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Last post 21 years ago by Robby. 22 replies replies.
Why does Cbid's ISP SUCK!!!
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Robby Offline
#1 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 11:34 AM EST
Joined: 10-30-2002
Posts: 5,067
I'm a networking professional and I understand as well as anyone that the Internet is spotty at best sometimes. There are circuit issues, POP issues in your provider (routers), peering issues, etc... This is an annoyance for some businesses. But Cigarbid IS AN INTERNET BUSINESS!!! Their performance (network availability) is in my professional opinion, sub-par. They should really either fire their ISP, or multi-home with more than one provider. Then when "joe's internet service" goes down harder and faster than Monica, they would still be up with their multi-homed provider... Just my opinion... It ain't cheap, but neither is downtime...
Slimboli Offline
#2 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 11:41 AM EST
Joined: 07-09-2000
Posts: 16,139
I agree that it's been a nightmare trying to connect to CB for almost a week now ... but the problems don't seem as bad over at CI.

... I thought it was MY computer (it's been giving me problems lately)! Good to hear it's just not on my end ...

Heck ... it took me almost 5 minutes just to post this, and I had to 'copy 'n paste' just to make sure I didn't lose it!
arbn2/505 Offline
#3 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 11:49 AM EST
Joined: 08-16-2002
Posts: 102
Wow, so you do work Robby. I thought from the amount of posting you do you were a ***** for a living =)
cashman Offline
#4 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 11:56 AM EST
Joined: 01-18-2002
Posts: 103
quick call 911, Rob just got BURNED!
Robby Offline
#5 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 11:58 AM EST
Joined: 10-30-2002
Posts: 5,067
You writing a book arbn2/505? Cause if you are, I know how to make it a love story...
Robby Offline
#6 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 11:58 AM EST
Joined: 10-30-2002
Posts: 5,067
I'm curious arbn2/505, what is it exactly you do, when you're not sucking my "tax dollars?"
RDC Offline
#7 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 12:27 PM EST
Joined: 01-21-2000
Posts: 5,874
I thought it was on my end. I guess NOT!

So to apease us, a FREE BOX OF OUR CHOICE!
BeatDragon Offline
#8 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 12:46 PM EST
Joined: 02-28-2003
Posts: 4,754
OFFENSIVE POST, OFFENSIVE POST

Robby said SUCK...

YANK YANK YANK!
choner Offline
#9 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 12:55 PM EST
Joined: 02-04-2003
Posts: 876
I'm over in California and when I can't sleep, I try to check out the auctions at night, but I get the worst connections at that time.

choner
Gonz@CigarBid Offline
#10 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 1:03 PM EST
Joined: 03-30-1999
Posts: 222
Yup, you can yell at me. We've had a huge reorganization / disorganization of our ISP. We found out on Friday April 11 that we had to find other accommodations for CigarBid, which was hosted in Texas at that time. We worked day and night from Saturday night until Tuesday getting CigarBid into new facilities. The changeover took place on Tuesday morning the 15th - new servers, new ISP, new firewall, new switches, new everything. Things were pretty stable until yesterday morning - then all hell broke loose - we had a major hardware failure in addition to occasional brownouts by our ISP. I'm actually kind-of amazed that we were down only sporadically the past 48 hours.

A few of us haven't slept at all and things are much better now, more stable and many of the major problems have been resolved. Things might be a little rocky the next week or so, we're not completely out of the woods yet, but we're close. And when we are, you won't hear from me for a few days - I'm going to sleep.

I, we, all of us at CigarBid, apologize for the terrible inconveniences of the past 2 weeks. As always, we appreciate your patience and continued patronage.

- Gonz

Robby Offline
#11 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 1:05 PM EST
Joined: 10-30-2002
Posts: 5,067
Heh, I'm trying. It's been a tough week. It's typically the least stable time of the Internet (12-6 local time) the reason being, this is when people elect to do maintenance. This is another reason while multi-homing, or connecting to two separate ISPs is so important for mission critical apps. Having an agreement that they won't both do mtce simultaneously unless it's emergency mtce.

As hardware and network software evolve, stability should increase. Customers are demanding it and the Internet is getting more and more concerned about SLAs and uptime. But, it’s a trade off. Everybody wants “5 9’s” of availability, but the difference between the 4th and 5th 9 is many millions of dollars when viewed on a network wide basis for a provider.

