Earlier this week we opened our doors to the public and launched DesignSvn. However, things didn’t go as smooth as we expected them to - on Tuesday afternoon and again later on that evening our database server stopped responding. As a result, the service was affected, most users couldn’t access their accounts and users who were trying to signup for a free plan were prompted to enter their credit card details.

We thought we should write a little post regarding this situation, what happened and what we learned from it so it doesn’t happen again in the future.

Unresponsive Database

Before launching DesignSvn we were aware of the amount of users that wanted to try DesignSvn because they didn’t get a chance to participate in the beta. Based on that fact we were aware of possible failures and made the necessary plans to implement failover systems along with backups as a measure of security.

Nonetheless, one thing we should have thought about more was the database server. Due to the amount of requests it simply stopped responding, we replicated the database immediately across another server and switched it over. Things should be running a lot smoother now and we’ve implemented additional plans so we can avoid such events in the future.

Free Accounts and Billing Details

When the database server stopped responding many users were trying to signup for a free account and were requested for their card details. We do not require your billing details or card details for a free account, the reason these fields were displayed was because our database was not responding and the system couldn’t detect which account you were trying to sign up for.

The issue was solved when the database server was back up. If you tried to signup for a free account and didn’t manage to do so successfully we would be delighted if you gave it another go.

Bug Reporting

A final point we’d like to touch upon is bugs and reporting them.

No software is perfect and although DesignSvn is out of beta there still might be some areas which don’t work the way they should. If you notice any issues please let us know, the sooner you let us know the sooner we can fix it.

You can report any issues by opening a support ticket (http://support.designsvn.com) or by emailing support@designsvn.com.