Downtime Resolved And Source Discovered

Alrighty, let’s get this whole “downtime” issue out of our vocabulary now. That was a very long and unnecessary stretch and we’re very sorry for the inconvenience.  We received scads of phone calls, emails, and tweets regarding the service being down and thankfully (kudos to all of you!), we weren’t scared off by the comments.

Again, you are why we do this.

So, thank you for being so nice when we’ve struggled.

Here’s why we went down:

  • It started with some crazy database crashes, which we fixed quickly by increasing the number of connections allowed to the database.
  • After quite a few more times of needing to restart the database service and apache… and scratching of our heads… we finally figured out that the reason the database was continually crashing was that we had run out of space on our hard drive.  That crashed the database, did nutty things to the tables, and more.
  • So, we added some notifications and enabled some restrictions so that we get alerts now when we get close to capacity.  The nice thing is the table in question is just a data repository – not needed for operating anything – so we just backed it up for posterity, emptied the table, and voila, we’re under capacity and everything’s back to normal.

What we did find out in the process was that we hit 26 million queries.  That’s just crazy.  With this kind of service, having to do this type of maintenance every 1-2 months is doable, but not really on my top list of things I want to do on a Saturday.

Thus, we’ve come to this… we’re considering how to monetize this service so that we can pay for either moving into the cloud or increasing our service at our outstanding host.

If you have any ideas – things you’re willing and wanting to pay for – we’re all ears.  Paying for the service, even in small chunks for the biggest users, would be a huge step up for stability.  “All for one, and one for all.”  We’re for you.

Bring your thoughts … we want to hear them.

6 Responses to “Downtime Resolved And Source Discovered”

  1. andrewc  on March 19th, 2010

    Well, my two cents, for what they are worth, is that you set up a tiered package system. Up to x queries per day is free. Then x to y per day is $1 (for the whole day). Then y to z queries is $2 for the whole day. ETC ETC. That way, if every day I am between x and y my bill at the end of the month is $30.

    Allow free use without signing up for up to x queries but then CUT OFF the queries when the max is hit.

    Set up clients that want to have the ability to automatically jump in to the x-y, y-z ranges and be charged at the end of each month for this service with paypal or some other payment gateway prior to use. If they never even get up to x-y they pay nothing. Some days they might be below x, some between x-y and some between y-z etc. But they only pay the max amount each day and not y-z the whole month if they only get into y-z one day.

    I hope that makes sense.

    Andrew

  2. Nate  on March 19th, 2010

    That does make sense, and it’s very similar to what a few others have mentioned. Thanks for the input Andrew. I really do appreciate it.

  3. atomton  on March 20th, 2010

    As a regular user of your service I really appreciate it and I basically agree to a tiered package system (like Andrew suggested) or any other payment system.

    But unfortunately I’d like to use the API in one or more free iPhone app(s) and can’t pay for the service without having the users to pay for it. For sure this could be an In-App-Purchase, but I guess I’d have to return to the old fashioned way to keep the apps free. And I don’t think users will pay on a regular basis just for the geocoding features.

    It also depends on the amount of free requests. If it’s high enough, it could work, but I don’t think so tho.

    Again, I would pay for it if I could, but making losses is not an option for me – and not for anyone else, I guess.

    Cheers,
    Marcel

  4. Nate  on March 21st, 2010

    That’s a great point Marcel. I appreciate the comment and obviously we don’t want to hurt anyone’s business by changing the model. We’d rather find something that everyone can work with.

    Thanks again.

  5. harryteguh  on April 7th, 2010

    Hi, Nate.

    I’d like to pay for the reverse geocoding service if I could. But, I’m using Tiny GeoCoder’s service for non-commercial use. I’ll only be needing 5 unique queries from Tiny GeoCoder for the application I am making. I’m really sorry.

    Best regards
    Harry

  6. Nate  on April 7th, 2010

    Harry, thank you for the comment. I appreciate that you’re using the service at all, even for your 5 queries. It makes me smile.

    Thanks.


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