The best thing a company can do is multi-home.
Robby Offline
#12 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 1:07 PM EST
Joined: 10-30-2002
Posts: 5,067
Thanks gonz, I didn't see your msg when I started that last post. I'm glad to hear you guys are doing everything you can. Thanks for the hard work. We all appreciate it very much.
SteveS Offline
#13 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 2:31 PM EST
Joined: 01-13-2002
Posts: 8,751
to the person impersonating Robby who made the post above ....

Where is Robby and what have you done with him??
Robby Offline
#14 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 3:14 PM EST
Joined: 10-30-2002
Posts: 5,067
Not drunk yet. Give me another couple hours.
ducati996 Offline
#15 Posted: Fri, Apr 25 2003, 5:01 PM EST
Joined: 01-02-2000
Posts: 3,477
We've seem to have gotten off the subject. I find it a money saving experience when CBID's ISP sucks...lol.
Slimboli Offline
#16 Posted: Sat, Apr 26 2003, 8:13 AM EST
Joined: 07-09-2000
Posts: 16,139
... especially if you had a low bid going ... and it closed while it was down!
Tobasco Offline
#17 Posted: Sat, Apr 26 2003, 4:40 PM EST
Joined: 02-08-2003
Posts: 2,809

Thats right Slim! sometimes its works out to be a good thing!

Mag
osage Offline
#18 Posted: Sat, Apr 26 2003, 5:45 PM EST
Joined: 02-18-2001
Posts: 492
Ebay went throught the same growing pains about three years ago. The bad news, it is difficult, if not impossible, to connect around 10:00p.m (CST). The good news, it is a sign that Cbid is a successful venture and we will be able to buy cigars for years to come.
E-Chick Offline
#19 Posted: Mon, Apr 28 2003, 12:39 PM EST
Joined: 06-15-2002
Posts: 4,877
Gonz, et al...

We appreciate the efforts and time put into this site by you all.

The CigarBid.com crew is the best out there, bar none!

You guys kick ass!

Thanks for such a great forum to let loose in.

Anybody else feel like singing, "We are family" with me?
RDC Offline
#20 Posted: Mon, Apr 28 2003, 12:48 PM EST
Joined: 01-21-2000
Posts: 5,874
If they are as good as you say then howz come I still can't see the car?!?!?!?!?!

XOXOXO
Gonz@CigarBid Offline
#21 Posted: Thu, May 1 2003, 3:11 AM EST
Joined: 03-30-1999
Posts: 222
Well, we thought we were out of the wooods, and then we got kicked in the teeth. Yesterday, our ISP received a sustained DDOS attack starting at 3am. For those of you geekers out there, you know how bad that is. They finally resolved the situation at about 6pm last night.

Our apologies, again, and contrary to what it might seem, we are working ferociously for a more stable environment.

- Gonz
tandem401 Offline
#22 Posted: Sun, May 4 2003, 8:45 AM EST
Joined: 03-01-2002
Posts: 112
Gonz,
Relax. I'm also a data processing professional, although I do little work with the internet. Computer failures are common. It's normal to experience them considering the level of technology that exists today. So this doesn't bother me as long as you're trying to correct it.

Yes, you can reduce downtime with redundancy of hardware but this can be very expensive and you, probably, don't need that. What you can to do is estimate the lost profit that would occur from a day or week of downtime, including the intangible cost of a disgruntled customer. Then find out how much it would cost to reduce the risk of that downtime. With that you can determine the level of redundancy that is cost effective for your business.

May I suggest that you determine a policy that will govern the auction in the event that the system becomes unavailable, such as rolling the closing date forward or something like that. Then publish this policy as part of the bid rules.

And in my interest to learn as much as possible, what is a DDOS attack? And,Robby, what is SLA, service level availability?

Thanks

Tandem401
Robby Offline
#23 Posted: Sun, May 4 2003, 8:53 AM EST
Joined: 10-30-2002
Posts: 5,067
A DDOS is a distributed denial of service attack. And SLA is Service Level Agreement. An SLA from your provider says if you're down, they pay! We have several % budgeted for SLA payouts... Several % on over 100 million in revenue adds up... DDOS attacks are a fact of life on the internet, just as being attacked on this board (unprovoked) is getting to be a fact of life... What's important is how your ISP handles it, just as important as a nice vantage point to someone’s front door... Where's my tree stand...
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