March 8, 2009

I'll use the space this week to serve as an update and a forecast. As I mentioned last week on the blog here and explained on the podcast we've gotten hammered with a growth spurt again. What normally happens is that this causes some havoc and instability around here but this time it was a little different. We thought we were the most stable we've ever been, after all the DAB is on a private server! Alas....we crashed it and this time we had the rug pulled out from under us. This didn't sit well with me or any of those that I trust on the tech side of things.

I KNOW YOU CAN'T DOWNLOAD ANYTHING BEFORE MARCH 1. I know. Sorry about that but let me explain what we're doing and I'm hoping we have a solution that will fit us for a long time to come. The reality is that the DAB really needs enterprise level service but the reality is that's ridiculously expensive. Thankfully we have some very smart and tech savvy guys here. We are co-locating the DAB on several different servers as I write this and will mirror them so that we can spread out the bandwidth load among them. What this should provide us is stability. As we grow we'll add another server and integrate it into the rotation. If one goes down the others will absorb the load while we replace it. It seems to be our best bet in keeping the Daily Audio Bible growing and stable and we're excited about it. This will be invisible to you as you download in fact you've been using the new system for several days. We're not going to enable the podcasts all the way back to the beginning of the year until we get one more server in place because we expect a burst right away and we want to be as stable as possible. This is likely to happen in the next couple of days. From there all should return to normal.

Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your support. It is so very exciting to watch a community like our actually act like a family and band together at times like these. We're almost there and I think this time we're poised for future growth in a stable and healthy way. FINALLY. My thanks to Chet and Rob once again without whom this could not be happening.

NEXT. This is a travel week so pack your bags. We have several stops to make. Little Rock, OKC, Amarillo, Albuquerque, Lubbock, Dallas and the Rocky Mountains. This is part business and part re-orientation. I'll be attending the Wild at Heart Advanced retreat in Colorado this weekend with John Eldredge and the Ransomed Heart team. John, of course is teaching the Hope of Prayer class that we are offering currently here on the DAB. I'm looking forward to taking you along.

I hope this gets everyone up to speed and answers the questions. I get hundreds of emails a day about this and rather than being annoyed by it, it shows me how deeply the DAB is a part of so many lives. Hang in there. We're almost across this rough patch.

Onward Comrades,