ALTimeter update

[stunts]

I got a PM from buster1967 but I'm unable to PM him back because I think he has PM's disabled, but I'm happy to put my response here...

He asked 'are you going to do the ALTimeter to work via ADSL24 as it is set for Entanet. I always use your ALTimeter as my only guide to show my usage stats'

My answer 'I use it the same way to get my usage stats so as soon as I'm moved over to the new ADSL24 system I'll update the tool and get a version out for you and anyone else who wants it. I'm not on the first batch btw, so it'll be a couple of weeks I'd imagine.'

So once I'm moved over, I'm happy to do a new version for anyone that wants it and will update here once its done. It might even get a new name lol ;)

[liverpoolfc]

sounds good!

[James]

I may have to have a think about this as it may pur strain on our server as the new ALTtimer will be retrieving the data from our servers directly, not Entanet.

[stunts]

I may have to have a think about this as it may pur strain on our server as the new ALTtimer will be retrieving the data from our servers directly, not Entanet.

It's got an inbuilt minimum grab of every 15 minutes which can't be less. I can happily push that out to 1 hour or similar to help if required. Basically then it'd be like a user going to check their usage every hour which I'd expect the servers to be able to cope with (especially since the 'hour' moment will be different for each user so not all at the same time).

[James]

True. However the usage does not update as often on the new suppliers service yet, so even querying it every hour may not show any updated usage. I need to clarify this exactly :)

It's not the odd one ot two but if we end up with thousands using it, then it can really slow the server down as it has to fetch XML feeds from the supplier on the fly (we don't store usage data locally in SQL).

[stunts]

True. However the usage does not update as often on the new suppliers service yet, so even querying it every hour may not show any updated usage. I need to clarify this exactly :)

It's not the odd one ot two but if we end up with thousands using it, then it can really slow the server down as it has to fetch XML feeds from the supplier on the fly (we don't store usage data locally in SQL).

Fair enough, I'll hold back on releasing any updates until you are happy there is cacheing or similar in place to cope with users grabbing that feed data regularly. The last thing I want to do is break the ISP ;)