The Japan-based exchange Mt. Gox is back online after a server upgrade that fixed the company’s database problems, which were causing lags and caused the site to be down.
The firm had been planning the implementation of a “new infrastructure using the best hardware available” since last May. “Due to more frequent issues with our database and as the 10Gbps adapter on our old server started having problems (random packet loss, etc), we deemed it necessary to implement the new infrastructure and organized this emergency maintenance”, Mt. Gox explains in a message published on their website.
According to the exchange, the new infrastructure has features like 70Gbps internet uplink and up to 240Gbps internal bandwidth between our routers (meshed 40Gbps links). Besides, it’s directly connected to Akamai, “to ensure that DDOS attacks cannot take our site offline” and each server has two 10Gbps uplinks to two different routers.
The database is also stored on Violin Memory arrays – which allows Mt. Gox to “achieve very high storage bandwidth and access speed that reduces the load of our database administrators a great deal” – and all servers were directly ordered from Dell, with redundant power supplies.
But one of the most important possibilities allowed by the new infrastructure is that this was a major prerequisite before the exchange could launch the trading engine Midas. “There is still a lot of work to be done before we can launch Midas, but rest assured this is a priority project for us”, Mt. Gox explains, adding that “once Midas is up and running we will be able to offer the trading of other digital currencies”.