The site doesn't seem to be loading at the moment. With all the server problems a couple of weeks ago one has to wonder if they have the worst IT infrastructure in the industry.

... one has to wonder if they have the worst IT infrastructure in the industry.

One doesn't have to 'wonder' __ it's a given, pretty much always has been. Pathetic considering the eye-watering profits they make and still the only agency that can't even provide real-time statistics.

Uh, the "two data centers in Calgary" power failed?

I'm pretty surprised they're a $200M company that apprantly doesn't have a failover or power backup plan.

That's pretty scary.

When your market is world wide any down time at all is lost revenue.

I have no idea how much per minute they make, but I am confident that this is costing a mint!

Only two data centers and both in the same place... 

No comments!   

istock: Still #1 in microstock...

... in downtime.

Just got in.

There are people now reporting balances missing, why does IS have so many site problems when other big sites manage to run reliably?

No uploading 'til Monday. Some recently uploaded files got lost - you will be notified by email if yours were amongs them.

Newly approved files are not showing up on my port again. Last time this happened the files just got lost, no views no dls whatsoever.

No IOTW this week?

I am feeling so nervous about going IS exclusive.  So many technical problems makes me think that having all my eggs in one single basket is very very very risky...     

I'll be finally free from DT in just a few weeks and ready to go...   This is giving me a headache!!!

I think that all eggs is one basket is always risky. I'm still independent, for many reasons, and the technical problems at IS are just a small part. There are so many more major reasons for not going exclusive there. For me, the decision to remain independent is right for me. Your mileage may vary. But if you go exclusive and realize is just isn't working for you, you can always bail. So you've wasted a little time by having to re-upload stuff. At least you had the courage to give it a try. Best case scenario, everything works out ok and you make a lot more money.

Good luck whatever you decide.

Quote from: Digital66 on April 11, 2010, 14:07

I am feeling so nervous about going IS exclusive.  So many technical problems makes me think that having all my eggs in one single basket is very very very risky...     

I'll be finally free from DT in just a few weeks and ready to go...   This is giving me a headache!!!

I don't think that technical problems are what makes it very very very risk, though. 

Good luck with it.

Quote from: Digital66 on April 11, 2010, 14:07

I am feeling so nervous about going IS exclusive.  So many technical problems makes me think that having all my eggs in one single basket is very very very risky...     

I'll be finally free from DT in just a few weeks and ready to go...   This is giving me a headache!!!

I think that all eggs is one basket is always risky. I'm still independent, for many reasons, and the technical problems at IS are just a small part. There are so many more major reasons for not going exclusive there. For me, the decision to remain independent is right for me. Your mileage may vary. But if you go exclusive and realize is just isn't working for you, you can always bail. So you've wasted a little time by having to re-upload stuff. At least you had the courage to give it a try. Best case scenario, everything works out ok and you make a lot more money.

Good luck whatever you decide.

Thank you for the good wishes. 

Yes, I agree.  It's not just the technical problems what makes it risky to put all eggs in one single basket...  Yet, going IS exclusive seems the right thing for me at this time.   

Only time will tell...

Quote from: gostwyck on April 12, 2010, 11:56

Uploading is back!

Uploading is turned off again!

For another 24 hours

It was good I got mine in earlier today. Sometimes you get lucky, I guess.

They really  should allow us 2 to 3 weeks worth at once...but will they do that? It's like cell phone plans where you lose unused minutes...maybe we should be allowed to carry over unused slots? Will they do that...not likely!

Argh, I wonder how they will deal with their 15 images/week upload slots....

They really  should allow us 2 to 3 weeks worth at once...but will they do that? It's like cell phone plans where you lose unused minutes...maybe we should be allowed to carry over unused slots? Will they do that...not likely!

Quote from: franky242 on April 12, 2010, 16:13

Argh, I wonder how they will deal with their 15 images/week upload slots....

There seems to be a backlog with the queue just now, especially for exclusives, so I wouldn't think they'll roll over, but who knows?

Or unlucky - they undoubtedly had a very good reason for turning it back off!

Global warming. No doubt. 

