New login server Sunday Morning

[MysteryMan]

Microsoft Azure is causing us nothing but problems. The latest issues are causing more than normal and we are going to do an emergency transfer on Sunday morning to get our webfarm completely off Microsot's servers.

What that means is that if you go to the old https://alteil.azurewebsites.net/Account/Manage site after Tuesday you'll be redirected to our own login site.

In a few months https://alteil.azurewebsites.net will be turned off completely.

[Quigleaf]

Thank you.

[MysteryMan]

Login link on main site now goes to

https://login.apocoplay.com/Account/Manage

The Azure site will be nothing but a redirect to this url come tomorrow morning

[Callonia]

Oh, so thats what happened. I tried to login via the link on frontpage but it suddenly just telling me i entered wrong username or pwd. Dont forget to change the link on main page xD

[Logress]

Front page link is working, although maybe you've got an older version cached? Unless you were clicking a different link? Let us know if any link still has the word 'azure' anywhere in it.

[MysteryMan]

I'm pretty exhausted but the glitch appears to be fixed.

Here's a high level explanation of what happened:
Generally speaking, opening a connection to a sql server takes a bit of resources. Think of it as the metaphorical equivalent of wiring up and then taking down a phone line. You don't want to do that a lot.

This is where the connection pool comes in. You have a server that has a lot of database calls with multiple web clients but you don't want to hammer the server. So what happens is that you wire a small number of connections and every node shares the line. The calls are quick so no line monopolizes the server. Think of it like a building that shares a few phone lines for quick conversations.

This worked for a while but then it suddenly stopped. Instead what happened is that every person in the building got a new phone line wired up whenever they wanted to talk to MySQL. This freaked out MySQL and it had a heart attack. Vadym gave it a cyborg body so it could handle the load like the bionic man, but really the solution would be to stop flooding the server.

The thing is, there should't be that many lines between the web and sql - the nodes should just share a couple public lines. The weren't.

This happened seemingly on its own when nothing was touched. Since we seem to experience Azure issues a few days before Microsoft admits they exist over and over again I just said **** it and moved the web nodes to our own servers.

Our own servers looked at the rate limit, understood the rules and intent, and automatically just opened the a couple phone lines at once, allowing people to share them as needed. Our servers never put more than two lines at once instead of the well over a hundred that Azure let through.

On a related note, i'll be speaking at the Microsoft building later on why we left Azure.

[Quigleaf]

I'm pretty exhausted but the glitch appears to be fixed.

Here's a high level explanation of what happened:
Generally speaking, opening a connection to a sql server takes a bit of resources. Think of it as the metaphorical equivalent of wiring up and then taking down a phone line. You don't want to do that a lot.

This is where the connection pool comes in. So what happens is that you wire a small number of connections and every node shares the line. The calls are quick so no line monopolizes the server. Think of it like a building that shares a few phone lines for quick conversations.

Instead what happened is that every person in the building got a new phone line wired up whenever they wanted to talk to MySQL. This freaked out MySQL and it had a heart attack. Vadym gave it a cyborg body so it could handle the load like the bionic man, but really the solution would be to stop flooding the server.

The thing is, there shouldn't be that many lines between the web and sql - the nodes should just share a couple public lines.

On a related note, i'll be speaking at the Microsoft building later on why we left Azure.

Good luck with the MS talk.

Thanks a lot for all your hard work you guys. I am not entirely sure of having no more issues but it was great to be finally able to play after three days Alteil-less.