Take a 30-day timeout or risk 'eBay black eye'

By Daniel Briere and Christine Heckart
Network World, 08/02/99

EBay's much-publicized multiday system crash and service outage continues to cause sleepless nights for many individuals . . . not all of whom work for eBay.

IT executives and electronic commerce managers throughout the Internet community are constantly wondering whether their e-commerce platforms could crash and tag them with an "eBay black eye." Funny thing is, most of these executives already know what needs to be done.

If they really want to sleep at night, those responsible for strategic e-commerce platforms should implement the same operating procedures, system requirements, backup plans and network policies that exist for their internal mission-critical systems.

Reading through the press surrounding the eBay system crash, two obvious problems stand out. The first was the lack of a hot standby swap-over system. The second was that eBay servers had not been updated to the most recent version of the Sun operating system.

Quotes from eBay technical people indicate the standby system was almost ready but not quite functional. Still they pressed on with massive system changes and nothing more than a few backup tapes standing between them and disaster. As weary and worn individuals responsible for strategic enterprise networks, we all understand the importance of hot-swappable standby systems. All too often though, those controlling the dollars do not share that level of concern.

Some believe the Internet is "all new and different" and runs by a separate set of more lenient rules and on a different time clock. We don't buy that premise. If anything, executives should use the eBay crash and publicity it generated to slow down, even if temporarily, their e-commerce system upgrades. Demand the money and resources to deploy a hot standby system and stick to your guns.

Using scare tactics to get resources should not be standard procedure, of course. Fortunately, the wave of press coverage concerning the eBay outage makes our suggestion seem less like a scare tactic and more like good business sense. Make certain your CEOs and board members see the stories concerning what eBay lost in hard dollars, stock value and customer loyalty.

While you have their attention, push for commitments and resources to implement a plan that includes delaying all new system enhancements in order to spend 30 days on a full e-commerce system review. During this time you can ensure your e-commerce security is as bulletproof as it can be, your server operating systems are up to the correct version levels, patches have been tested and rolled out, backup plans have been tested and the hot standby systems work. You can also use these 30 days to promote your system review to your e-commerce customers.

You have two choices. Strike while the embers of the eBay crash are hot, or continue to down those sleeping pills.