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December 2007

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Site Update Plan

Posted by RDellimmagine VMware Moderator Dec 18, 2007

The transition from emergency mode (where we were pushing out fixes to critical bugs as quickly as we could verify them) to our standard mode (where we need to maintain the current level of stability and ensure we don't introduce new bugs) is taking longer than I had originally expected. The tasks we are working on (and have partially completed) are: reconfiguring and standardizing our stage environment; and automating the build, test (including writing regression tests and improving the load tests), and deployment processes. I'm working on ways to do an interim release before some of these pieces are together, but it's hard to get the full level of confidence in the new build without these processes in place. My expectation is it will be early January before we can roll out the 2-column design.

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December 5 Update

Posted by RDellimmagine VMware Moderator Dec 5, 2007

We implemented the clustered configuration of the community software today, and after two hours it continues to run smoothly. We will continue to monitor it closely. The clustered configuration will allow the site to handle peak traffic (early morning weekdays, Pacific time) better, increase cache sizes, and restart a single node without affecting overall site availability.

One note: As part of the cluster upgrade, we increased the expiration time for the user status level cache from 15 minutes to 1 hour. This means it will take up to an hour for status levels (i.e. points) to be recalculated and displayed. We made the change because we are still researching a bug in the status level calculator that has caused threads to hang -- by exercising this code less frequently, system stability increases. We are of course working on fixing the root cause, which will allow us to decrease the expiration time again.

As for the user interface fixes with the 2-column layout, we decided to wait a few more days before releasing them in order to minimize risk in rolling out the clustered configuration.

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