and preparations are made to serve static content from there in case of emergencies. Various other distribution schemes are researched as well.

Currently there are preparations made to deploy our content in a Korea datacenter provided by Yahoo. There we sure will use our established caching technology, but we might already take one step further and put our master content servers for regional languages there. As well, further expansion of our existing Florida content-processing facility is thought about.

Multilingual error messages finally implemented !

On the 28 of september, Mark Ryan announced that multilingual messages had now been implemented on the Wikimedia squids. Here is an incomplete list of those in IRC who helped with translations: taw, Mackowaty, WarX, SuiSui, aoineko, Submarine, Rama, Frieda, Quistnix, galwaygirl, Fenix, mnemo and avatar. Particular thanks must go to fuddlemark for extensive Javascript help, and to Jeronim for implementing the new message across the squids. Everyone's help has been greatly appreciated.  :)

Now, we just hope not to see these messages too often...

2005 Q2 report

Announcements

  • Wikimedia servers gets a new facility
    On June 7, 2005 (UTC), Wikimedia cluster was moved to another facility, as there would be more space. The newer facility is better designed and in the same city of former one, in Tampa, Florida. Moving had to be done all at once, with all network and servers turned off and moved across the street. It took nearly 11 hours from 07:00 UTC, 03:00 at the local time. Domas Mituzas
  • New appointements on the Foundation team
    On the 25th of june, Jimbo Wales has announced the appointement of the following people on official positions within the Foundation organigram. In particular
    • Chief Technical Officer (servers and development): Brion Vibber
    • Hardware Officer: Domas Mituzas
    As Jimmy Wales best put it, the board encourages these people to work closely with, and even helps to formulate committees within Wikimedia. These appointed positions do not have any special power within any of those groups, but serve as a point of contact to the Board, and to the community, to ensure that information is flowing between all concerned parties within their own fields of xpertise. The appointment is a reflection of the work these people are already doing in these areas, and should not be seen as a disincentive to others to become involved.

2005 Q1 report

Announcements

  • Wikimedia server was down for several hours on 17 March.
    On 17 March there was read only service for several hours after a disk drive used for logging on the master database server became full. Monitoring tools showed combined space for all drives and the last human check of that drive alone showed apparently sufficient space available. Improved montoring and larger disk drives are being obtained. James Day
    More downtime analysis.
  • Wikimedia servers down on February 22.
  • On February 22, two circuit breakers blew, removing power from most of the Wikimedia servers and leading to the loss of all service for several hours, no editing for most of a day and slowness for a week. Full recovery of database robustness took the better part of a month. Uninterruptible power supplies could have reduced the effect of this incident (but not all power incidents; law requires an emergency power-off switch, which has caused outages for other sites, most notably for LiveJournal not long ago). Additional UPS systems will be used for key systems, fire code willing. -James Day

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