December 17th

[BA22]

nina's a med hopeful, so the 17th is less important to us than the 15th of jan when offers come out.

Having said that i give her 3 minutes

[Juztine]

I'm waiting for the letter that comes on the 18th.

[Matt89]

I'll get my results ASAP

[Mao]

um... with all these ppl around victoria seriously wanting to check results at 7 am... any estimation on the lag~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ VTAC server might experience...?
i think i'll check it at lunch... even though i voted 7am... sigh lol

edit by coblin "lag~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~" was too long for the page to display.

[AppleXY]

I picked "never". I'm seriously considering skipping results and just waiting to see what uni offers I get. Any bets on how long I'll last? lol

Lol are you serious? Lol, I agree with Eriny it won't last rofl

[AppleXY]

um... with all these ppl around victoria seriously wanting to check results at 7 am... any estimation on the lag~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ VTAC server might experience...?
i think i'll check it at lunch... even though i voted 7am... sigh lol

*edit: lag~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ was too long for the page to display....*

Umm, Whats with all the ~~ for? ??

Well according to WHOIS, vcaa uses Webcentral Servers which have dedicated servers, So I think it'll be ok.

[Collin Li]

Well according to WHOIS, vcaa uses Webcentral Servers which have dedicated servers, So I think it'll be ok.

Some jackasses always think it's funny to DDoS the servers at 7am in addition to the heavy load as well. That is probably why it has a high chance to crash.

[AppleXY]

I hate those DDoS f**kers GRR! LOL

Don't they have DDoS protection anywho? Like Proxleic http://www.prolexic.com/

[Collin Li]

Hmm... I wouldn't know. How does "protection" work anyway? It might leave out legitimate users too.

[reg]

Hmm... I wouldn't know. How does "protection" work anyway? It might leave out legitimate users too.

Well, it varies, but generally once traffic "flooding" starts to occur, traffic matching certain rules starts being diverted from a path directly to the server, but to a network/series of appliances that are dedicated to filtering "bad" traffic from the legitimate, and forwarding what is left.

In the end, traffic may take longer to arrive than usual, but no flooding will reach the score server.

VCAA had a tendency to slow down like crazy during exam period, I doubt that was due to attacks as much as it was to poor hosting (lol, it's colocated with VELS and probably a bunch of other doe crap.

[costargh]

Why wouldn't they just fix it? Cost?

[Collin Li]

Yeah, reg, thanks for that. You're probably right, poor hosting may be the case.

Why wouldn't they just fix it? Cost?

I think you're misunderstanding the problem. It's not about something that's broken. A DDoS is just when there is a malicious intent behind a large flow of internet traffic used to distract the servers. This can slow down the servers, and essentially shut down the web-operation of the server. It doesn't break anything, but while the DDoS attack is happening, web-servers will be occupied with useless signals from non-legitimate users, blocking out possible legitimate users from accessing the website.

[costargh]

Oh but I mean... like isn't the usual problem just that of a high level of legitimate traffic? And if that is the case isn't it just a case of getting a better server or something?

[Collin Li]

Oh. Yeah, if it's a high level of legitimate traffic, you need a way to spread out the peak (like what we suspect UoM does), or do something like "we will release the results at some random time in between 12am to 12pm." I'm not sure if that would actually reduce the load. I reckon it would be enough of a disincentive to reduce peak traffic

What they do now is pretty good (have the results posted out, and have SMS service), which also spreads the load.

The final resort would be to increase the capabilities of the server, but this is costly.

[reg]

we will release the results at some random time in between 12am to 12pm

This tends to be the best solution. In WoW, new server announcements are made in the fashion of "We will open the server on >this< date", and it works well. One time they gave an exact time, and the server crashed shortly (<5 minutes) after coming up.

Perhaps give an incentive to use other services, make SMS free or allow emails to be sent, whatever.