Behind the scenes
Black Friday: Will the servers survive? We’ll find out at 10 p.m.
by Dominik Bärlocher
Cyber Monday: Report from the night shift
25.11.2018
Translation: machine translated
We're not doing another two-hour livestream today. And our team is also smaller than on Friday night. But of course we'll still keep you up to date!
Cyber Monday is approaching. As the servers survived Black Friday with only four minutes of downtime and an emergency measure, the on-call team is smaller today. Tonight it's just me reporting for you, without a stream, and only for as long as necessary.
26.11.2018 18:29 - The second time off
As the day progressed, there were no more problems, so we can look forward to December and the end of the year with confidence. We've long since beaten last year's Cyber Monday sales (thank you!) and the office has already emptied again. And so I too will soon be calling it a day - today for the second time ;-) It was a pleasure to accompany you through the night on Friday with Sandro in the livestream and yesterday with this article in the middle of a motivated group of engineers. If you would like to read something from me again (unfortunately I don't write that often), click on the "Follow author"button at the bottom of this page.
The offers are valid until midnight, and if everything works out, the deal of the day will take over again. I won't be checking until the morning hours though: It's time to start a new day asleep again...
26/11/2018 14:17 - Everything also runs smoothly during the day
Our servers also coped with the morning peak without any problems and nothing has been posted in our task force channel for hours. So everything is in perfect order. Incidentally, we have now also decided not to send out a separate newsletter for Cyber Monday. Let's be honest: we all know that Friday was Black Friday and today is Cyber Monday, and we don't need another email on the topic, do we?
25/11/2018 01:05 - Good night :)
All quiet, the servers are running, the database is holding, there's nothing more to do. I'm off to bed for a few hours, and in a few hours my colleagues from the morning shift will take over. Good night!
25/11/2018 00:48 - Short night shift
The peak from midnight has now levelled off, many people have probably gone to sleep in the meantime, but the orders are still coming in without any problems. As the number of enquiries to me is also steadily decreasing, I'm going to take in the stand-up from our engineers at 1 a.m. and then make my way to bed as well
25/11/2018 00:29 - The servers are holding
It's looking good: As expected, the peak was much smaller than on Friday, so the servers have been acting without any problems so far and the order counter is diligently ramping up. Unfortunately, despite the large number of orders, it is somehow normal that the offers do not suit everyone, even though we will of course take your feedback on board and pass it on internally. Nevertheless, we'll wait a while before going to bed.
25.11.2018 23:59 - Here we go
If all goes well, the deal of the day box will change to a Cyber Monday offer at midnight and clicking on it will then take you to the list of all the deals (there are around 100 again). They are grouped by product group, just like on Friday. I'll keep my fingers crossed that there's something suitable among them! (By the way, the final countdown is currently running here...)
25.11.2018 23:50 - Everything according to plan
Everything is still going according to plan. The current enquiries are in the double-digit percentage range below those of Thursday evening - so everything is going as we expected. The ticker at the desk next to me is now showing a single-digit number of minutes.
25.11.2018 23:19 - Feature deactivation
At half past eleven on the dot, some features that are not necessary for the functioning of the online shop and that relieve our infrastructure by their absence are deactivated as planned. These include, for example, the list of recently visited products or the calculation of our DG Play ranking. After a brief discussion, it is clear that this will be carried out as planned, even if the features will probably be reactivated soon after midnight. Provided there are no problems, of course. It's worth the short effort.
25/11/2018 22:57 - A few tips in advance
From Friday's experience, but also because I've been working for Digitec Galaxus for almost 10 years and have witnessed many a promotion, I'd like to give you a few tips along the way:
- A lot of users will want to log in just before midnight. Do this beforehand so that you can be sure that you still know the password. The reset (just tested) works perfectly well at the moment.
- Are you planning to stock up on gaming products? We carry out an age check for orders of age-approved products (also applies to alcohol at Galaxus). You can also carry this out before placing an order in your customer account under "Settings" - "Personal documents". The Swiss ID and Swiss passport are automatically activated immediately; unfortunately, this is not possible for all other documents (especially foreign ones).
- Save the deals as quickly as possible. It is not enough to have an offer added to your cart to secure the price. The time of order is decisive, and if there are too many others before you, you can no longer order at reduced prices.
- Consider alternative payment methods if the first option does not work. Twint had problems on Friday, for example - experience has shown that the safest options (I mentioned this many times in the stream on Friday) are prepayment or payment on collection. It doesn't matter whether you pay for the offer immediately or tomorrow - the decisive factor is the time of order, not the time of payment and not the payment method.
25/11/2018 22:28 - Checklist under control
As was the case 72 hours ago, the team on site has a detailed checklist, which is now being worked through point by point. I can also contribute my articles: yes, our social media channels are under control and if you were to report any problems that are not visible on the many monitoring screens, I would be able to pass them on immediately .
25/11/2018 21:48 - The weekend is coming to an end
The new week usually starts early Monday morning. Today, the weekend lasts a little less long for some; from 10 pm we will be preparing for the expected increase in traffic here at Westpark, and at midnight we will start with the Cyber Monday offers. We probably won't be streaming live today, we're expecting significantly less activity than on Friday night. Instead, I'll keep you up to date here and instead of being in the studio in the basement, I'll be in the middle of our on-call team on the 5th floor. However, if there are any major problems, I will of course be on hand - it's worth taking a look at our social media channels. <p
Header image: The calm before the storm: Our office is usually pretty empty on Sunday evening...
Thierry Pool
Head of Digital Marketing and Media Planning
thierry.pool@digitecgalaxus.chI’m passionate about observing the development of the digital environment – particularly when it comes to the countless exciting and interesting challenges and changes it has in store for our society, our everyday lives and businesses. Apart from that, gaming has been a part of my life since I first started out at Digitec Galaxus as well as IT in general, travelling, sports, concerts and good food.
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