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For those of us (I might be the only one) that have been having health issues on and off and sometimes can't immediately process images, 21 days is not enough buffer. 14 is not good at all.
We all know what has caused the problem. New cameras and a push for more member participation.
It's time for HQ and the Counsel to fund more disk space for the AAVSONet images in Vphot. AAVSONet is one of the major benefits of AAVSO membership. Being able to easily and quickly increase resources is in theory one of the benefits of moving all operations to the 'cloud'.
It's time to step up and take care of this problem!
Unfortunately, VPhot has recently been down occasionally. :-(
This is due to our frequent pushing up against the storage and memory capacity of our AWS account. This appears to be often due to increased usage (a good thing) and the increasing size of many images (e.g., 50 MB each) (a bad thing). It helps if users delete their images once they are analyzed! Please check your account regularly.
George regularly checks on the system, adjusts capacity and reboots the system. However, it is sometimes hard to keep up with! Other options are being pursued but they often require $$.
Should we expect this to be a regular occurrance now that we've gone to AWS?? Was this anticipated? It did not occur this frequently before the move, if at all. Perhaps we should invest in more storage??? Didn't we get $$ with selling HQ?
We have been on AWS for many months without this level of problem. It is not that! It is likely storage and memory? We can track these levels of infrastructure use.
As I stated elsewhere, there are alternatives but often nothing works as fast as desired.
"Other options are being pursued but they often require $$" So what do members pay for? Vphoto is one of the few things that you can only use if you are a member and pay amounts. One should expect that contributions will also be used for this. Otherwise I'll soon save myself paying the contributions. Volker
If storage is the problem, rather than continuing to decrease the time the files are kept what about setting a limit to the total number of megabytes taken up by each observer? This way the observer can chose which observations to delete or download and which to keep in the VPhot list a bit longer to make the measurements. But this would be only a temporary fix.
If the AAVSO wants more observers, and if we encourage them you use VPhot (I think we should), and as CMOS images (smaller pixels, larger chips = larger file sizes) become an increasing proportion of the total, just continuing to decrease the hold time will not be enough. I think VPhot usage should remain free to members, but we need a better way to deal with the image files.
Some ideas:
Give each observer a certain amount of storage, then charge, maybe enforced when renewing membership, for more storage (but keep an upper limit as well).
If memory is a significant problem, set an upper limit for the image file size. Maybe there is already a file size limit. If so, perhaps it should be lower.
We could have a regular plan for asking VPhot users to contribute to a "VPhot only" pot of money for improving the system. I think such a pot exists, but I have never been asked to contribute specifically to that.
I'm sure there are other ways of dealing with this problem. We need a longer term plan.
VPhot has run out of disk space.
I'm working on this now.
I will have to reduce the file retention time from 30 days to 21 days.
Should be operational in about an hour.
George
Thanks. Appreciate all that you for us.
Bill
VPhot is now running again.
Storage is at 85% as I have had to reduce the file retention period to 21 days.
This is a reminder that VPhot is not an archive: its a pipeline. So load your files, process them and delete them to make room for others.
Sorry about the inconvenience.
George
Unfortunately, I'm still getting the same Service Unavailable message.
The 21 day retention policy seems more than adequate. I would be happy with 14 days.
I also still cannot connect with VPhot (10:25 Pacific) with the same error message.
Phil
For those of us (I might be the only one) that have been having health issues on and off and sometimes can't immediately process images, 21 days is not enough buffer. 14 is not good at all.
We all know what has caused the problem. New cameras and a push for more member participation.
It's time for HQ and the Counsel to fund more disk space for the AAVSONet images in Vphot. AAVSONet is one of the major benefits of AAVSO membership. Being able to easily and quickly increase resources is in theory one of the benefits of moving all operations to the 'cloud'.
It's time to step up and take care of this problem!
Frank Schorr (SFRA)
All:
Unfortunately, VPhot has recently been down occasionally. :-(
This is due to our frequent pushing up against the storage and memory capacity of our AWS account. This appears to be often due to increased usage (a good thing) and the increasing size of many images (e.g., 50 MB each) (a bad thing). It helps if users delete their images once they are analyzed! Please check your account regularly.
George regularly checks on the system, adjusts capacity and reboots the system. However, it is sometimes hard to keep up with! Other options are being pursued but they often require $$.
Sorry!
Ken
…
I see its down now as well.
Should we expect this to be a regular occurrance now that we've gone to AWS?? Was this anticipated? It did not occur this frequently before the move, if at all. Perhaps we should invest in more storage??? Didn't we get $$ with selling HQ?
Peter:
We have been on AWS for many months without this level of problem. It is not that! It is likely storage and memory? We can track these levels of infrastructure use.
As I stated elsewhere, there are alternatives but often nothing works as fast as desired.
Ken
My pre-solved, 3.1 MB .FIT files are flying through like gangbusters again!
Ray
TRE
"Other options are being pursued but they often require $$" So what do members pay for? Vphoto is one of the few things that you can only use if you are a member and pay amounts. One should expect that contributions will also be used for this. Otherwise I'll soon save myself paying the contributions. Volker
from Ken: "It is likely storage and memory?"
If storage is the problem, rather than continuing to decrease the time the files are kept what about setting a limit to the total number of megabytes taken up by each observer? This way the observer can chose which observations to delete or download and which to keep in the VPhot list a bit longer to make the measurements. But this would be only a temporary fix.
If the AAVSO wants more observers, and if we encourage them you use VPhot (I think we should), and as CMOS images (smaller pixels, larger chips = larger file sizes) become an increasing proportion of the total, just continuing to decrease the hold time will not be enough. I think VPhot usage should remain free to members, but we need a better way to deal with the image files.
Some ideas:
Give each observer a certain amount of storage, then charge, maybe enforced when renewing membership, for more storage (but keep an upper limit as well).
If memory is a significant problem, set an upper limit for the image file size. Maybe there is already a file size limit. If so, perhaps it should be lower.
We could have a regular plan for asking VPhot users to contribute to a "VPhot only" pot of money for improving the system. I think such a pot exists, but I have never been asked to contribute specifically to that.
I'm sure there are other ways of dealing with this problem. We need a longer term plan.
Phil