> A few ways, some worse than others: > > 1) Offer several download links: "Download from Apache, from > SourceForge, from MirrorBrain". Of course that doesn't balance the > load, but maybe it would if we randomized the order that they are > listed. > > 2) Have a single link, but it is JavaScript that then directs to one > of the three mirrors systems. This is easy to distribute the load > according to a defined schedule. Marcus prototyped an approach like > this. It looked like it was working. I'm not sure, however, whether > it handled fallbacks. For example, you randomly select to use the > Apache mirror, but the particular operator chosen is down. User > experience for backing out of that and repeating was as nice as it > could be. > > 3) Some variation on 3 where we handle the fallbacks better, or at > least handle failures better, so the user just needs to click again.
I would be in favor of a forth option suggested by Andreas in another thread: * Route "autoupdater" traffic through one system (MirrorBrain) * Route web based traffic through another (SF as primary, and Apache mirrors as secondary) This eliminates potential problems with "which mirror network is having a problem" kinds of debugging which would be particularly pernicious if we randomized anything about the process. It also has the benefit of most closely matching Joe's original suggestion of how to use SF.net, and provides a clear accountability/support chain for users when downloads fail. SF.net will as previously mentioned provide an API to collect stats on downloads from our system, and we'd be happy to help host a bouncer that forwards requests to a MirrorBrain server so that updater stats can be collected as well if that helps the team measure the release download volume more effectively. --Mark Ramm ==== This e- mail message is intended only for the named recipient(s) above. It may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail and any attachment(s) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify the sender by replying to this e-mail and delete the message and any attachment(s) from your system. Thank you.
