Saturday, May 31, 2008

Scrap Orchard Site Update: (seriously, this could ONLY happen to ME!)

Of all the nights for our site to go down...this might have been the worst! So here is the update from our Server Host:

From Doug Erwin:
This evening at 4:55pm CDT in our H1 data center, electrical gear shorted, creating an explosion and fire that knocked down three walls surrounding our electrical equipment room. Thankfully, no one was injured. In addition, no customer servers were damaged or lost.

We have just been allowed into the building to physically inspect the damage. Early indications are that the short was in a high-volume wire conduit. We were not allowed to activate our backup generator plan based on instructions from the fire department.

This is a significant outage, impacting approximately 9,000 servers and 7,500 customers. All members of our support team are in, and all vendors who supply us with data center equipment are on site. Our initial assessment, although early, points to being able to have some service restored by mid-afternoon on Sunday. Rest assured we are working around the clock.

We are in the process of communicating with all affected customers. we are planning to post updates every hour via our forum and in our customer portal. Our interactive voice response system is updating customers as well.

There is no impact in any of our other five data centers.

I am sorry that this accident has occurred and I apologize for the impact.


Um... so basically... our server has NO power because of an explosion! LIKE SERIOUSLY??? LOL!! If it weren't such bad timing I MIGHT just laugh!

Kami, Kim, Mel and I are working hard to come up with a plan on how to deal with the SO SUNny Scavenger Hunt, and when to post the announcement for our winners of the Design Contest.

As for the hunt (and the two great kits that are the "prize") we've decided that the hunt will start at Sunshine Studio Scraps tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. EST, and hopefully the Orchard will be back up and running to join them! If not, then we'll host the other half of the scavenger hunt ASAP after our site is back up and working!

As for the announcement of the contest winners, some of us say we should post here to get the news out, others say that might not be fair to those who might not know to check here... SIGH... should I post a POLL? LOL!) But as soon as we can figure this all out I'll let you guys know....

BUT I DO KNOW THIS! WE WILL ABSOLUTELY KEEP THE "SYTYCD" FREEBEE LINKS UP LONGER SO THAT EVERYONE HAS A CHANCE TO DOWNLOAD THEM! Have no fear! I've got your back (wink)!

I'm so sorry that this happened ladies... hang tight! I'll post here when I can!

13 comments:

Michelle said...

Whew, (sigh of relief)!!

I was just hoping that I'd still have time to get all those freebie links!!! :) Even with my T1 line it still takes a while to download the kits. (But I am NOT complaining!! LOL)

I guess it must be the 6,000 members of scrap orchard that caused the explosion.....

Thanks for the update. I'll check back tomorrow. :)

Sandy said...

Wow...and I thought we did it...ignore my earlier email to you. I just saw this right after I sent it...so sorry this happened to all concerned. Glad no one was hurt.
Don't worry...I think many of us intuitively will navigate over here and see this post anyway. Hang in there!

jaye said...

Thanks for the update Shauna. Keep smiling and keep those other lovely ladies at SO cheered up as well.

Kathy said...

DANG~! Just seen this thread at DST - sounds like quite the ordeal.
Starting at 5 is good for me as we have a grad party way on the other end of town so won't miss too much.
Poor contest entrants are going to be on pins and needles not knowing.

Sandra said...

I didn't do it... :-)
Thanks for giving us an update. How bad, of all nights it must be tonight . Hoping everything will be alright.

Jennifer said...

Thanks for the update! guess I will try to check on the scavenger hunt tomorrow when I wake up, lol. Will the scavenger hunt links be left up for a day or two??

Amy said...

I vote for you to post the winners! LOL, I am actually up at 4 am to find out and if you knew me more, you would know that is unheard of!!! Momma loves her sleep. LOL

DanisDelusions said...

I knew I had an explosive personality but Jeez. I registered in the forum after lurking for a while and next thing I knew I couldn't get back in. Am I bad luck? *LOL*

Seriously though, I'm so sorry that you have to deal with all the stress of this and just when the scavenger hunt was planned. But the good news is that most of the digiscrap community is patient and understanding. So we can wait a little bit for your part of the SH :) Don't stress too much.

Unknown said...

I have some lo's I wanted to post to the SYTYCD lo gallery, will I be able to post them... and will they be entered in the lo contest? I kept checking all night last night... gave up at 4am my time... finally. First thing I did when I got up was check to see if you were up and running! I went on over to Sunshine Scraps and found the link to get here... TY for posting it there! WOW!!! What a horrible thing to happen!!! Glad no one was hurt!!! Hope they have the site back up soon!!! I'm luvin' SYTYCD!!! I think you should make it an annual contest!!! Maybe in 3 or 4 years I might even be able to participate in it!!! I'm pretty new at Scrapping... gotta get it figured out before I try to design myself!!! Thanks for so much fun! Can't wait for the site to be up again!!!

Melissa said...

I'm so sorry that this happened but thankful that no one was hurt.

Anonymous said...

It's just horrible what happened!! I had just joined right before it happened and I thought it was my connection.

Lisa said...

Oh man, what a pain! If it wasn't for bad luck......! Will keep checking back!

chelle said...

It's a pain, I want to see the designs that won!

DH has been talking up a storm about the explosion in Houston! Your hosting company is one of his company's direct competitors. We were discussed Disaster Recovery measures for a bit, and whether customers would have much interest in it. [I used to work for Nasdaq in Disaster Recovery, so I'm a big supporter.] DH & his team wish they could help, but cannot due to the competitor thingy.

Anyway, I digress! There's been a lot of speculation as to what caused the short - some are saying that it could even be the chewing ants that seem to be getting some news recently.

Unfortunately, from the sounds of the damage, you may be down for awhile as they relocate servers. DH says that if they're not up by tomorrow morning, it's likely they will not be up until next weekend.