Submitted by Michael Valladao, NetScout Product Marketing Manager
Mozilla is petitioning Guinness for a new world record category for the most software downloads in a 24 hour period. Earlier this month, Mozilla released Firefox 3, hosting a Download Day event and Bar-B-Que at their Mountain View headquarters. They also prompted users to join in on the fun by adding “Download Day” buttons to websites and encouraging friends and associates to download within the 24 hour period.
A Network World Article by Elizabeth Montalbano, IDC News Service, says that the response was overwhelming. So much, that Mozilla’s Melissa Shapiro was forced to post the following message:
“The outpouring of interest and enthusiasm around Firefox 3 has been overwhelming (literally!). Our servers are currently feeling the burn and should be back to normal shortly.”
The bottom line is Mozilla had problems. Servers were down for more than an hour.
Remember Eileen’s blog regarding the new iPhone 3G release? The same thing happened there. Apple was quick to claim they “sold” over 1 million phones the first weekend. However, they never reported the number of activations because of download “technical problems”. According to a PC World article by Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service, Apple shut their main London store early due to the issues.
The tarnished reputations of Mozilla and Apple are just the tip of the iceberg. Every company running a network runs the risk of periodic network and server issues. The smart ones utilize NetScout solutions to monitor, troubleshoot, and quickly get things running again.
By the way, Mozilla users download 8,002,530 copies of the new browser opening day. Nobody knows what they would have done if they were able to start on time.
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