I had sales every day on IS, even when the server was out for a couple of hours. That means IS gives priority to the buyers end, not to the contributors end. I would be worried if it was the other way round. You can get virtually 100% uptime for a site if you mirror/synchronize all on geographically different data centers, for a hefty cost. Is that worth it? (it will show in the commissions).

I had sales every day on IS, even when the server was out for a couple of hours. That means IS gives priority to the buyers end, not to the contributors end. I would be worried if it was the other way round. You can get virtually 100% uptime for a site if you mirror/synchronize all on geographically different data centers, for a hefty cost. Is that worth it? (it will show in the commissions).

Yes, buyers are the priority. But one of the problems it is causing is that thumbnails are not showing in portfolios. That would be a problem for the buyer searching for photos.

I find it hard to believe that a company of this size wouldn't have a backup server in another part of the country/world, away from major snowstorms. As far as it showing in the commissions...doesn't it already?

With all the profit IS make you'd think they could maintain a stable site.

Typically, from what I know, this is priority #1 for companies making huge profits from a website.

Sites like IStock typically don't do their own hosting - they pay a hosting company which operates a big server farm.  The hosting company provides - or at least promises - redundancy, automatic server fail-over, backup, high bandwidth, uninterruptible power, and armed protection in the event of war or revolution. Ok, I made up that last one.

Does anyone know if this is true for IStock and if so, who their hosting company is?

From things that have been said in the past by IS regarding problems, I have the impression they have their own servers. But I don't know for a fact.

1.30am Taiwan time.

503 error - Thanks for visiting iStockphoto.
The site is unavailable right now but we'll be up and running soon.

Yeah right. Luckily, I'll buy my 3/4 daily photos as usual from Dreamstime. Local Taipeh time 1.30am. Deadline is 2am for media assembled in India and published in Europe. Good luck iStock, you are the best. I just need a reliable service, be it with pixel distortions and rough featherings.  

They reported to be paying well over a million a week to contributors so they're going to be making a lot more than that, buy some IT knowledge and get it fixed properly.

this kind of prolonged server issue should be unacceptable at this level. Getty is making so much from iStock, they really need to get some systems in place that can handle the traffic and that can work redundantly in the event of such an outage.

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

When a big company buys a little company, they often force the little company to switch over to vendors/suppliers/service providers used by the big company.  All in the name of cost savings and efficiency, of course, but sometimes really because the big company already has contracts with these providers.    So maybe Getty forced IS to consolidate their IT group, switch to a different hosting company, etc.  Of course, if something like this were happening, no one at Getty or IS would ever acknowledge it.

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.

I think Snapixel uses Amazon hosting and storage infrastructure.

SmugMug has used Amazon S3 for storage since the beginning.  I use it myself, for automatic backup of my photos. Of course storage is only part of the picture.   Imagine the info-plumbing it takes to keep those thousands of new images flowing past the eyes of reviewers... and generate thousands of emails saying "contains areas that are too feathered or too rough"...

Cant help wondering?  is it really worthwhile adding all these gazillions of shots every single day? I mean, what is it in aid of?

Of course it is. More images are being gained in niche subjects and better images in popular subjects. Subscribers in particular always want new images and a wider choice in the subjects that they have an interest in. I'm surprised the agencies don't do more culling of stuff that is proven not to be in demand though.

If they dumped everything over 3 years old that has never sold, it would lighten their load considerably and make searches more relevant at the same time.

Such images are already buried down at the end of the search results sorting by best match, age, or DLs. Just which search results would become more relevant by eliminating them? (Not that I don't think it's a good idea ....)

you mean generic quantity instead of quality, making buyers having to wade through tons of irrelevant material.

Not at all __ the default sort-orders at IS, SS and FT are pretty good at promoting the popular stuff and hiding the crap way down the order. The majority of microstockers have probably been shooting stock/commercial images for 6 years or less. If they're working at it, they'll still be slowly improving each year as they gain knowledge and skills and additionally the review standards are also increasing. Therefore the overall quality of the collections are improving markedly too. Older images that were popular once, and still have a high placement, often stick out like a sore thumb against the backdrop of newer popular images. Quite frankly if an individual contributor's quality is not improving then they'll be falling behind.

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