April 26, 2010

BP Unfiltered

State of the Server Update

by Jeff Pease

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Even though we are only a couple of hours into the new server architecture, we are cautiously optimistic about the performance improvements we have seen so far from the new Prospectus server setup today. Today's traffic didn't cause the new servers to break a sweat, but of course we will continue to actively monitor performance over the next few days to make sure that everything stays that way.

That said, not everything has gone entirely smoothly with this migration process - here is the current status of the migration-related server issues on that people have reported to us throughout the day:

• Site login problems: some customers reported difficulty logging into the site. We were able to reproduce this issue and it has been fixed.
• Password reset / general email issues: the new server is having an issue with its email setup, which will affect notices sent from the site (for instance, password reset notices or store receipts). This appears to be an issue involving server DNS, so we expect there to be a propagation period (potentially 24-48 hours) before e-mails will resume reliably. Note that this issue does not affect the newsletter, which is not handled by the new servers. In the meantime, if you are having trouble with your login, please contact Baseball Prospectus Customer Service for assistance.
• Newsletter issues: today's newsletter was sent with incorrect newsletter content. This should be fixed for tomorrow's newsletter.
• Site stats updates: we have been working on getting our various statistics import processes working with the new site. Statistics on the site are provided by many different sources (with unique processing requirements). We will probably start seeing some stats resume updating as soon as tomorrow, but it may be a few days before we have everything up and running as before. We apologize for the inconvenience.
• PFM cache items: the PFM cache data didn't make it across in last night's migration process. We will run another import on the cache data this evening and it should be back up and running tomorrow. The rest of the PFM data should be fine - it's just loading or saving data that is the issue.
• PFM/server memory: we have set our server to be somewhat more restrictive on memory allocated to generating each page than was set on the old server. This might lead to errors on data-heavy pages like PFM or the new player cards. This is a server balancing issue that we will be revisiting as we get a better idea of how the new servers perform. In the meantime, please let us know if you believe that this memory limit is affecting your experience on the site and we will investigate.
• Store SSL certificate: SSL is enabled in our store, but the certificate has not been installed yet which will probably lead to browser warnings if you try to buy something. We will have this up and running tomorrow at latest.

The BP tech team is continuing to work to make this transition go as smoothly as possible. Please let us know (in the comments or via email) if you notice anything else we may have missed. Thank you for your patience.