I can't believe how incompetent IS are, does one power cut really cause all these problems? IS seem completely unable to maintain a stable site.

I'm not happy about the outage either, but statements like this ^ are entirely false. every major e-commerce site in the world is still vulnerable to outages and it happens from time to time. iStock have managed to keep the site working through the hiccups, and to be honest my sales have taken far less of a hit than I would have expected given the problems.

as for the theory above about Getty replacing iStock servers with their own vendors etc., I doubt this is the factor in the current site problems. Getty took over four years ago, the technical bugs have likely been ironed out. I think the weather in Calgary simply killed their systems, as well as redundant systems. at this point, as large as iStock is, they should have a tertiary redundant system to avoid mega outages like these. pain in the butt for all concerned.

"It's possible that these problems were actually caused by Getty.  "

IS have had similar problems for the 5 years I've been a member, long before Getty were involved.

"I'm not happy about the outage either, but statements like this ^ are entirely false."

Not entirely false at all. Anyone who's been a long term member will have plenty of bad memories of past IS IT problems, some of which have lasted weeks.

I have been a member for over five years, long enough to know that the outages are not frequent, but seem to be big when they happen. at the size they are, outages that disable the site completely are unacceptable. whatever they have to do to fix it must be done and avoiding this in future has to be a priority.

I question the wisdom of announcing a new collection in the midst of all this.

Thinkstock is working just fine.....maybe they should move the iStock servers over there.

^ I have a backlog of uploads sitting in deepmeta, and close to 50 new acceptances lost due to the server problems. forgive me if I'm not inspired to go out and take more pictures. as an exclusive, when iStock shuts down like this for days, my workflow is shut down too for the most part

there are even worse messages than those. I don't always put a lot of stock in blogs comments, but the comments on istockscoop are all from buyers wanting to give us business. incredibly incredibly frustrating.

^ exactly. I didn't bother replying to that post. the outage doesn't seem to have anything to do with E+. but announcing E+ in the midst of this seems like a slap in the face.

I'm a software developer and I also manage a (very low volume) eCommerce site.  It's hard to convey just how complicated things can get when a site goes down due to major hardware failure.   Of course, you have backup - but the backup might be somewhat out of date. Of course you have other servers - but they may not be ready.   A big-time data center is supposed to have automatic fail-over to mirror servers, but if the whole facility is taken out by something like a fire, you're stuck. 

Big-time data centers have disaster recovery plans, too. But here's the rub - those plans usually can't be actually tested, because the client isn't willing to really shut down his site and trust that the recovery will be quick and 100% effective.  So what often happens - based on stories I've read - is that the recovery doesn't go according to plan. And in fact, things can get worse at that point because if the recovery is only partially carried out, you can have inconsistent data, mis-matched server cconfigurations, overlapping addresses and identites, and so on. 

You get the picture.  Problems can cascade to the point that you almost have to clear the decks and start over from scratch.

Real disasters seldom look exactly like the ones you anticipated.  You might think that a snowstorm isn't a big deal, but what if it takes out your backup generator located on the roof... 

I'm a software developer and I also manage a (very low volume) eCommerce site.  It's hard to convey just how complicated things can get when a site goes down due to major hardware failure.   Of course, you have backup - but the backup might be somewhat out of date. Of course you have other servers - but they may not be ready.   A big-time data center is supposed to have automatic fail-over to mirror servers, but if the whole facility is taken out by something like a fire, you're stuck. 

Big-time data centers have disaster recovery plans, too. But here's the rub - those plans usually can't be actually tested, because the client isn't willing to really shut down his site and trust that the recovery will be quick and 100% effective.  So what often happens - based on stories I've read - is that the recovery doesn't go according to plan. And in fact, things can get worse at that point because if the recovery is only partially carried out, you can have inconsistent data, mis-matched server cconfigurations, overlapping addresses and identites, and so on. 

You get the picture.  Problems can cascade to the point that you almost have to clear the decks and start over from scratch.

Real disasters seldom look exactly like the ones you anticipated.  You might think that a snowstorm isn't a big deal, but what if it takes out your backup generator located on the roof... 

having worked in IT for a few years, I know this to be true. but I also know that a site this large can't afford to be perceived as incompetent. there is always better technology and there are always better systems. I feel for iStock HQ, but I am most concerned about buyers being turned off by the perception that we are hokey and incapable of running our web-based venture.

^ I heard that Getty had some money somewhere, not sure where I heard that though ;-) better be careful, sounds like I'm looking for a pay cut to finance a newfangled system. I have no doubt it is complex, but I have no doubt that it should be running as smoothly as an Amazon.

Keeping a web-based business continuously running while it's growing is a real challenge.   You can't always just add capacity by adding more servers - you reach points where you hit a wall and have to re-engineer the whole thing.  It's like repairing an airplane in flight - in fact, it's like modifying an airplane in flight.

Typically the need to seriously re-design and re-implement a site is put off until it's too late, and things are starting to crumble.  It's an expensive bullet to bite.

IStock is a big business, but Amazon.com is enormous. Amazon started early, and made huge investments in cutting-edge infrastructure - to the point that they became an industry leader in online storage and "cloud" computing technology, and now have a large business in selling those services.    They do web hosting, too.   It is probably now possible to run an entire microstock on Amazon hosting and storage infrastructure - for a price of course.

Typically the need to seriously re-design and re-implement a site is put off until it's too late, and things are starting to cxrumble.  It's an expensive bullet to bite.

IStock is a big business, but Amazon.com is enormous. Amazon started early, and made huge investments in cutting-edge infrastructure - to the point that they became an industry leader in online storage and "cloud" computing technology, and now have a large business in selling those services. 

Amazon may have started early but technologies were still developing and also would have been far more expensive. It is also only relatively recently that Amazon has even been able to turn a profit. Istock, on the other hand, has been profitable ever since they started charging for downloads and becomes ever more eye-wateringly profitable every day.

Amazon hasn't been around that much longer than Istock however, if they are vastly bigger, then they must have had to grow at a very much faster rate. This they did, whilst also inventing the technologies they needed __ and they coped with it.

I can buy a paperback book at Amazon comfortably for $10. When that transaction occurs Amazon has to have the book in stock, having had it shipped earlier, receive payment themselves, pay the supplier, have someone pick the book and package it and then pay to send it to me __ all for $10.

In contrast, when someone buys an image license for $10 from Istock all that actually happens is that a few 0's and 1' get sent down the telephone wire. A small payment will be registered to the contributor's account and Istock will probably already have had the suppliers money weeks or months earlier when they sold them an automated credit package.

Which of those two operations is going to be the easiest (and the cheapest) to set-up? Which is likely to be the more profitable too? Quite frankly the more you compare and contrast the two organisations the worse Istock actually looks.

Quote from: stockastic on April 16, 2010, 16:18

It is probably now possible to run an entire microstock on Amazon hosting and storage infrastructure - for a price of course.

It's just about the only service they don't offer - for the moment!

I think Snapixel uses Amazon hosting and storage infrastructure.