According to their current post, "they", "can't go back"!!! What a crock...
From the GA site:
Thousands and thousands of buyers use GunsAmerica to track down guns and gun accessories. Also, thousands of people and companies use GunsAmerica to sell their guns. When we had all our beta users hit the new site to see what would happen under load, things looked okay. This is about when the fun began- so many users began to crash the servers fairly soon after launch so we did the following:
1. We began to shut down some of the more server intensive features
2. We immediately put in orders for more hardware
3. We started double checking settings and code to see if something was missed
4. Overwhelming requests from you, our clients, prompted us to dismiss our designer in favor of redesigning our “look,” and we
5. Began to individually answer or address as many user comments as we could.
I could write pages about what they have done wrong from an IT perspective. They did not do their due diligence for this upgrade.
They should have had a back out plan in the event of failure. To do this is no more difficult that creating the appropriate system backups (testing them) and then securely storing them.
It is obvious the load (number of users) has not increased, so the problem is software related.
Load testing is not done by beta testers. It is done with the appropriate software only after a testing plan has been written that incorporates multiple scenarios. Beta testers are used to find software / gui bugs and report them. However, you can not perform a load test on a production server without interrupting service, so you must have testing servers available.
Their stated solution is to throw more hardware($$$) at bad software to make it work correctly. They may in fact do this, but they are sawing off the branch they are sitting on when they do.
Just an FYI, it should take them at least a week to procure the new servers, install, configure and test them. So this situation will continue. Their worst case will occur if the new hardware does not provide a fix. Then they will be stuck with unnecessary hardware and still face a software bug hunt.
If they have a CIO (Chief Information Officer) his/her job should be very much on the line at this point. Certainly any Project Manager involved should have been terminated by now. It is obvious they are not producing any revenue. For a small business they have some major IT bills coming with no (or impared) income flow.
Pete
