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TKJunkMail @ 3rd Jul 12:22PM:
Re: Apparently they set up a Twitter account today....see below
said by cabana :
1) cannot even fathom a company of this magnitude not having a back up plan much less not having 100% redundancy so that worse case scenerio would have been a hiccup while the made the switch.
I am sure they had a backup plan. It just hit problems when they had to pull the trigger.
A friend of mine does "disaster recovery" consulting and the biggest problem companies have is that they never bite the bullet and actually test on a scheduled basis that their recovery plan will work when needed. They do "simulated" recoveries because they are a 24x7 business. Top mgt just refuses to schedule a disruptive test of a recovery plan. And that is the only way to know if it will work.
The alternative, and this gets very expensive and is used only by the biggest companies, is to run a load balanced dual or more system where if one data center goes down, all transactions are automatically processed by the other data centers. And those data centers have the spare processing power to handle the load.
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page
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DC DSL @ 3rd Jul 12:25PM:
Re: Apparently they set up a Twitter account today....see below
said by cabana :
On a serious note - I hope this does not hurt the businesses that depend on their services too much :huh:
Oh, it's gonna hurt a lot of businesses...especially mom and pop ones.
I just went downstairs to pick up some dry cleaning and a loaf of bread from the little supermarket in my building. Neither of them can process card transactions. There was a woman ahead of me at the valet who was freaking out because she didn't have any cash and was on her way to the airport. Fortunately for her, the owner knows her and gave her her stuff. The folks behind me couldn't get theirs, though.
At the market, it's also cash-only. Same at the liquor store and three of the 4 restaurants across the street.
Part of the problem is the credit card companies' doing. It used to be transactions could be processed manually by running the card through a draft imprinter, and floor limits that didn't require authorization, or calling in for authorization. No more of that for all but special arrangements (like big-dollar charges using an Amex).
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There is no giant fur-bearing trout.
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anon @ 3rd Jul 12:35PM:
msg deleted
deleted by a moderator
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anon @ 3rd Jul 12:41PM:
Re: Apparently they set up a Twitter account today....see below
said by cabana :
On a serious note - I hope this does not hurt the businesses that depend on their services too much :huh:
Legit companies - me too.
If you ask me, Karma finally swung around to Authorize.Net for being near accomplices with the RBN as the criminal's processor of choice. »Ebook websites, fraud charges, Devbill/DigitalAge/Pluto
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jamesh @ 3rd Jul 12:45PM:
Re: 6 hours and counting
Hello everyone, we have a liquor store and are in TROUBLE! Every wants liqour for the holiday weekend. We got in touch with goEmerchant.com and they were VERY helpful and are setting us up with a new gateway!!
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JJV @ 3rd Jul 01:00PM:
Breaking NEWS!!
Its Fisher Plaza that had the fire.
My KOMO TV local station. Fisher Broadcasting is out.
So is their web page.
www.komotv.com
From Seattletimes.com
Fire disrupts stations at Seattle's Fisher Plaza
A fire at Fisher Plaza disrupted stations that broadcast from the building near the Seattle Center.
SEATTLE —
A fire at Fisher Plaza disrupted stations that broadcast from the building near the Seattle Center.
KOMO Radio reports the fire in an electrical vault about 11 p.m. Thursday forced the evacuation of the building.
KOMO Radio is broadcasting Friday from a building at its transmitter on Queen Anne hill in Seattle, and KOMO TV station is broadcasting morning segments from a truck in a park.
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Noah Vail @ 3rd Jul 01:01PM:
Re: Apparently they set up a Twitter account today....see below
said by TKJunkMail :
A friend of mine does "disaster recovery" consulting and the biggest problem companies have is that they never bite the bullet and actually test on a scheduled basis that their recovery plan will work when needed. They do "simulated" recoveries because they are a 24x7 business. Top mgt just refuses to schedule a disruptive test of a recovery plan. And that is the only way to know if it will work.
