Gents-

 

Between 16APR13-01MAY13, we will be in the process of reconfiguring our operation to handle the increase loads and customer capacity anticipated for the 777 release.

 

During this period of change, some users may experience intermittent service outages at eCommerce, license activation, email, downloads and technical support.

 

These outages will usually be quite short, averaging < 3 minutes when machines get reset, but a few may last longer as machine IP addresses change because it takes some time for that information to propagate across the entire internet.

 

If you run into something that does not appear to be working- give it 5 minutes and try again- you will probably find it running.  If not- hit it again at intervals later- it will come back online, as we are not planning on taking any services down for a long period during this transition.

 

The changes we are making are primarily designed to increase our ability to balance loads and keep any single point of failure from crippling any single service that we provide.  We are a small but growing company so this new technology is a positive sign for everyone involved because it means that we have such a strong outlook on the future of the hobby and PMDG's roll in that future- we are willing to make this rather significant investment in providing a strong and stable product life cycle.

 

While I have your attention:  The past few days have been trying, as the one remaining server in our fleet that was not company-owned (it was leased, and located in a data center to which we have no access) sits behind a router that is failing, but we were almost entirely unable to convince the data center to investigate.  (We are in day five of this failure mode now- and we STILL can't get them to pay attention to it...)  This caused an outage of technical support (that ended saturday evening) but we were unable to end the intermittent availability of license activation until this evening because it required input from an outside vendor... 

 

I recognize that this caused some stress for a few people who were unable to activate purchases, but we had a strong suspicion that the impact was localized to just a few areas and it turns out our hunch was accurate.  When we got the system fully up and running today- we discovered that our effort to keep things operating over the weekend paid off- as more than 80% of new customers were able to activate normally and probably didn't even realize there was trouble afoot.

 

For those who had a troubled experience- we apologize- and if we can get our hands around the necks of the folks who created the problem we'll....   Smile nicely and tell them it was nice knowing them.  After all- we won't be using their services beyond Wednesday of this week. 

 

Okay- I am going to get a decent night of sleep tonight for the first time in a week, then it is back to working on the 777...

Between 16APR13-01MAY13, we will be in the process of reconfiguring our operation to handle the increase loads and customer capacity anticipated for the 777 release.

 

:yahoo:  :Party:

 

Oh and good news that all is well now!  ^_^

I can't wait. If I could speed up time !

Good Night Robert !

Hope you have a nice dream Robert.

 

Seems mother's day legend is ture LOL

Am i getting DeJaVu or did you guys already do this before? With almost the same words....... :huh:

Good morning and good news

yeaaaaa....goodnite...or maybe good morning

is that mean we are going to enjoy it from the 16's April?

Am i getting DeJaVu or did you guys already do this before? With almost the same words.......

Fingers crossed (again)? :lol:

 

 

 

is that mean we are going to enjoy it from the 16's April?

I think it means today (16 April) they are "prepping" before the tsunami (1st or 2nd of May)... 

 

I think I can wait another 3 weeks before downloading (while biting my fingers watching you guys post your "inaugural" flights all a cross the tube), or can I?  :ph34r:  

 

Good night Captain!

 

 

Okay- I am going to get a decent night of sleep tonight for the first time in a week, then it is back to working on the 777...

 

Robert,

 

We'll give you 5 hours of sleep instead of the normal 4. But that's all we can allow at this time. We really need that 777 ASAP!!

Fingers crossed (again)? :lol:

 

 

 

I think it means today (16 April) they are "prepping" before the tsunami (1st or 2nd of May)... 

 

I think I can wait another 3 weeks before downloading (while biting my fingers watching you guys post your "inaugural" flights all a cross the tube), or can I?  :ph34r:  

 

Good night Captain!

 

 

I bet PMDG do not want their server preparation period to become the bottleneck for their 777 release. Just suggesting, that the much awaited release could actually take place some time after May 1st ...

See you Lads in May

Sounds like you guys have a good handle on the situation. Thanks for the update Capt. Rob.

yiiiiiiiiihaa ! Yeaaaah ! A good news after 3 terrible weeks . . .

Thank you very much Robert.  B)

 

This post made my day.