Samsung Disappoints on Yet Another Front

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dpersuhn

Member
Jan 26, 2008
38
8
Samsung is apparently down globally at the moment. There is some speculation that this is related to a fire at the Sds facility, which really begs an interesting question about how Samsung handles it's datacenter(s). I find it hard to believe that they would design something so poorly as to not have geographical fault tolerance, but by the same token, all of the hub services are down along with the samsung.com website.

At a minimum, this should be cause for concern about how and where Samsung stores our data and in my case has me in a bind because I'm actually having issues with the Hancom apps on my note pro 12.2. I actually uninstalled hword because it wouldn't open up documents and found out about Samsung being offline when I couldn't access the Samsung app store or Hancom updater to reinstall it.

A company the size of Samsung and they couldn't be bothered with a proper disaster recovery strategy that would ensure availability?

I sincerely hope nobody was injured in the reported fire, but it certainly seems to have provided some insight into what Samsung considers to be acceptable service levels. If this is how little regard they show for critical service availability, it's no wonder firmware updates are always an issue.

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dpersuhn

Member
Jan 26, 2008
38
8
All global site access down for somewhere between 4 and 8 hours without prior notice... That would be a career ending event for me or any of the folks I work with
 

dpersuhn

Member
Jan 26, 2008
38
8
I've yet to see Google play, maps, apps, and search engine take a dive at the same time. I work in a world of five nines availability with clients a hell of a lot smaller than samsung, so it really doesn't speak well for a company their size to take that kind of outage. I realize that things can happen from time to time, but last night's outage points to a serious flaw in their hosting design. Ever hear of geo load balancing?

Hey Samsung, you could stand to start here: https://f5.com/products/big-ip


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Duly.noted

Senior Member
Dec 5, 2013
506
114
I didnt experience amy interruption. Strange. However have you dealt with any other large companies being hit by disasters like this? Or are you particularly familiar with their internal workings? Isnt it a bit unfair to judge them based on limited information? I mean that could have been their primary data hub. Even if it is backed up somewhere else it could take some time to reroute everything they run through another location. It was obviously backed uo somewhere or it wouldn't be working again already. You even started with samsung disapointed on yet another from. It sounds like you are looking forba reason to hate in samsung

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dodo99x

Senior Member
Apr 2, 2011
365
79
Ottawa
They had a major fire. Thankfully there were no fatalities. Let's not overreact to a very minor and temporary inconvenience.

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dpersuhn

Member
Jan 26, 2008
38
8
Not a hater, just a realist. I'll reiterate that I hope nobody was injured.

That said, I'm speaking from a business perspective, not am personal attack on the employees of that datacenter. I've been designing networks and high availability data centers for nearly two decades and most of my customers demand 99.999% availability for customer facing services. These things would be served out of multiple active locations, not a single location with some dodgy backup. Even better, the non personal stuff like the app and media stores would be served by a CDN. In any case, the loss of a site would immediately reroute traffic and the time it takes for DNS cache to expire would likely be the slowest part.

It isn't insensitive to say that this incident pointed out a shortcoming and when you add it to numerous other recent issues with samsung tablets, the overall picture is disappointing. I went through a number of 10.1 2014 edition tablets before giving up on the faulty BT on that device, as Samsung never addressed it. I buy a note pro 12.2 that resolves it and the Hancom software wasn't pre installed or available to download on release day, now this. It's just a growing list of things that are each small, but show that Samsung just isn't on the ball when it comes to fit and finish. They make the only reasonably usable Android tablet with an active digitizer, so they get my business for now.

I'm not sure why the folks here can't separate a comment on service availability from the matter of personal safety. I'm not suggesting people should have been placed in harm's way to keep things running. I'm stating that there are design shortcomings in how the service is delivered.

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muzzy996

Senior Member
Feb 4, 2011
1,168
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Honolulu, Hawaii
I don't think you'll get any argument that it would have been great if service didn't go down for as long as it did . . Nor do I think that people are having issue with separating personal safety from service availability. The issue more likely stems from the varying degree of tolerance for service interruptions.

On saturday night I was setting up my new tablet when I realized something was wrong with Samsung services. I poked around, realized that the incident was occurring, shrugged my shoulders and moved on to do something else before turning in for the night. Come sunday morning everything was back up and I didn't give the issue a second thought.

We get what you're saying; there's obvious room for improvement, but it could have been worse too . .
 
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Duly.noted

Senior Member
Dec 5, 2013
506
114
Not a hater, just a realist. I'll reiterate that I hope nobody was injured.

That said, I'm speaking from a business perspective, not am personal attack on the employees of that datacenter. I've been designing networks and high availability data centers for nearly two decades and most of my customers demand 99.999% availability for customer facing services. These things would be served out of multiple active locations, not a single location with some dodgy backup. Even better, the non personal stuff like the app and media stores would be served by a CDN. In any case, the loss of a site would immediately reroute traffic and the time it takes for DNS cache to expire would likely be the slowest part.

