Bugzilla Rollout

We're happy to announce the roll out of our new support ticketing system, Bugzilla. We have been using Bugzilla internally for the past 18 months to track internal development and client issues and we have been very happy with the results so far. Here’s part of the Wikipedia entry about Bugzilla.

“Bugzilla is a web-based general-purpose bug tracking tool originally developed and used by the Mozilla project. Released as open source software by Netscape Communications in 1998, Bugzilla has been adopted by a variety of organizations for use as a defect tracker for both free software and proprietary products.”

“Bugzilla's notion of a "bug" is very general, and Bugzilla uses the term "bug" to track not only software bugs but also all other user-submitted tracking tickets; for instance, Mozilla.org and the MediaWiki project use it to track feature requests as well. Bugs can be submitted by anybody, and will be assigned to a particular developer. Various status updates for each bug are allowed, together with user notes and bug examples.”

Although we are rolling out this new system in response to the new requirements placed on us by the new contract and SLA, we are very excited about the new functionality it gives us.

We can now

• Assign individual ticket numbers to each PCA request
• Track the exact date and time of PCA requests
• Accurately track and monitor the time to resolve PCA issues
• Automatically route requests to the correct person without having to run all requests through the CS team (although CS will monitor all requests)
• Reports can be created to show activity by PCA, product, type of issue, etc…

It also gives the PCAs a much better view of what’s happening.

• Web interface with simple layout to view all current (and historical) issues
• Allows PCA users to check the current status of each issue
• Allows PCAs to attach files and make additional comments
• User-defined reports can be run to track activity and ticket status

Our goal is to have all PCAs who subscribe to eClips using Bugzilla by the end of March, so someone from the Client Services team will contact you this week to schedule a training session.

Data Migration Project

Tomorrow we will begin a project to move the entire body of NLA Digital data from our current fabric attached storage system (FAS) to a new storage area network (SAN). This will involve moving approximately 2TB of data from one set of drives to another. We will be moving the data in blocks to make the work more manageable, and expect the entire project to take as much as two weeks.

The data migration has been designed to have very little or no impact to our clients. During the migration window, users may experience a slight degradation in performance as we port the existing system onto the new hardware. It's hard to quantify exactly what this degradation will be until we start the process, but we will be monitoring the system and we are prepared to abort the process if necessary.

The new SAN will provide us with not only enough expansion to accommodate growth for the next 36 months (and possibly beyond), but should also provide improved performance to our existing services.

We will post updated information to the blog as the project moves along.

Trinity Mirror Mainbook failure

Trinity Mirror are still experiencing server problems and have failed to deliver the Daily Mirror files, so far. They have ordered a new server and hope to have the problem fixed by the weekend. In the meantime everything is being done manually and we can expect delays.

I will keep you updated if and when we receive the files. Please be assured that our processors are ready and waiting to process the content as soon as it comes in.

Trinity Mirror server problems

Trinity Mirror’s server went down on Friday evening, severely impacting their delivery of files to the NLA. They have yet to resolve the problem which means that they are manually sending us files each evening. This manual process is rather time consuming and has meant that they sometimes fail to deliver before the 1am, 1^st edition deadline.

Please be assured that we are doing everything we can to get Trinity Mirror content into our database. Our production team are meeting with their IT team this morning to discuss resolution times.

We will keep you updated as progress is made.

FTP Services

Since Monday (29 Jan) you may have experienced some problems with the eClips FTP service. Specifically, you may have had trouble when trying to execute directory listings. This problem was caused by the application of an upgrade to our Globalscape Secure FTP Server software where we moved from v3.2 to  v3.3.

The v3.3 upgrade resolved a documented issue with the Globalscape software that caused stability issues under certain circumstances. While v3.3 seems to have solved that issue, it has created others.

We have formally logged the issue with Globalscape and have rolled back to v3.2 for the time being. Rolling back to v3.2 shouldn't have any adverse impact for PCAs using eClips.

This has only affected a very small number of clients under very special circumstances and we're sorry for any inconvenience it may have caused.

An update will be posted when more information becomes available.