Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened
#2A wonderful reason to have pre-release testers for every piece of software that communicates with other software, any time you plan to push updates. With pulls, your early updaters are your test beds; with push, you have to create your testing groups.
Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened
#3Just checked my Windows event logs... as I also run a supernode and yup, one Application Error at 2010-12-22 15:51:10 from Skype.
Tech data shows version 5:
Faulting application name: Skype.exe, version: 5.0.0.152, time stamp: 0x4cb31516
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 6.1.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5bdbdf
Exception code: 0xe0fafafa
Fault offset: 0x0000b727
Faulting process id: 0xd20
Faulting application start time: 0x01cba1ea3b70b5ef
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\syswow64\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: 4b2781d7-0de3-11e0-bbdc-005056c00008
Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened
#4A wonderful reason to have pre-release testers for every piece of software that communicates with other software, any time you plan to push updates. With pulls, your early updaters are your test beds; with push, you have to create your testing groups.
Push software is even better about testing: you can forcibly upgrade 1% of installs, monitor them intensely, and let the (non-upgraded) system executive roll back the version if something bad happens. The system executive can even automatically roll back if it loses contact with the vendor, in case the upgrade goes so horribly wrong that it brings down networking.
Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened
#5A wonderful reason to have pre-release testers for every piece of software that communicates with other software, any time you plan to push updates. With pulls, your early updaters are your test beds; with push, you have to create your testing groups.
The problem with a big adaptive p2p network is that it is close to impossible to test under real production loads.
Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened
#6Nice to see the CEO of a large company that knows how to walk the talk. I've also seen him post on HN. Does Steve Ballmer know the difference between a micro and monolithic kernel?
Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened
#7Maybe this will cause Skype to take Linux and Mac more seriously. If you've used the Windows version, you know almost all development has occurred there, whereas the Mac and Linux clients have looked the same for the last four or five years. The Linux client did have a major version bump about a year ago iirc, and that brought some needed features, but it was mostly the same.
Also, hopefully this will teach Skype to do more with open-source. I really hope they open the client up. This bug may have been caught, and things would definitely have turned out differently if Skype ran freely on other platforms. Maybe someone could even factor out a "Skype server" instead of an exclusive policy of client supernodes. Even serious torrenters rent a server somewhere to host their torrents -- P2P doesn't have to be strictly consumer-level connection, and really shouldn't be.
Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened
#8Are Skype relying on third parties with no contractual relationship for an essential component of the network?
Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened
#9Are Skype relying on third parties with no contractual relationship for an essential component of the network?
Yup. But they do mention it when installing. You can also disable it.
If you are not firewalled or NATd you are a supernode automatically - on the plus side you get better sound quality for voice calls.
Normally the bandwidth used is pretty low since you are mostly forwarding text messages.
When they said mega-supernodes they meant machines controlled by them that do nothing else, and are on high bandwidth connections. (My bet is lots of amazon instances.)
Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened
#10Are Skype relying on third parties with no contractual relationship for an essential component of the network?
Skype's EULA pretty clearly states that this is the case:
3.3 Utilization of Your Computer: Skype Software may utilize the processor and bandwidth of the computer (or other applicable device) You are utilizing, for the limited purpose of facilitating the communication between Skype Software users.