It isn't insensitive to say that this incident pointed out a shortcoming and when you add it to numerous other recent issues with samsung tablets, the overall picture is disappointing. I went through a number of 10.1 2014 edition tablets before giving up on the faulty BT on that device, as Samsung never addressed it. I buy a note pro 12.2 that resolves it and the Hancom software wasn't pre installed or available to download on release day, now this. It's just a growing list of things that are each small, but show that Samsung just isn't on the ball when it comes to fit and finish. They make the only reasonably usable Android tablet with an active digitizer, so they get my business for now.

I'm not sure why the folks here can't separate a comment on service availability from the matter of personal safety. I'm not suggesting people should have been placed in harm's way to keep things running. I'm stating that there are design shortcomings in how the service is delivered.

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Well it sure does piss me off when google goes down, or ebay, or amazon, or any number of websites and services that go down unexpectedly. So why is it that absolutley none of these seem to have a flawless system of backups and service availability like you say they should despite being huge companies. I guess if they all hired you none of them would ever have service interuptions.

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dpersuhn

Member
Jan 26, 2008
38
8
Well it sure does piss me off when google goes down, or ebay, or amazon, or any number of websites and services that go down unexpectedly. So why is it that absolutley none of these seem to have a flawless system of backups and service availability like you say they should despite being huge companies. I guess if they all hired you none of them would ever have service interuptions.

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At first, I read this and was a bit torqued off at the personal attack, but then I remembered that this forum is already littered with nonsensical vitriol that you've spewed out in ignorance. Since you're apparently qualified to assess Samsung's INFRASTRUCTURE (note that this is not synonymous with website) availability based upon your extensive knowledge and experience in this field. How exactly do all of their services work? What made this a perfectly acceptable failure scenario based upon industry best-practice design standards? Please elaborate on the routers, switches, firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, load balancers, and redundant service provider connections that were all designed, implemented, and functioning properly at the time that this failure occurred. Oh, and don't forget about datacenter redundancy too. I'm anxiously awaiting some education about how modern high-availabilty design practices couldn't possibly have prevented or minimized this outage.

I'm one of thousands of engineers that could definitively elaborate on how it failed to meet the most basic best practice standards for what should be a high availability service. I'll be glad to discuss the finer points of service availability and disaster recovery with you whenever it becomes a technical conversation but based upon the lack of useful references you've made thus far, I'm quite sure that day will never come...
 

dpersuhn

Member
Jan 26, 2008
38
8
Just for comparison. Google's average website availability is currently tracked at 99.984%. That's less than 5 minutes per month of total downtime. To hold the same measure of availability after that outage, Samsung would have to never have a single second of downtime for at least the next four years (I didn't track the exact duration of the outage, so I'm using the most favorable number that I've seen). And even with that service level, I'd bet my career that the only downtime of the Google website has been software / server related, not infrastructure.

When exactly was it that you experienced an EXTENDED outage with Google, eBay, or Amazon?
 
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Duly.noted

Senior Member
Dec 5, 2013
506
114
Just for comparison. Google's average website availability is currently tracked at 99.984%. That's less than 5 minutes per month of total downtime. To hold the same measure of availability after that outage, Samsung would have to never have a single second of downtime for at least the next four years (I didn't track the exact duration of the outage, so I'm using the most favorable number that I've seen). And even with that service level, I'd bet my career that the only downtime of the Google website has been software / server related, not infrastructure.

When exactly was it that you experienced an EXTENDED outage with Google, eBay, or Amazon?

I tried replying twice to no avail. The xda app times out on me all the time. Sorry my teasing offended you. It is apparent your care about this (even though nobody else does) so I decided to pick at it a little. My attempt to initiate a little banter obviously went badly and im sorry about that. My bad. Calling everything I post vitriol was a bit much though. When I do respond I usually have a very workable solution to the issue in question. I have only been notably rude to one person. And that was a very very bad day for me and the guy was just whining. Half the stuff he was wrong about anyways..but that doesnt matter. The point is sorry I made you angry.

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---------- Post added at 03:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:43 PM ----------

Oh and netflix hasn't worked at my house for 4 months lol. Its so bad they just gave me 2 years of free service for the trouble :D

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rkirmeier

Senior Member
Jun 18, 2010
383
72
Just for comparison. Google's average website availability is currently tracked at 99.984%. That's less than 5 minutes per month of total downtime. To hold the same measure of availability after that outage, Samsung would have to never have a single second of downtime for at least the next four years (I didn't track the exact duration of the outage, so I'm using the most favorable number that I've seen). And even with that service level, I'd bet my career that the only downtime of the Google website has been software / server related, not infrastructure.

When exactly was it that you experienced an EXTENDED outage with Google, eBay, or Amazon?


With all your ranting and claims you apparently have a high level of technical skills but no common sense. Samsung is not monitoring XDA for your personal rant on their lack of service redundancy and down time due to a major fire! Get over it and do something productive!
 

dpersuhn

Member
Jan 26, 2008
38
8
At what point did I ever say I expected Samsung to read it, respond, or otherwise? It is worth consideration for users that are placing their faith in things like Samsung cloud backups and such to know that their data could be inaccessible when they need it.
 