That's very true. My scale of employees/site is only one or two hundred and it's no different here. I can't even disconnect main power to check the life of battery backups. No one wants the disruption during the day or to pay me to come in overnight.
It's pretty sad, considering an outage costs them 50k+/hr in lost revenue + expenses to put everything right again.
NV
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In my perfect religion, a giant hole appears and sucks up all the lousy people.
I call it the Crapture.
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Dolgan @ 3rd Jul 01:21PM:
Each business needs its own backup plan
It is also unbelievable that businesses do not have their own backup plans. All walk-in businesses should have knucklebusters and carbon reciepts so they can run charges the old fashioned way, and call them in/input the info into the web later. Saved my butt at several restaurants when the phone lines went down, or the powere went out. Furthermore, if their phone lines are not down they can manually call in each credit card transaction...this is not rocket science, and the workarounds are there for each business to utilize if they so desire. The only exception may be web based merchants who would not have access to the 2 workarounds provided. It does suck that this happened, but there are temporary, albeit inconvenient, workarounds.
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anon @ 3rd Jul 01:29PM:
Authorize.net
Thanks, Authorize.net, for sending your customers an email to let them know there was a system-wide failure. Our office is closed today for the holiday. Fortunately, our e-commerce provider advised us what was going on.
The Authorize.net seal that appears throughout our website was causing our pages to load very slowly. To solve this problem, I disabled the seal. As far as the other problems go, I updated my payment settings so a credit card authorization or capture isn't automatic. So far this seems to be working. We'll just have to manually charge transactions through the gateway... when it's finally up and running.
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DC DSL @ 3rd Jul 01:32PM:
Re: Each business needs its own backup plan
The logos don't want paper or manual call-in...their beancounters don't want the expense of supplies and staffing that requires. Statistically "significant" or widespread network outages are uncommon, so when contrasted to the cost of supporting manual auth, it's not justifiable in their eyes. Unfortunately, with all the consolidation in financial services over the last few years, while there are fewer points of failure there is far greater likelihood that any single failure could quickly cascade to a national or global scale...as this situation makes quite apparent.
If anything, people should be smart and heed those warnings to keep a stash of cash on hand for emergencies. It doesn't take a natural disaster or terrorist attack to muck things up...a fire or a backhoe could just as easily ruin a lot of people's days.
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There is no giant fur-bearing trout.
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screavic @ 3rd Jul 01:35PM:
I Knew..
I knew there was a reason I left them... oh that and the high monthly fee considering I'm a startup with very little business.
So far I have used »www.cdgcommerce.com/ and I love it, the customer service is great and I usually get a response in less than 8 hours. I get alot for $10 a month compared to the $40 I was paying at Authorize.net cause I had to find a "reseller"
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TK Junk Mail @ 3rd Jul 01:46PM:
Doh!
Just got an on call page about 10 min ago: "Users can not access Authorize.net, all other site working fine".
LoL. Thanks for the heads up DSLR. Me: "TEh wesite is down :)"
Thanks for the Twitter link too.
EDIT: It's funny as well that this isn't even front page news on msnbc.com, where I get my news. Their "breaking news" is some shit about Wimbledon. No wonder traditional media is fading into obscurity. DSLR/blogging ftw, traditional media: fail. If someone uses the term "blogosphere" though, I will have to punch you directly in the head.
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JJV @ 3rd Jul 01:53PM:
Re: Breaking NEWS!!
KOMO Radio is reporting the fire started in the parking garage and the lobby area.
Safety features have shut off back up power.
They confirm the fire has disrupted credit card processing.
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soitgoes2 @ 3rd Jul 01:55PM:
Re: Each business needs its own backup plan
said by Dolgan :
All walk-in businesses should have knucklebusters and carbon reciepts so they can run charges the old fashioned way, and call them in/input the info into the web later. ... Furthermore, if their phone lines are not down they can manually call in each credit card transaction...this is not rocket science, and the workarounds are there for each business to utilize if they so desire. The only exception may be web based merchants who would not have access to the 2 workarounds provided.
