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Binge-watchers were at the receiving end of a cruel joke yesterday as they arrived home after a hectic day’s work – Netflix (NFLX) was down – and it sent the whole world into a tizzy. Only an error message displayed on both the app and the website that read: Netflix error: this title is not available to watch instantly.
In spite of witnessing an exponential increase in the number of ardent followers, Netflix had so far managed to prevent its servers from any major disruptions. That is, until yesterday, when it saw its largest global outage. The video-streaming platform has previously suffered minor outages on April 19, May 9 and May 24 this year.
We are aware of members having trouble streaming on all devices. We are investigating the issue and appreciate your patience.
— Netflix CS (@Netflixhelps) June 11, 2018
[...] As per Down Detector website, complaints peaked at around 5PM ET and half an hour later, Netflix acknowledged the outage on its Twitter channel that they are aware of the issue. The issue was sorted out by 7PM ET, when the company tweeted, “The streaming issues we reported earlier have now been resolved. Thank you for your patience, and as always, happy streaming!”
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday June 13 2018, @10:04AM (7 children)
This is an example of the ramifications of having a single point of failure.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday June 13 2018, @10:27AM
if you configure djbdns to provide multiple IP addresses for one hostname, it will distribute answers to queries equally among the given IPs. doubtlessly bind can do that to.
that leaves their domain name as the only truly necessary single point. it helps to run different operating systems on each of your nameservers. thats done for the root servers.
but it happens that the US came quite close to nuking the soviets because a single forty-cent chip failed. when the secretary of state got the bad news he didnt wake his wife so she could die in her sleep.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:15AM
we dont know. it could have been cut off upstream because someone was giving them a 'net-neutrality' warning. lets watch :)
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday June 13 2018, @02:26PM
So don't have a single point of failure.
I propose to have a group of redundant items which were formerly the single point of failure.
There. Now everything is fixed! (and this idea is so novel, I should patent it!)
All good now. A collection of redundant items.
In fact this single collection is what lets engineers sleep at night knowing nothing could go wrong with this single collection of identical items.
This single collection could never fail.
Well, maybe the collection is a single point of failure?
So, I have this idea to introduce redundancy . . .
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1) by hereweareagain on Wednesday June 13 2018, @02:27PM (1 child)
--Single point of failure? Obviously you haven't heard of Chaos Monkey:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Monkey [wikipedia.org]
--Although having your own set of DVDs to watch when bored (and a ZFS+Samba file server to rip them to) makes life infinitely more flexible...
/ binge-watching Stargate SG-1 from birthday-gift DVD collection FTW
--I'm willing to admit I just *might* be wrong... Are you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @03:18PM
So maybe Chaos Monkey finally found the weak spot?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @04:34PM
Single point of failure?
As far as the 'social' internet is concerned, that would be the entire human race.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:37PM
There should never be a single point of failure. Failure needs to be distributed. As widely distributed as possible.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday June 13 2018, @10:59AM (6 children)
This is the kind of stuff that makes me so concerned about mixing technology and politics. I mean one gang can get into a fight with another gang, and all sorts of bad things happen to the gang members, but this time, its the whole friggen world. Its the first time in history we have had so much power and control consolidated into the hands of a very few people, only taking one rogue or misinformed actor to put the whole doomsday scenario in play.
This next war is gonna be a doozy.
World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones, I suppose.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Wednesday June 13 2018, @12:15PM (4 children)
To be fair, it's been this way for over 50 years
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @12:23PM (1 child)
Yeah but now it's different because now we have tech billionaires.
Good luck earning that mythical six-figure salary. With two computer science degrees and skills in a dozen coding languages, you'll be lucky to be unemployed for life.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Wednesday June 13 2018, @03:47PM
Don't worry. When hyperinflation hits, everyone will have a 6 figure+ salary.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:48PM (1 child)
To be fair, it's been this way for over 50 years
Humans have been around a bit longer than that...
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:53PM
But not with the capability to destroy the planet after getting out of bed on the wrong side.
In the past people have subjigated the planet, from Alexander the Great to Hitler, but nobody has been able to destroy it -- even the Mongols could only affect a small part of the planet, and that was over the course of 100 years, not 100 minutes. Mao Zedong may have killed as high as 70 million people over 4 years, but that was still well under 10% of the planet.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:14PM
You're half right.
With regard to all things internet, "power and control" is not consolidated. The number of people who can take out large sections of the internet at any given moment of their choosing is vast. From Joe Malcontent Hacker sitting in a coffee shop in Peoria, to Sanjay the Sysop advertising bad routes in Mumbai.
There are literally millions of people who could maliciously or accidentally take down any given company's network. The internet routes around damage, but usually it does this by sacrificing significant portions of itself to temporary unreachability.
To paraphrase Weinberg: If we built buildings like we built the internet the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @12:10PM
I didn't even notice your precious Netflix outage. I was watching putlocker instead.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 13 2018, @12:43PM (7 children)
My children, who only watch YouTube, were unperturbed. I, who long ago exhausted Netflix's library, was reading a book and was unperturbed. My wife, who prefers to knit while listening to podcasts, was unperturbed.
It's a big world, and there are countless other ways to pass the time than sitting, waiting for Netflix to come back up.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 13 2018, @05:14PM
Exactly. At the time in question I was writing some API functions and listening to techno on Youtube :)
By the time I got home Netflix was working again.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Funny) by frojack on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:18PM (2 children)
Sorry, you haven't been alive that long. You lie.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:01PM
Maybe they were only interested in a tiny subset of the library.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:03PM
Hmm, yes, well, i'm not interested in the 5 seasons of "Charmed" and i lost all interest in "Lost" after the second season. Also, Netflix helped me exhaust its library by dramatically shrinking it...
