eBay - STAYING ONLINE - ALWAYS
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REAPING THE BENEFITS
The fact that auctions were relatively static events
(until the final few minutes when lot of bids could often put a major hit on its
servers and apps) was the biggest challenge for eBay. According to industry
experts, eBay's decision to opt for a more distributed application
infrastructure had reduced the load on its infrastructure. Besides, the software
developers had more flexibility to change the codes without affecting the entire
application.According to an analyst[1], eBay's 99 percent uptime was in line with
other consumer sites like Amazon.com and Yahoo. However, it was more important
for eBay to ensure zero outages than other consumer sites.
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Todd said, "If Yahoo! goes
down, I can't get news or e-mail for 20 minutes or an hour, but if eBay
goes down, I might miss out on a $1,000 auction that I am running my
business on."The company's efforts seemed to
have paid off, as it did not face any major outages after the January 2001
episode. The company posted a handsome growth in earnings and net profits in
2001 despite a global slowdown in the information technology industry. Webb
said, "Analysts in our industry were asking, 'Can eBay scale to meet increased
demands? Can eBay support its growth?' We do not get those questions any more." |
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QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:
1. Briefly analyze the online auction process
as followed by eBay. Explain why it is important for a website like eBay to
ensure zero outages.
2. Discuss the steps taken by eBay to strengthen
its hardware, software and storage infrastructure to ensure its continual
availability. What benefits did the company reap after taking the above
measures?
ADDITIONAL READINGS & REFERENCES:
1. eBay - Sun products and services boost availability,
www.sunmicrosystems.com, November 2000.
2. Dennehy Michelle, 11-Hour outage strikes eBay, auctionwatch.com,
January 04, 2001.
3. Kemp Ted, eBay prioritizes functionality over reliability,
InternetWeek.com, January 11, 2001.
4. Wagner Mitch and Kemp Ted, What's Wrong with eBay? InternetWeek.com,
January 11, 2001.
5. Ritchie Ed, eBay upgrades outage policy, auctionwatch.com, February
12, 2001.
6. Duffy Matt, eBay plans server expansion, auctionwatch.com, March 22,
2001.
7. Kemp Ted, eBay rebuilds for growth, InternetWeek.com, September 14,
2001.
8. Garvey Martin J., The Brawn behind eBay's always on auctions,
InformationWeek, December 10, 2001.
9. Sun and eBay celebrate another successful year with record uptime,
ScreamingMedia, PR Newswire, December 20, 2001.
[1] Daniel Todd, chief technologist at Keynote Systems, an
organization which measures a website's uptime and responsiveness.
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