Exactly.
said by DC DSL :
The logos don't want paper or manual call-in
Mastercard and Visa *require* merchants to have imprinters and card slips to use in case of an outage--be it small scale or large scale. Yes, it creates more work/costs, but they'd rather get that type of transaction than NO transaction.
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anon @ 3rd Jul 02:38PM:
Re: Apparently they set up a Twitter account today....see below
I know GoEmerchant.com has an Authorize.net Emulator as well. I recommend using them because I've had great experience with their customer support.
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JJV @ 3rd Jul 02:39PM:
Re: Breaking NEWS!!
Comments here
»www.komonews.com/news/local/49873927.html
Indicate Verizon internet / fios was disrupted as well.
Also Swedish Medical Center.
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ggma1126 @ 3rd Jul 03:09PM:
site is up now but............
Site seems to be up as I was able to get into my merchant account (tho it was slow loading) so hopefully its working again
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K Patterson @ 3rd Jul 03:10PM:
Major accomplices of the Russian mob.
i'm with Chester.
These folks deserve to go down. They are one of the largest processors of fraudulent transactions on the 'net.
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TK Junk Mail @ 3rd Jul 03:20PM:
https://account.authorize.net/
»https://account.authorize.net/ is up. Enter the whole URL.
Tweet me bro.
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TKJunkMail @ 3rd Jul 04:00PM:
News item says Seattle fire hit MS's Bing Travel svc too
»news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-102790···1_3-0-20
A fire at downtown Seattle's Fisher Plaza has interrupted service at some top Web sites, including Microsoft's Bing Travel and Authorize.net.
It's a little unclear exactly when the fire at the Fisher Plaza data center started--some reports say Thursday night, others say just after midnight Friday. A message on Bing Travel pins the problems on a blown transformer.
"The blown transformer knocked out power to the entire building, which is home to the Bing Travel servers," a message on the site says. "This is isolated to Bing Travel only, and there is no impact to any other aspect of Bing."
Verizon Communications spokesman Jon Davies said the fire also temporarily disrupted Verizon's Seattle-area DSL service. About 50,000 customers in Oregon and Washington lost Internet connectivity, Davies told TechFlash.
Ongoing updates on status can be found here:
»www.techflash.com/microsoft/Seat···comments
See here for a list of web sites affected by this fire:
»blog.kylemulka.com/2009/07/list-···er-fire/
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page
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anon @ 3rd Jul 04:04PM:
I love a good outage
It brings out all the "I could do better, look at me, look at me" types.
The only fact we have is that there was a fire in the building, and service seems to be out in many areas.
That's it.
And already we have all the wannabe "experts" crawling out of the woodwork accusing the company of not spending enough money on disaster recovery planning, not having proper backup links, etc, etc!
Sorry folks, but it only shows how naive you are! (speaking only to those guilty of it here - you know who you are)
A.) You've just proven that you're the type that is so fixated on being a star that you'll make assumptions to fill in facts that you need to get before proceeding. That means you're dangerous during any kind of emergency, and the type that needs to be kicked right off any disaster team.
B.) You speak in absolutes such as this "never should have happened" which only shows you're too limited in experience to understand that, while planning for a disaster, there is no such thing as "never should have happened" - contradicting the very mistake you're accusing the company of!!!!
Bottom line - until you KNOW what happened, stop trashing Authorized.net just to make you feel good about yourself! It does no good, and just makes you look foolish.
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Lazlow @ 3rd Jul 06:06PM:
Potential target
Can you imagine the chaos that would occur if someone organized an attack on the top three competitors in this market? I asked the checkers at Walmart and the grocery store today, both said that most purchases right now are on credit cards(not debit).
