As has been hinted in several threads recently, there are upcoming changes to the SOTA IT systems, that will go live on 28th Oct 2024 at or about 0000 UTC. These changes are substantial from the back end, and will require a bit of work to deploy, but hopefully should not require much actual outage time for the systems affected. I would expect the total outage to be less than 1 hour.
The changes are as follows:
Major update to SSO server
- A major version upgrade to the SSO server, and a move to a new backend database system, will require an SSO outage.
- Starting from Sunday 27th, new user registration on SSO will be disabled. This will allow our normal backups to represent a particular static state in time, and reduce the outage window on the Monday.
- Any users who were asked to update their passwords and have not updated their passwords will not be able to log in.
Changes to API2
- Users of API2 are advised that API2 is now deprecated and will be removed in a few months time.
- Most endpoints have been migrated to api-db2 and can be utilised with the same path.
- The underlying database for API2 is being decommissioned, saving SOTA approximately GBP 70 a month in hosting costs.
- The technology and development environment used for API2 is no longer easy to configure, making changes to the environment difficult, which is the main driver for change, and to address some niggling little bugs and semantics issues that have existed in the API for years.
- Consumers of the Spots API are advised that the spots endpoints and schema are changing, in order to allow simpler consumption for downstream tools, better filtering and to align with the new database.
- As the underlying schema and database is changing, I cannot guarantee the old endpoints will return correct data for all query types (if at all), and it is advised to update to use the new endpoints.
- The expected procedure for pulling spots is also changing to allow better caching and improve scalability of the API, and downstream consumers that do not follow the new procedure may find themselves blocked if usage is deemed to be excessive.
- Users of the API are reminded that the APIs are private and that, while we don’t mind people using them, users must always accept that schema changes may be made with little or no notice before they use them.
- I have reached out to several downstream consumers who should be ready for the cutover. Anyone who is not aware, or who I have not been able to find listed as a consumer of the API, can reach me via PM to discuss the changes. I would have preferred to give more notice to API consumers but as I have some serious work and personal travel coming up, I needed to push this sooner rather than later so that I can address issues as they come up. If I delay it, we’re likely to not push live until December/January, and I’d rather spend that time on a SOTA summit than on a SOTA server.
SOTAWatch changes
- Perhaps the biggest visible change will be to SOTAWatch. There will be a new layout for both desktop and mobile use that addresses some of the challenges with the current interface.
- We introduce two new kinds of spots:
- QRT spots: It is now possible to indicate that you are going QRT, rather than the usual approach now of using the “other” mode.
- Test spots: Test spots are now a specific type of spot, and can be easily and readily filtered out.
- Spots and Alerts are now only fetched when new spots (or alerts) exist, reducing network traffic on constrained links.
- Filtering by multiple modes is now supported (multiple bands has been supported for a while). Multiple bands or modes selection is logical-OR (ie, 2m or 4m or 6m or 10m; ssb or cw), and the two lists of filters are combined in a logical-AND (ie, (2m or 6m) AND (ssb or cw) ).
- Regex filtering on Alerts is made consistent to apply to most of the same fields as the Spots regex filter.
- The reflector links panel will move to a separate tab like Spots and Alerts
- The reflector tab will now have notifications of “unseen” reflector topics. Please note that this will indicate that you haven’t seen the topic on SOTAWatch, rather than indicating whether you’ve viewed the topic on the reflector (which cannot be queried to find this out in a manner acceptable to our hosting provider)
- The settings menu is moved from behind the Logged In dropdown so that settings can be adjusted without needing to be logged in. Settings are as always per-browser, not per-user.
- Many thanks to Andrew @VK1AD and Joe @OE5JFE for their debugging and feedback on the initial beta, as well as feedback from fellow MT members.
There is a lot of work that’s gone into these changes, and the deployment is probably the most complex multiple environment upgrade we’ve ever done. As such, there’s always a good possibility that everything will just collapse in a big heap because I’ve forgotten something important. We have plans to back out the changes if it all turns into a steaming pile of number-twos and the brown stuff hits the airconditioning. If there are any minor teething problems post upgrade, we crave your patience while we sort them out.
Andrew
VK3ARR
obo SOTA MT IT Group
I’m happy writing a list and sharing it.