PSX Excessive not too long ago suffered from a moderately extreme server failure, which took our web site offline between December thirtieth, and January sixth. This was the longest unplanned outage in our 24 yr historical past.
So, what occurred?
To try to simplify a moderately lengthy story, the database server that powers PSX Excessive malfunctioned. Whereas we had tried to restore the database server quite a few instances, our makes an attempt at repairing had been unsuccessful. In reality, we really ended up making issues worse. The database that powers our web site, turned irreversibly corrupted.
Our solely actual answer at this level, was to utterly wipe our server clear, and reinstall all the things from the bottom up. On paper, this could have been a simple factor to do. Reinstall the working system, reconfigure our management panel. Straightforward. Time consuming, little question. However most positively a simple activity.
Besides, completely nothing had gone accurately.
Downloading The Backups
PSX Excessive has 4 main and completely completely different backup strategies. Every methodology is meant for use for a special sort of {hardware} or software program failure. As an illustration, we again our database, posts, pages, and first directories, as much as the cloud as soon as each 24 hours. This methodology of backup is nice for when we have to shortly revert again a day or two. The downsides? It doesn’t again your entire web site and all directories up, however moderately, it’ll solely again up what’s required to maintain the core of our web site operational. In different phrases, absolutely the fundamentals.
We additionally create a full backup of our complete web site, and all directories inside our fundamental net folder. This methodology of backup is an actual reproduction of our web site because it appeared on the date the backup was created. Sadly, we solely run this clone-based backup methodology as soon as each seven days, which for a high-content web site like PSX Excessive, is just not essentially the most ultimate of options. Nonetheless, it’s a fallback that’s almost assured to work.
That can be the backup methodology we opted to make use of.
The precise act of downloading the backups from a server, and storing them on our native drive, took roughly 36 hours. PSX Excessive is a big web site, and accommodates over 400GB of whole knowledge.
Straightforward, however time consuming.
Restoring The Backups
Sadly, that is the place issues began to take a flip for the more serious. Whereas the act of downloading the precise backup information wasn’t overly sophisticated, simply time consuming. The identical can’t be mentioned for the restoration course of.
We needed to add the compressed backup information to the server, after which run a restore command. Sadly, each single time that we tried to try this, the restore course of failed. We tried to do that a number of instances, losing roughly three days. Every time, the backup would get to about 95%, after which dangle for a number of hours, earlier than finally failing. Since we needed to restore a moderately giant file, having the restore course of dangle was regular and anticipated. Having it crash? Not as regular or anticipated.
As soon as we acquired the positioning restored, we tried to revive one in all our cloud backups, to get as near our earlier live-site as we might. Sadly, restoring the cloud backup ended up corrupting our database, requiring that we wipe the database and reinstall the unique backup once more. Every time we needed to do a brand new restore, we must sit and babysit the restoration course of for a whopping 4 hours.
So now, a further eight hours have been wasted on simply making an attempt to revive a working backup. However lastly, it was executed. Issues had been not crashing. All was good on the earth!
And Now We’re Right here
PSX Excessive is again on-line. Issues are usually not absolutely secure fairly but, however on the very least, we’re useful. We will as soon as once more contribute content material to our web site, and all core performance is sweet to go.
And but, issues are nonetheless reasonably unstable. We’re sluggish, and have a number of visible bugs and glitches which have but to be fastened, as of this writing. However not less than we’re again on-line, proper?
I wish to thank everybody to your persistence. Restoring PSX Excessive was no simple activity, even when it was speculated to be a simple activity on paper.
Preventative Measures
To try to be sure that this by no means occurs once more, now we have carried out a brand new caching methodology into our web site, which ought to velocity issues up moderately considerably. Past that, we’re additionally going to be creating full cloned copies of your entire public listing each 24 hours, to kind of match our cloud-based backup providers.
We’re additionally going to rely lots much less on distant cloud backups, contemplating as how these haven’t, thus-far, been of any actual worth. This was speculated to be our most safe, and most dependable, methodology of backup and restoration. However as an alternative, it turned the least dependable of the bunch.
We can even be wanting into the potential of internet hosting our web site on a special internet hosting community. Proper now, we run our personal servers, and kind of present and do all the things ourselves. That is tremendous for when it really works, however as we simply found, is an actual ache within the ass for when issues hit the proverbial fan.
All in all, we’re again on-line. Hopefully for good this time round.
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