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tshirt @ 4th Jul 12:44AM:
Local story here....
eletrical fire in 1 tranformer bank, damage the transfer switch area, AND the sprinkers flooded/damaged the backup generators/ controls.
Fisher Plaza IS actually a recent state of the art facility (a little scary, where the state of the art has ended up :huh: ) the building house a major data center AND KOMO-4 tv/broadcasting (ABC)(Fisher is the parent company). Once we saw this story, we switched to KOMO to watch the funniest new broadcast ever.. Hosted on the roof garden/heliport deck, (not enough portable power for studio lighting/cooling) anchors complaining "it's too hot/bright out here" which was explained by the weather guy, with a big poster paper/easel/magic marker forecast. . also obiviousley using backup equipment/ cameras/etc. colors were way off, some items were stretched or squashed to fit the widescreen, wrong video multiple times.
Overall more interesting then the news itself. the 11 pm newscast should be equally good/bad.
BTW KOMO website stayed up/worked as normal, obviiousley not single hosted there, if hosted there at all. ( komo-TV guys take note ; DON"T PUT ALL YOUR EQUIPMENT IN ONE BUILDING no matter who's name is on it :D)
BTW2~~ this is the second fire causing outages there in the last year
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pcdebb @ 4th Jul 02:54AM:
Re: Major accomplices of the Russian mob.
said by K Patterson :
i'm with Chester.
These folks deserve to go down. They are one of the largest processors of fraudulent transactions on the 'net.
this is probably a blessing nobody else is seeing like we do.
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Seph83 @ 4th Jul 10:11AM:
Re: Each business needs its own backup plan
My retail company uses First Data for it's authorizations, and when they go down or our Fractional T1 goes down, we ask for the person using the Credit/Debit Card's ID, and verify that it's their card, and then manually override and accept the transaction through the POS. Our servers store the transaction locally, until we are back online, and it sends it in for processing. This way, the customer gets their products, which keeps them happy, it's simple and easy, and if there is a problem with their card, then First Data or their Bank/Credit Company has to deal with it. It's win-win.
Besides, I'll be damned if I'd let someone "rack-slide" my credit or debit card. Yes, lets just give your full credit card info to some store peon so they can max it out for you... I think not...
--
"I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going insane." ~ Waylon Jennings
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Killa200 @ 4th Jul 03:33PM:
Re: Local story here....
If that is the 2nd electrical related fire (i noticed you just said fire... so i am saying if...) That sounds like they aren't spending enough of either preventative maintenance or they are not keeping up with growth and capacity.
This reminds me of TP1 and their transformer vault exploding....
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tshirt @ 4th Jul 05:11PM:
Re: Local story here....
I think the last one was also electical (A short? )much smaller in size, and was more about smoke damage than this one (last fall sometime).
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Stumbles @ 4th Jul 10:17PM:
Have some baloney.
Oh that's just a complete load of bull. Blaming the "frailaty of the internet" on a company's lack of a disaster recovery plan. That's so last century. In this "enlightened" age of information management, and a company does not have that kind of plan in place puts the blame on the company. Droll author he is.
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tshirt @ 5th Jul 02:47AM:
Re: Local story here....
Story from KOMO-TV, includes one picture of the damage
»www.komonews.com/news/local/49873927.html
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anon @ 5th Jul 12:28PM:
being cheap when you can afford it easily
Lol spleen you sound like you work for authorize haha! more like your some manager there trying to suck up your way to some better position there... thats why companies have problems like this because noboy cares about anything like this anymore. The only thing people care about is money, caring about service or customers went out the door along with a lot of patriotism and common sense about 30 years ago.
I can't stand managers that just want to move up the ladder so they can work for two hours a day and play golf the rest of the day with the higher ups.
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FastiBook @ 6th Jul 02:15AM:
A few places...
A few places i do business with daily were having problems. Thankfully didnt need anything or i woulda been sol.
- A
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LETS GO METS!
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