All Disney Websites are Down!

Ackkk - I was having issues this morning (bad connectivity with chat and then after submitting booking getting an error page). And then now everything is totally down. :crazy2:
 


Thanks! I was thinking it was just me. Sometimes I think Disney has the worst IT ever.
In this particular case, I can't blame IT, unless they didn't warn Disney about this possibility.

For some time now Disney has insisted that EVERYTHING go through one central data center in Florida and I do mean everything, including things like the signals for the trains at Disneyland. Yes, you read that right, in order for the signals at Disneyland (in California) to work for the train, here is what happens:
  • A train sets of the sensor in California
  • The sensor sends a signal to the data center in Florida to tell it that the sensor has been tripped
  • The data center in Florida processes the signal, then sends the appropriate signal to the appropriate light back in California
And you have no idea how much I wish I was making this up, but we found this out one day when we went to Disneyland and they couldn't scan tickets, either at the parking booth or turnstiles, run credit cards (they did run the manually, but only if you had an embossed card), accept gift cards or operate more than one train at a time (there were other things down as well, but this was the big one). When we asked about the trains, they said because the server was down they couldn't get the signal to determine if another train was in front of them and yes, that server was indeed in Florida.

Even the lights in California are controlled by this data center in Florida, if Janitorial has issues and needs to stay late at Plaza Inn for example, they have to call Florida to request the lights be turned on.

So if this data center goes down, it takes everything with it, thus establishing the possibility for a single point of failure, which I have to imagine IT warned Disney about when they said they wanted to run everything through a single data center. Given the nature of Disney all of this should have globally distributed redundancy and really the cost of doing so would be fairly minimal, especially compared to massive downtime.
 
In this particular case, I can't blame IT, unless they didn't warn Disney about this possibility.

For some time now Disney has insisted that EVERYTHING go through one central data center in Florida and I do mean everything, including things like the signals for the trains at Disneyland. Yes, you read that right, in order for the signals at Disneyland (in California) to work for the train, here is what happens:
  • A train sets of the sensor in California
  • The sensor sends a signal to the data center in Florida to tell it that the sensor has been tripped
  • The data center in Florida processes the signal, then sends the appropriate signal to the appropriate light back in California
And you have no idea how much I wish I was making this up, but we found this out one day when we went to Disneyland and they couldn't scan tickets, either at the parking booth or turnstiles, run credit cards (they did run the manually, but only if you had an embossed card), accept gift cards or operate more than one train at a time (there were other things down as well, but this was the big one). When we asked about the trains, they said because the server was down they couldn't get the signal to determine if another train was in front of them and yes, that server was indeed in Florida.

Even the lights in California are controlled by this data center in Florida, if Janitorial has issues and needs to stay late at Plaza Inn for example, they have to call Florida to request the lights be turned on.

So if this data center goes down, it takes everything with it, thus establishing the possibility for a single point of failure, which I have to imagine IT warned Disney about when they said they wanted to run everything through a single data center. Given the nature of Disney all of this should have globally distributed redundancy and really the cost of doing so would be fairly minimal, especially compared to massive downtime.

Oh-my-god.... :(.
If this is accurate? Did anyone within Disney ever get the memo on distributed computing?
Consider a basic cable cut, midsection of US... :(.
 


Its always something, today I tired to e-mail MS with changes to my reservation (something I’ve done for many years, easier than calling or faxing) and the feature is there, I plug in all of my info and there’s no send button. I log off and log back in, what a pain, still not working. I faxed, otherwise on the phone names can end up being wrong, faxed, in this day and age! I couldn’t find the 60 day availability feature, what a peice of crap!
 
Last edited:
Its always something, today O tired to e-mail MS with changes to my reservation (something I’ve done for many years, easier than calling or faxing) and the feature is there, I plug in all of my info and there’s no send button. I log off and log back in, what a pain, still not working. I faxed, otherwise on the phone names can end up being wrong, faxed, in this day and age! I couldn’t find the 60 day availability feature, what a peice of crap!

Bad IT is the new norm. We are going backwards in programming. Most people are too new to IT so they think it is normal or they "are doing it wrong."
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!









Top