Subject: [Private-canonical-launchpad-stakeholders] Launchpad availability may be disrupted 08.30 UTC weekdays
From: Matthew Revell <[email-masked]>
To: Launchpad Stakeholders <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2011 21:08:01 +0100
List-Id: <private-canonical-launchpad-stakeholders.lists.launchpad.net>

Tomorrow, you may notice a blip in Launchpad's availability around
08.30 UTC. Believe it or not, this is good news.

As you know, we'd been rolling out database changes once a month, with
a 90 minute period where Launchpad was read-only.

As of tomorrow, two or three times a week we'll be doing a fast
database update at 08.30 UTC (weekdays only). To start with, it won't
quite be "blink and you'll miss it". We're talking around two minutes
but we've already identified ways to cut this time. During the update,
Launchpad will be effectively unavailable. But it'll be quick and at a
predictable time each day that we do it.

So, other than the obvious bonus of not having Launchpad go read-only
for a big 90 minute block every month, why's this good news? As it's
always at the same and for a short time, we think it'll be easier to
work around. Importantly, it also means you'll get new Launchpad code
faster: if a new feature or a bug fix requires a database schema
change, we can now roll it out pretty much within 24 hours rather than
waiting up to a month for the next big 90 minute read-only time.

There's a bug [1] we need to fix: right now, during the fast down-time
you'll get an OOPS when Launchpad tries to access the database. Once
we've fixed the bug you'll get a somewhat friendlier and more
appropriate 503 error.

While we're all getting used to it, we'll still announce these fast
database updates on the status feed [2]. We're hopeful, though, that
they'll be quick enough and predictable enough (08.30 UTC weekdays,
two or three times a week) that eventually you'll have to try hard to
notice them.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Thanks.

1. https://launchpad.net/bugs/844631
2. http://identi.ca/launchpadstatus

-- 
Matthew Revell
Launchpad Product Manager
Canonical

https://launchpad.net/~matthew.revell

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