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:37PM (2 children)
I read the Bible in the original Greek and wondered to myself how lesser souls spend their time.
I pity them.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:04PM
Really? That's impressive. How was that? Did you find it gave you new understanding?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:44PM
I have been dabbling with learning Hebrew. Really. Just because I got tired of learning programming languages. They're all getting to be predictable. In many cases it's just a combination of checkboxed items. Which syntax style. GC or not, or other memory management discipline. Typed variables or not, and if typed, inferred or not. Automatic (and sometimes unintuitive) type conversions, or not. OOP or (pure?) Functional or other. Actors? Runtime platform bytecode, native code, LLVM, compiles to JS, compiles to C, or other how-does-it-run.
Hebrew is a challenge to say the least. First learn the alphabet. (some of) the vowel markings. Learn to pronounce words and stumble across them. (I'm at this stage). Next, begin learning words and their meanings to comprehend sentences. Become familiar with common words so that words are recognized as easily as letters. (I can only hope!)
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jdavidb on Wednesday June 13 2018, @01:58PM (4 children)
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday June 13 2018, @02:28PM (1 child)
That was so long ago, who could possibly remember.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:59PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @03:22PM
So that was what the Maya were warning about?
(Score: 5, Touché) by Snow on Wednesday June 13 2018, @03:49PM
Ahh, but the great thing about the cloud is you can blame major catastrophic failures on someone else, so they don't really count.
(Score: 1) by schusselig on Wednesday June 13 2018, @02:01PM (5 children)
Is there any evidence indicating that this might actually be related to net neutrality and not bog-standard IT incompetence, or is the department line just bait for suckers like me?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 13 2018, @02:30PM (2 children)
Maybe the problems would go away if Netflix would buy paid prioritization?
But AT&T said they won't create paid prioritization. So they must have a new business model. ("hey, that's a nice internet business you've built there. It would be a shame . . .")
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:04PM (1 child)
The contexts the various ISPs have made these promises in have been to home users. I've been operating under the assumption it didn't apply to content providers and cloud services on the other end of the line, precisely with precisely threats like that...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:56PM
My understanding is that the whole "paid prioritization" is a scam to get money from major network properties.
AT&T (for example) goes to Netflix: pay us money and we'll make sure that AT&T customers connecting to Netflix get good connections.
Result: Netflix pays. The price is absorbed into Netflix's prices, so everyone on Netflix (including Verizon users, for example) are subsidizing AT&T customers connecting to Netflix.
Verizon (for example) goes to HBO: pay us money and we'll make sure that Verizon customers connecting to HBO get good connections.
Result: HBO pays. The price is absorbed into HBO prices, so everyone on HBO (including AT&T users, for example) are subsidizing Verizon customers connecting to HBO.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Why this is a BAD idea.
Netflix pays handsomely for it's bandwidth at its end of the connection. So does HBO.
If I am having trouble getting Netflix at my residence, then that is MY ISP's problem -- not Netflix. It is not "Netflix is using too much bandwidth". It is ME, THE ISP CUSTOMER who is using too much bandwidth. And the ISP needs to get with the 21st century idea of what is an appropriate amount of bandwidth to be using. If I am using too much bandwidth, then the ISP should CHARGE ME FOR IT. After all, I'm going to end up paying for it anyway (see those awful back room deals described a few paragraphs above).
My ISP should be charging me to build out their network to provide the service I need, and to make a reasonable profit.
My ISP should not be trying to make their price look artificially small by shifting some of my ISP bill into my Netflix / HBO bill, making it look higher to pay for my ISP service.
Just as Netflix / HBO pays for it's end of the connection, I should pay for my end. It should be simple and neutral. It doesn't matter what I am using the bandwidth for. If I could get that great bandwidth when connecting to Netflix, why shouldn't I get it when connecting to anywhere else? What if I connect to (say) Hulu which doesn't have a "paid prioritization" back room deal with my ISP? I should pay for my bandwidth, in my ISP bill (not in my Netflix / HBO bill) and get the bandwidth I pay for -- no matter who or what I am connecting to. The other end of the connection can pay for its own bandwidth, and only for its own bandwidth, as it should.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:18PM
I've predicted (multiple times on those pages) that the death of NN will cause the collapse and subsequent purchase of Netflix assets by one of the giant ISPs.
I'm willing to consider this one a coincidence. But that doesn't change the inevitable.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 13 2018, @09:13PM
You mean other than the fact that it occurred in a matter of hours after the ISPs were legally allowed to mess with Netflix traffic, and the ISPs were complaining about Netflix to the FCC when they convinced the FCC to change the rules? It could be a coincidence, but the timing sure is suspicious.
We have absolutely no idea what Netflix did to fix it. It could be they fixed their load balancer or something, or it could be that they signed the contracts AT&T and Comcast had been trying to shove down their throats, which presumably have clauses saying they can't talk about what just happened.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Funny) by pipedwho on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:37PM
I’m glad they included the stock trading moniker, otherwise I would have had no idea who Netflix was.
Or maybe this was someone playing net neutrality games and wanted to be sure the stock manipulation was properly targeted at the correct trading entity.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday June 14 2018, @12:48AM
Came home from a hectic day at work, made supper with wifey, ate and took son out to Special Olympics Bocce.
Came back home and missed the whole Netflix thing.
No problem. (Our son even scored a couple points!) :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---