Incident Report X040701 Web Log Status

orcmid> sostegno> X040701> 0.10 2004-08-23 -21:41 -0700

Category: Usability	Incident ID: X040701
Priority: 9 - Urgent	Status: Status Page in place and use in incident response is being tested.
Subject: nfoCentrale.net Web Logs	Repaired in: pending
Assigned To: Dennis Hamilton	Reported By:  Dennis Hamilton (2004-07-15)
Date Opened: 2004-07-15	Date Closed: pending
NOTICE: Web Log Status is no longer provided at this page.  The Site Status page, including web log status, is now at <http://orcmid.com/status.htm>.

1. Summary (2004-08-23):

The nfoCentrale.net sites (e.g., Orcmid's Lair, The Miser Project, and Millennia Antica) do not have any organized way to provide status information for visitors.  

In addition, when there is an incident response underway, it is important to have a way to advise visitors that the site is in an unknown and probably corrupted condition.  

The importance of having timely and reliable status and of knowing when accurate status is unavailable was recognized as part of dealing with an incident where pages on the site were corrupted in the use of an intermediary service.

Although this would seem unnecessary for a small site that is the work of one individual, the provision of web logs and other tools for collaborative activity raised the importance of having visitors be supported in knowing if there is anything that might impact their ability to operate with the site.  This seems especially important because of the potential impact on use of automated tools, such as feed aggregators.

2. Approach (2004-08-23)

Although the introduction of site status and related announcements could be viewed as a project, it is handled as an incident because it reflects a gap in the transparency and usability of the site.  [dh: I didn't think to make it a project, and I'm not going to change now.]

On recognizing that there was insufficient transparency in the support of the site and reporting of incidents that might matter to users of site resources, this Support Section and an Incident Log were created.

A provisional status page was created.  It was announced in manually-produced Atom site feeds.  It is also announced on other pages, especially the ones for announcing incidents and other unusual status events such as fire drills and testing.  

After some experimentation, the official Site Status page was given a separate location.  The updating of the status page and the important replacement of the status page with emergency incident announcements has been confirmed.  The initial set of announcements are 

• "Please Stand By" to quickly report that some sort of technical difficulty is being experienced
• "This Is a Test" for indicating when status is unclear because live tests and simulations (fire drills) are underway
• "This Page is Quarantined" in place of any site page that has been deleted, corrupted, or defaced until a valid page can be restored

3. Next Steps (2004-08-23)  

• Add a site-feed announcement for emergency situations that also indicates where status is to be found.
• Conduct further fire drills as part of restoring some web logs to operation, being satisfied that the status procedure integrates with incident response scenarios.
• Close this incident report when the resolution is documented and there are no major changes expected.

4. Resolution (2004-08-23)

[Describe the resources and the procedures that are set up here for use in maintaining and testing status.]

0.10 2004-08-23-10:44 Link in captured information

Account for the creation of a site-wide status structure and update with resolution steps as they occur.

0.00 2004-07-15-22:48 Create Placeholder for Development of Status Information

Provide initial status right here while formal status-reporting and incident announcement procedures were being confirmed experimentally.