April 06, 2005
Do Databases Need Time Off?
I went online to pay my cell phone bill and decided, just for fun, to actually look at the bill. I don't usually do that since the amount is always the same. I clicked on the "View My Bill" link and got this:
Your billing history is available between 6:30AM and 9:30PM Monday through Friday Pacific Standard Time, Saturday between 7:00AM and 8:00PM Pacific Standard Time, and Sunday between 7:00AM and 7:00PM Pacific Standard Time. We apologize for this inconvenience. Please check back during these hours. Thank you.
I have always appreciated that one of the great thing about the internet (and online transactions) is that you can take care of stuff 24/7. I imagine it took quite a bit more effort to shut this down during off hours, than it would have taken to just allow us to see our freaking bill in the middle of the night.
Posted by Vox at April 6, 2005 01:43 AM
| general
Yes, databases need time off. Typically an hour or three with major software changes (every few months). Other than that, a well designed system stays up 24 hours per day.
I have designed such systems - hotel reservation systems - and they simply do not have normal scheduled outages. They handle hundreds of requests PER SECOND for weeks at a time before they go down (early Sunday morning typically) for software upgrades or perhaps hardware upgrades.
Posted by: John Moore (Useful Fools) at April 7, 2005 10:00 AMThe funny thing is, this is Cricket - they don't keep track of calls since the plans are all unlimited. The only things that should show on my bill are the basic fees and taxes - and I imagine that goes for most of their customers.
Just completely unclear on the concept of customer service and/or the internet I think.
Posted by: Vox at April 8, 2005 12:12 PM