1 Reply by Nick

  • Nick
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Re: status web service

Hi

I think that the web services are down although I can't be certain.

I see from postings last year that there was mention of a "status" web service being developed sometime.  I think that it would be a really useful addition so that we can instill confidence in all our users. Web service reliability messaging would be useful but I also wonder if there is a possibility that as a user group if we can't enhance the reliability in some way. So for example, if one element of the NBN web services goes down, the service would be mirrored (failover farm) by another server(s) hosted by partners.

Cheers

Nick

(ePlanning Project Manager) Aberdeenshire Council

Nick's Website

2 Reply by Nick

  • Nick
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Re: status web service

Hmm... seems to still be down. I tried http://212.219.37.104/NBNWebServices/ex … Search.jsp and that also seems to be failing. Any thoughts as to what the problem might be (i.e. is there a problem with the server or with my connection over the Internet)
Cheers
Nick :(

(ePlanning Project Manager) Aberdeenshire Council

Nick's Website

3 Reply by andyb

  • andyb
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Re: status web service

Hi Nick,

The web services were down this morning. I've restarted Tomcat, the application server, and they're up again now. Sorry about that.

A status web service, running from the same server, probably wouldn't help with a problem like this since the application server itself was down but better messages would be a good idea.

Interesting idea about mirroring and I appreciate that the web services must be reliable if they're to be used in other systems. However, we will be moving the web services to the new infrastructure in the next few weeks. When we do, we have some allocated developer time to ensure that they're more stable. After that, let's see how things are.

Thanks very much,
Andy Brewer

4 Reply by Nick

  • Nick
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Re: status web service

Hi Andy

Thanks for sorting out the server.

I guess a 403 error redirect wouldn't work but what I could do is to write/find a 'Ping' function (i.e. using PHP) for those events when the server is completely down. That way at the very least I can let visitors know what the problem is and I guess if I was really clever I could write code to notify members when the server is back up (e.g. keep pinging every hour and send an email to the member when the web service is back up). In theory this could be run from any server and run as a web service to other users.

Anyway, this may not be as much of an issue if we can improve reliability.

Thanks for the help. Incidentally do you monitor how much traffic the web services get and where from? That would be useful for demonstrating to what extent the service is being used.

Cheers

Nick :)

(ePlanning Project Manager) Aberdeenshire Council

Nick's Website

5 Reply by andyb

  • andyb
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Re: status web service

Hi again, Nick
Pinging the server is a nice idea. However, I do hope it won't be necessary when we're running the web services off the new infrastructure!
We log web services use in some detail: IP, request type and request parameters (including the datasets used in the response). Currently dataset administrators can view all _website_ use (also logged) for their datasets in the administration pages. It would be useful for us to provide summaries of web services use too.
One for our feature requests catalogue, I think.
Andy

6 Reply by Nick

  • Nick
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Re: status web service

Hi Andy

We can put the ping idea on the back burner but is something that we can consider if there are issues in the future. Great that you are getting the backing to install on the new system and this will hopefully instill greater confidence in the user community to continue to test and develop their services.

Summaries of web services usage would be helpful so that we can monitor the impact of developments both in terms of what NBN are doing but also what we as consumers of the web services are doing.

Keep up the good work

Many thanks

Nick

(ePlanning Project Manager) Aberdeenshire Council

Nick's Website