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dpersuhn

Member
Jan 26, 2008
38
8
This thread really has been a good exercise in shaking out the Samsung cheerleaders, hasn't it? I bring up an availability concern and you'd think I went around personally slapping some folks upside the head. Oddly, I have yet to see any retort of technical merit. Fascinating...
 

dpersuhn

Member
Jan 26, 2008
38
8
I

[/COLOR]Oh and netflix hasn't worked at my house for 4 months lol. Its so bad they just gave me 2 years of free service for the trouble :D

Sent from my SCH-I605 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app


Guess I'm the ass. I take it seriously for two reasons. 1. I forked over serious cash for a device that is supposed to be a business tool and expect Samsung to provide services at an appropriate level as such. 2. Infrastructure design has been my life for nearly two decades, so I see failures like this in a different light than most folks on here. If you think I'm overstating my position, realize that there are some IT folks who did or probably will lose their jobs over that outage.

As for netflix being unavailable at your house for months on end, wow. I can't believe that people tolerate handing cash over to a company (guessing your ISP in this case, maybe Comcast?) while they blatantly refuse to provide the services that you subscribed to (aka the best effort clause in every service provider agreement).

Personally, I wish Samsung would stop trying to host content and services for these devices and fall back to letting google do that part. Nothing spells fun like orphaned apps if I switch tablets. Just ask apple, they have a pile of them I left behind when I dumped my iPad.
 

dpersuhn

Member
Jan 26, 2008
38
8
Honest question: Exactly WHAT service was down?



I can't think of any "service" I need directly from Samsung, let alone that I'd even notice missing for an hour or two.


Samsung.com, samsung app and media stores, Hancom updater, cloud backup and restore. In my case, I was working on updating client docs for a morning meeting and only had my tablet with me. When I tried to use Hword, it kept bombing out for some reason. As a last resort, I figured if try to reinstall Hword, but couldn't because the samsung App Store was unavailable. I ended up buying Polaris office just so I could finish working. Not sure why Hword was dead, but it worked fine after the App Store came back online and I was able to reinstall.
 

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    All global site access down for somewhere between 4 and 8 hours without prior notice... That would be a career ending event for me or any of the folks I work with
    2
    Just for comparison. Google's average website availability is currently tracked at 99.984%. That's less than 5 minutes per month of total downtime. To hold the same measure of availability after that outage, Samsung would have to never have a single second of downtime for at least the next four years (I didn't track the exact duration of the outage, so I'm using the most favorable number that I've seen). And even with that service level, I'd bet my career that the only downtime of the Google website has been software / server related, not infrastructure.

    When exactly was it that you experienced an EXTENDED outage with Google, eBay, or Amazon?


    With all your ranting and claims you apparently have a high level of technical skills but no common sense. Samsung is not monitoring XDA for your personal rant on their lack of service redundancy and down time due to a major fire! Get over it and do something productive!
    1
    They had a major fire. Thankfully there were no fatalities. Let's not overreact to a very minor and temporary inconvenience.

    Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk
    1
    I don't think you'll get any argument that it would have been great if service didn't go down for as long as it did . . Nor do I think that people are having issue with separating personal safety from service availability. The issue more likely stems from the varying degree of tolerance for service interruptions.

    On saturday night I was setting up my new tablet when I realized something was wrong with Samsung services. I poked around, realized that the incident was occurring, shrugged my shoulders and moved on to do something else before turning in for the night. Come sunday morning everything was back up and I didn't give the issue a second thought.

    We get what you're saying; there's obvious room for improvement, but it could have been worse too . .
    1
    Not a hater, just a realist. I'll reiterate that I hope nobody was injured.

    That said, I'm speaking from a business perspective, not am personal attack on the employees of that datacenter. I've been designing networks and high availability data centers for nearly two decades and most of my customers demand 99.999% availability for customer facing services. These things would be served out of multiple active locations, not a single location with some dodgy backup. Even better, the non personal stuff like the app and media stores would be served by a CDN. In any case, the loss of a site would immediately reroute traffic and the time it takes for DNS cache to expire would likely be the slowest part.

    It isn't insensitive to say that this incident pointed out a shortcoming and when you add it to numerous other recent issues with samsung tablets, the overall picture is disappointing. I went through a number of 10.1 2014 edition tablets before giving up on the faulty BT on that device, as Samsung never addressed it. I buy a note pro 12.2 that resolves it and the Hancom software wasn't pre installed or available to download on release day, now this. It's just a growing list of things that are each small, but show that Samsung just isn't on the ball when it comes to fit and finish. They make the only reasonably usable Android tablet with an active digitizer, so they get my business for now.

    I'm not sure why the folks here can't separate a comment on service availability from the matter of personal safety. I'm not suggesting people should have been placed in harm's way to keep things running. I'm stating that there are design shortcomings in how the service is delivered.

    Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk

    Well it sure does piss me off when google goes down, or ebay, or amazon, or any number of websites and services that go down unexpectedly. So why is it that absolutley none of these seem to have a flawless system of backups and service availability like you say they should despite being huge companies. I guess if they all hired you none of them would ever have service interuptions.

    Sent from my SCH-I605 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app