[Boris Simkovich]

Webserver issues this past week

by Boris Simkovich on Fri Mar 11, 2011 6:00 pm

Hello everyone,

I want to thank all of you for your patience during the past week as we've been addressing problems with the main webserver for The Myeloma Beacon.

About a week ago, we learned that the Beacon's webserver was infected with a virus. The virus was not a threat to any of the data on the server. However, it was intermittently affecting the server's performance.

As soon as we realized the server was infected, we began implementing plans to switch to a new server. The infection was sufficiently serious that we did not feel comfortable switching to our normal backup server.

Unfortunately, while we were preparing the new server, the old -- infected -- Myeloma Beacon server finally gave up the ghost. The virus prevented the server from operating correctly, and we had to shut it down.

This is why our service was interrupted from late Monday afternoon until Tuesday morning.

Since Tuesday, we've been running the Beacon from a completely new server. It should be providing just about the same responsiveness and functionality that you've grown accustomed to at The Beacon.

There have been a few glitches since we switched to the new server. Some of you may not have received email news alerts and forum digests that you've subscribed to, and there also were problems with the sign-up process for the forum. We believe, however, that those problems have been addressed.

At this point, there are just one or two bugs that we're still working on. None of them are major. You probably haven't even encountered them, and we hope to have them taken care of in the next day or two.

We are very sorry for the interruption in service that happened as a result of virus infection. From the day we launched the Beacon more than two years ago, we always have had plans in place to deal with server problems. Unfortunately, we just did not envision the sort of virus infection that occurred this time.

If you encounter any bugs while using The Beacon in the coming days, please let us know here in this forum thread. We will do all that we can to take care of the problem promptly.

Thank you very much for your understanding as we have dealt with the server issue. We hope you have not encountered too many problems, and we definitely appreciate your patience.

Best regards,

Boris.

[Ricardo]

Re: Webserver issues this past week

by Ricardo on Mon Mar 14, 2011 8:37 pm

Hi everyone at the Beacon!

Sorry to hear about the server issues you guys have been having. I hope most of the problems have been taken care of by now.

One thing that I noticed this evening. I checked to see whether I could change the timezone preference in my account. When I changed the timezone and pressed the "submit" button (or whatever it's called), I got an error page. This also happened when I tried to change other information stored about my account. Everytime I pressed the "submit" button, I got a "page can't be loaded" error. Also, whatever information I submitted didn't seem to get stored.

Good luck!

[Boris Simkovich]

Re: Webserver issues this past week

by Boris Simkovich on Tue Mar 15, 2011 9:06 am

Thanks, Ricardo, for the heads up about that problem. We've looked into it and it should be fixed now.

Please let us know if you find any other issues.

Also, we're definitely interested in whether or not there are any issues with the speed of the new server. Our testing indicates that, by and large, the new server is about the same speed as the old server. But it would be helpful to know if people are having any problems with the new server's speed -- or, for that matter, if the new server actually seems faster than the old one.

Best regards,

Boris.