Rox the Server
(Tue Oct 23, 2007) [/Misc] #
So you want to buy tickets to see the Colorado Rockies in the World Series? They're exclusively available online... if you're lucky.
When ticket sales opened yesterday, the website took 8.5 million hits in a 90-minute period. Then the system melted, and someone had a very bad day (and night) in the IT department. Fans were hopping mad. Thinking they'd try the old fashioned payment method, they turned up at the box offices only to be turned away. Reports that the problem was caused by a "malicious, external attack" were irrelevant.
Ticket sales re-opened today at noon, and they are "very confident we will get these tickets sold today." (Only 500 tickets of nearly 60,000 available were sold yesterday.) The fix? Throttle access to the site through a countdown timer. (View source for the JavaScript.) When the timer reaches zero, cross your fingers!
