Posted in: Comics | Tagged: sdcc, ticketleap

SDCC Tickets Part 4: Chaos After 30 Minutes?

Published Sat, 05 Feb 2011 11:53:03 -0600

Last updated Sat, 05 Feb 2011 12:42:34 -0600

Just minutes after SDCC Ticket Purchases opened for the fourth time — after 2 high-profile, server melting failures, and a limited test run that was supposed to pave the way for success today, twitter errupted with countless angry #sdcc-tagged messages of yet more initial problems — while the company processing the transactions, Ticketleap, says that some sales are being processed.

Though there are mixed reports that some people are already getting a sold-out message, most people are reporting seeing this:

the @comic_con official twitter has responded:

We're obviously not happy with this morning's events. We are trying to find answers and get to the bottom of this.

While @ticketleap says lots of transactions are going through:

@Comic_Con fans, if you see an over capacity message hit refresh. We are under heavy load right now and it should smooth out. #sdcc

Hey @Comic_Con, @ticketleap is seeing lots of transactions going through. Keep trying!

The sales today were widely anticipated as a high-profile test of Amazon Cloud Computing Services, which serve as Ticketleap's underlying infrastructure.

TicketLeap's new Python-based platform utilizes a variety of AWS services, including EC2, Simple Storage Service (S3), CloudFront (AWS's CDN), Auto-Scaling and, perhaps most importantly, Relational Database Service (RDS). Fitzgerald says TicketLeap usually runs between 8 and 16 web servers, but also runs multiples databases in RDS that utilize the service's whopping High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large DB Instances. The flexible new architecture has paid off already, especially for New Year's Eve events. Knowing most partygoers purchase their tickets only a few days before Dec. 31, Fitzgerald explained, TicketLeap was able to scale out its infrastructure to handle that anticipated load, then shrink it back down once the holiday was over. Although AWS offers the ability to scale reactively to unexpected traffic spikes, Fitzgerald said most of TicketLeap's scaling is proactive in anticipation of big events.

Sure to be a breaking story throughout the day.

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