Skype Supernode Outage Post-Mortem, Mega- Supernodes Helped

#Skype Outage Post-Mortem #Mega-Supernodes helped http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
The massive Skype failure, and the root causes have been explained by the Skype CIO on their blog. Yet I am to read a complete explanation of supernode operations. Basically Skype is running their business on the back of the users, making them supernodes, whether they like it not. I certainly did not like being a supernode a few years ago and followed Fermilab Skype usage policy, not to become a supernode and stay within the Skype EULA. It was written for older operating system and oldervesion of Skype but it is so simple, any OS or Any Skype version should work. But it is up to you to decide to become a Skype Supernode or not by following  How to be or not to be a skype supernode!

Getting back to the Skype outage, the culprit seem to be Skype client 5.0.0.152 version. These clients crashed when a bunch of support servers got overloaded. All other clients were fine, including version 4.0 and newer 5.0 versions. But it seems that about 50% of Skype users were using .152. So with this many users crashing, so did the number of supernodes, which were responsible for establishing and maintaining connections in the Skype P2P network. About 30% of supernodes were knocked off and this accounted for bringing the Skype down. The other factor was, this many .152 clients restarting their Skype clients at the same time, more or less, overloading many other support servers. Basically;

Regrettably, as a result of the confluence of events – server overload, a bug in Skype for Windows clients (version 5.0.0.152), and the decline in available supernodes – Skype’s functionality became unavailable to many of our users for approximately 24 hours.

For it's credit, Skype describes how it recovered from the failure and how Mega-Supernodes launched to recover from supernode failure helped. But now that we know Skype can do manage to run Mega-Supernodes, hope it will keep them running all over the world and save users and their networks from overloading. Otherwise people will keep on Uninstalling Skype and finding other methods to communicate.
skype via twitter