Database performance - an update.

Dear Colleagues,

I shall begin by saying that I wrote the two messages to
the local-ir, lir-wg and db-wg yesterday.  I wrote them
for, and on behalf of, the RIPE NCC Database Group. I 
realise that many of you are unhappy that these messages
had no personal signature.  The responsibility for this
oversight is mine.  In all previous postings to these lists, 
I have signed my name.  I shall continue to do this.

You already know what happened on Tuesday, 27 October, last.
Yesterday morning, we had no option but to do preventative 
maintenance of the database; this was not related to the 
activity of any user last Tuesday.  However, nearly all 
updates were stopped until around 1630 MET.  Unfortunately, 
there was a higher than usual number of updates sent to the 
database yesterday.  These two facts had one result: a very 
long delay before your updates were processed.  At this time 
there is still a long queue of unprocessed updates, but updates 
are being processed again.  Obviously, a faster, more powerful 
machine would process updates quicker than the current machine.

On Tuesday, the problem was that it was possible to delete objects 
referenced somewhere in the database before deleting all references
to that object.  Imposing such a constraint (referential integrity
check) has been already been considered.  Tuesday's incident was 
not a security problem - anyone with the correct authorization can 
still make a mistake.

At the previous RIPE meeting in Edinburgh, we announced new 
software, including a referential integrity check, and new 
hardware, a Sun E450 machine.  We intended to deploy both of 
these at the end of October or early November.  We had bad 
luck that several unrelated problems occurred this week, just 
before the planned deployment of the new code and the new 
machine.  

Now, a status report.  All your updates have been queued - 
there is no need to re-send them.  We estimate that the 
situation should be back to normal tomorrow, if not sooner. 
We still plan to introduce the new software and hardware 
next week.

We thank you all for your support in the past and we assure
you of our continuing efforts to support you in your work.

Your sincerely,

Ambrose Magee 
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for, and on behalf of, the RIPE NCC Database Group.