We’re back on our feet, folks!
Posted June 2nd, 2008 by Howard TaylerAs you may or may not have heard, on Saturday a transformer in the electrical room powering schlockmercenary.com (and 9,000 other web servers) exploded. It took out three walls, but (ironically) left the fourth wall intact. Obviously the transformer in question was a Decepticon. I’m blaming that annoying little “Soundwave” guy. He’s a sneaky one.
Okay, seriously… we’ve been running on shoestrings and hacking coughs for three days.
I’d like to thank Troy Belding of Bookworm Computing for his tireless efforts over the weekend, pointing DNS at new places, and finding new places for it to point.
I’d also like to thank David Brady, who, with no small amount of help from Troy, cobbled the original site back together once the electricity was back on.
Finally, I’d like to thank all of you. Thanks for sticking with us through the mess. Yes, the comic did update on time (ahead of time, even) at alternate locations. My unbroken eight-year record of updates remains intact. As I said to one hopeful onlooker, “if you want to see that kind of history in the making, you’ll have to do more than just blow up my datacenter.”
And as somebody else said, “an explosion and a fire are good reasons for Schlock Mercenary to go offline for a bit.” Sage words, those. Sage words indeed.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Howard - congrats on the streak, just please, for all of us fans, don’t tempt Murphy! *wry grin* Busses don’t care about records, they really don’t!
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:30 am
“[W]e’ve been running on shoestrings and hacking coughs for three
days.”
What an amazing coincidence — for the exact same period of time,
I’ve been in exactly the same condition. [coughcoughcoughpauseto-
spitanothersmallfurryanimaloutofmylungscoughcough]
Just think — if that transformer Dies…. >;)
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:44 am
Kudos to everyone who managed to get the site back up so quick.
please remember them on sys-admin appreciation day ;)
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:10 am
Yes Howard, let’s leave the 4th wall intact for a bit longer. You poked enough holes in it early on. ;>
If you are looking for explosions to knock SM off line for a bit, I have some things a little stronger that I could send your way…
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:15 am
Howard, you’re a star.
now, is there a Guinness record for “longest unbroken run of online comic updates” and if not, why not?
Also, who’d be in the running for it?
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:02 am
Flushed the dnscache, can see the site - but it’s so sloooow!
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:39 am
I blame squirrels. That’s what causes transformers around here here to explode. *nods*
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:16 am
Welcome back!
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:03 am
Good to see the site back (of course, I’ve been reading the updates on livejournal in the meantime). I have to ask, though, in response to a comment you made on Sunday’s update, in what way is a “smoking hole” solution NOT appropriate for Schlock Mercenary? It seems like the sort of solution Schlock and the gang would be best at.
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:51 am
Hey, Howard? Next time? Don’t hire Tagon’s Toughs for Datacenter Security. An “oopsie” like this was _inevitable_ with folks like Schlock pulling guard duty …! ^_^
(But seriously, good to see you’re back at 100%)
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:09 am
We know that Schlock was nowhere near the data center as it is still standing despite the damages.
I wonder what it would take to totally take down a data center….
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Well as long as that 4th wall is intact! LOL! Good job on you and yours!
As an IT guy whose servers have been outsourced…the “9000 servers down” gives me the willies!
And Harena…I blame squirrels too. I blame them for everything….
CUAgain!
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Oh…and I can just picture Schlock standing in the corner holding his plas-gun and with a guilty look on his face… “I dialed it clear down to ‘three’.”
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I would blame Schlock for the explosion and fire, except that would be a Fourth Wall violation, and the Fourth Wall stayed intact.
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:47 pm
@ Daniel Meyer:
LOL! “I dialed it clear down to three”, indeed!
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Urgh.
All I can say is that I have a LOT more understanding customers than most of the people in that data center - at least, to hear them tell it. (In broken English).
It’s amazing. Most of the obnoxious complaints were coming from people in Europe - Looked like Italy and Spain. I would have expected to see more jerks from, say, New Jersey :) (Some were demanding that their server be turned back on THIS MINUTE because there wasn’t a reason to keep it down)
Oy!
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:06 pm
[quote Fibonacci]I would blame Schlock for the explosion and fire, except that would be a Fourth Wall violation, and the Fourth Wall stayed intact.[/quote]
My thoughts exactly!
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:50 pm
WEKM Says: I wonder what it would take to totally take down a data center….
I was thinking Anti-Matter Cutting Charges.
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Permanently? A force 5 hurricane.
June 4th, 2008 at 1:15 am
I think you guys are slandering Schlock. The only time I recall him going to a datacentre, he got in and out with less damage than that. Sure, the library next door was trashed, but the only damage to the datacentre was the destruction of the blast door.
June 4th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I feel your pain. Literally. My own blog, Back of the Envelope, was hit by the same disaster. Of course, in my case, I doubt too many people noticed, although it did serve to delay the Storyblogging Carnival.
June 4th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I want pictures of the ’sploded transformer!
June 4th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
All of the people who had servers hosted there have been demanding pictures. So far, ThePlanet hasn’t offered a thing.
In fact, the silence is so deafening, that I’m going to go out on an limb and say that someone in senior management must have put a gag order on everyone, with a ‘lose your job’ threat.