Our platform has developed since 2000 according to our customer needs and available technologies. With Microsoft as core technology, we moved to .NET 2.0 architecture based on services and AJAX technology as it became available as this proved to be an experience rich and fast environment to execute the clock auction methodology. A central auction engine coordinates auctions in real time in order for anyone to participate anywhere in the world in any language. Plug-ins per auction type are available so we can develop custom made auctions if needed. Essential elements of the design were:
Scalability: fast growing number of auctions, users and auction types must be possible
Flexibility: different auction types must be pluggable to stay ahead of market development
Stability and safety: Auctions should not crash or be hacked. Never
Traceability: All actions of all users should leave a trace in the system for review or reporting
Hardware
The Negometrix system runs on trusted and proven hardware vendor like DELL. Each server has built-in hardware redundancy – redundant power supplies, redundant chassis fans, hardware RAID adapters. Also all redundant parts are “hot swappable” – in the event of failure they can be replaced without stopping the servers which means that there is no downtime for the customers’ using the system, and most important no downtime during auctions. The hardware RAID adapters provide fault tolerance for the hard drivers that the servers use, ensuring that if a hard drive fails, there will be no data lost and the server and applications will continue to function normally. The hardware RAID adapter also offloads the tasks of providing fault tolerance from the operating system thus increasing the servers’ reliability and performance.
Further, the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for those servers guarantee an onsite replacement of failed parts (RAM modules, processors, main boards, hard drives, fans, etc.). The replacement should occur from 4 hours up to 1 day since a part has failed. That way we can ensure that in a worst-case scenario, there will be no more than 1 day of downtime for the services, applications, and sites running on the failed server. But thanks to the proven hardware we use, there has never been such a situation.
Operating Systems, Software, Updates
As a Microsoft Certified Partner - Negometrix Bulgaria, our software development center located in Bulgaria is responsible for the daily maintenance of the system which use exclusively Microsoft server products, and applications to provide Negometrix customers a reliable and secure environment with superior performance.
All of the servers are regularly updated with the latest critical, security, performance, and application-specific updates. This makes us sure that the platform we provide to our customers is up to date, secure and reliable. Before applying the updates to the production servers they are extensively tested in our test lab to ensure that there will be no problems or conflicts with the currently running applications.
Monitoring
There is no such thing as a perfect software or unbreakable system. Errors happen, software fails, systems go down. What we can do is to keep an eye on all the components running and prevent failures before they happen. Our support team is pro-actively monitoring the servers, applications, services, and web sites for a wide range of indicators – from servers’ fans speed up to Web sites’ performance. When some component does not match the baseline of its normal operation, an alert is triggered, and our support team reacts to this alert, by finding the source of the potential problem and solving the problem. That way we know about the problems and prevent them before they have occurred, thus ensuring there is no downtime for the applications running on our servers.
Backup and disaster recovery
The Negometrix platform is more than critical for our business. For us is very important to be able to recover it in case of a partial (e.g. loss of data in the database) or full (e.g. complete server loss) failure. That is why we provide the following Backup services to all our customers. Our partners at Rackspace manage the entire backup solution based on CommVault’s revolutionary Simpana software. Managed Backup technicians are available 24/7 to perform data restores, configuration changes and answer all our backup questions..
Internet Connection and Power Supply
The hosting of the system is done within the premises of our partners at Rackspace. Rackspace is positioned in the “Leaders Quadrant” in Gartner’s annual Web Hosting Magic Quadrant.
In the case of a power outage, there is a UPS network to support all of technical equipment. If the outage lasts longer, there are diesel power generators, which can support the load.
Security
To offer the best possible and reliable infrastructure in the industry Negometrix is partnering with Rackspace. The system is hosted within Rackspace Datacenter in UK. Our partners at Rackspace provide the world-class infrastructure necessary to keep the servers running the Negometrix platform up and running uninterrupted around the clock. The data center is engineered with fully redundant connectivity, power and HVAC to avoid any single point of failure, and staffed 24 x 7 by highly trained technical support staff. Multiple levels of security are available to ensure that only data center Operations Engineers are physically allowed near Negometrix routers, switches and servers.