I would like to provide you with a brief update on the current impact of the COVID-19 crisis as it pertains to Showbie, and the steps we are taking to support our customers during this difficult period.
Friday’s Incident
On Friday, March 13, 07:34 GMT, Showbie became unavailable. This outage was caused by an unprecedented level of system utilization, due to the global shift towards distance learning as a COVID-19 mitigation measure. In particular, Friday morning marked the start of all students in Norway attending school remotely for the first time, many via Showbie.
While we immediately began work to bring Showbie back online, it wasn’t until 13:26 GMT that we were able to fully restore the system to normal operation.
Our Response
Since Friday afternoon, our entire team has been working around the clock. We’re doing everything in our power to prepare for the coming week and to increase Showbie’s capacity to meet the unprecedented demand. Here is what we have been working on:
- We have stepped back our offer of complimentary Showbie Pro licenses for emergency distance learning, in order to focus all our resources and effort on supporting our customers through this period.
- We have temporarily disabled some database queries that are not required to provide the core Showbie experience, and moved many queries to ‘read-replica’ databases in order to distribute load.
- We have implemented controls that will allow us to shut off peripheral features, if required, to keep the core product up and running during times of extreme load. We have also preemptively and temporarily disabled some features, such as auditor access, which are resource intensive and not critical to the Showbie classroom experience.
- We have implemented a new caching strategy to reduce load on our primary database.
- We have upgraded our database cloud servers to much larger sizes, upgraded our database version, and have been working to stress-test the new database infrastructure.
- We are in active communication with our customers, reseller partners, Apple Norway, and Amazon Norway to explore all possible options in order to maintain maximum system stability in this region.
- We have coordinated extended support hours. Our team will be online starting Monday at 07:00 GMT to assist teachers and students with the transition to distance learning.
Next Week
One thing that we cannot do is predict with certainty the level of demand that next week will bring. For this reason, we humbly request your patience, understanding, and cooperation as we work together to get through this difficult and unprecedented time. Please know that we are 100% dedicated to supporting you, your teachers, and your students. Thank you for your continued trust and support.
With Gratitude,
Colin Bramm
CEO & Co-founder
Showbie Inc.
