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Re: [WriteLog] Network Instability

To: writelog@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [WriteLog] Network Instability
From: Artur SP5QA <artur@setilabs.net>
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 21:38:13 +0100
List-post: <mailto:writelog@contesting.com>
Hello

My name is Artur SP5QA,
I'm newtork admin in SN0HQ team.

Hal Kennedy wrote:
[..]

>> Another large multi-op (who, for reasons I can't figure out, would
>> prefer not to post) sent me private email - he has the problem as well
>> after the log gets large.  Typically 5 fast machines running XP.  


In Poland we have more 20 machines running in IARU contest.
We have 3 separated serwer farms in 3 citys ( Warsaw, Lublin nad
Sulejowek ). Each farm have minimum 4 network devices - router, firewal,
 WL Tomcat serwer and internal com server..

We use VPN encrypted tunnels betwen each farm location and betwen end
stations and server farms. Internal network is full redundant - OSPF
dynamic routing protocol, and own well connected BGP speaking routers just in 
case. 
We use private ip address space for all our nodes - clients and servers.
Each server farm is full autonomus, we can switch in seconds between.
Network switching is automatic, only aplicacion switching is semi manual -
it take some time to reload TOMCAT server with current qso database - less
then 3 min if I recall corectly. 
Network usage is at constant level - more then 1MBit/s on our core routers. 
We have about 5x more bandwitch at eache server farm just in case.
Access stations are connected by various DSL prividers, ISDN, GPRS and
other wireless networks. We don't have problems with tcpip.
We user Linux as OS for WrieLog Tomcat servers, FreeBSD as internal comm 
servers and
 mixture of Cisco and Linux/FreeBSD firewalls. Eache server is well fine tunned
and many hours are spend chosing/tunning java engines. Sorry - trial and error 
work.
Dessing is very complex and very redundant. Don't ask how much it cost in
time and hardware to build this. I personaly spend about 800 hours to make
this system work. And I not working alone at SN0HQ team.
In the end WriteLog is running stable with no special problems, but i take 
quite a bit
time to archive this level.

I'm very sorry to say this, but WriteLog support is missery.

Using SOAP / TOMCAT as central node is brilant idea, but it has some
bugs ( read many in PC side ), witch I fixed to make it work as it shoud work.
For example there is no scale algoritm in WL to TOMCAT tcpip comm and log
cachup is rather slow on fast links - only 44 per 11sec as i recal.
IMHO some more beta test before shipping software is needend. 
And how about to opersource some portion of code ? Primary network portions ?
I can contribute with some paches, but for now, this is  trial and error work. 
And at last, contributing paches from decompilation ( reverse eng.) is not good 
practise.

Please, some access to sources is needed and / or at last better QUALITY of 
code and faster
SUPPORT.

But I can repatet - chosing SOAP and TOMCAT is very good, clever decision, and
desig is very roboust but in this stage is near to useless due of
some bugs primary at PC - WL aplication side. 

Using WriteLog is such conntest as IARU is very good example of team work. 
Kaz SP2FAX and Tom SP6T are our Masters.
In IARU contesty we have (alomost) zero problems with WrieLog, but in the
future who knows...

FIX you code faster, Better support - at last respnond to emials sent to
You. After 3 email i gave up, and do my homework by own.
I'm only network eng, not developer, and I can't fix everything in this
aplication.

Best regards,
Artur SP5QA



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