Steem blockchain upgrade

As most of us may know, the blockchain was down for most of the day yesterday due to an upgrade.  Most of us don't access the blockchain (database) directly as we use front end tools like steemit.com, busy.org, d.tube and other sites to post our messages, videos and audios.  These front end tools provide the user interface and experience while those tools access the back end database on our behalf to store it all.  We experience problems with the front end user interfaces from time to time, but to experience a back end database problem is very unusual.  Welcome to beta technology.  

I've been on this blockchain for nearly a year and this is the first time in my memory that the back end was unavailable.  I may have been out of the IT industry for over a decade, but I still remember some of the fundamentals from my 20+ IT career in network support.  I was the guy who maintained the servers and networks in the glass bubble room.  I even worked to connect many businesses to the Internet back in the 90's when it all started.  I quit when those networks started to roll out into every doctors office in the province and collect personal medical information on everyone 10+ years ago.  It has gone too far, but I digress.  I was trained on legacy systems where mainframe computers ran the multi-national corporations themselves and up time was of critical concern as downtime could cost millions or even billions of dollars.  

The steem blockchain is a multi million dollar database and requires at least 99.99% up time.  The whole point of having it distributed over multiple servers and witnesses is to ensure that it is always available for the front end interfaces and to accommodate financial transactions.  

If this blockchain wants to be taken seriously, the developers and witnesses need to find a way to upgrade the front end and most importantly, the back end without disrupting the users.  What happened yesterday on the steem blockchain is not acceptable by any IT standard that I saw when I was working in the industry.

While I acknowledge that this platform is still in beta, shit sometimes happens.  I forgive the developers and witnesses.  I know those are tough jobs.  Been there myself when things did not go right.  Makes for very long days.  When this blockchain comes out of beta, it cannot come down again.  Ever.  Especially when it is processing millions of transactions a day with the potential of billions a day.  Any disruption could literally cost billions of dollars and most importantly, the reputation of the technology, businesses and users themselves.  

The views and opinions of people are finicky and sensitive.  Their demands are equally as high.  But at some point, lives will depend on the blockchain if they don't already!  I hope that what ever happened yesterday can be evaluated and ironed out so that it does not happen again.  Orchestrating such an upgrade with so many witnesses is a logistical challenge.  I hope we all learned from the experience.  

I, for one, am grateful that it came back up!  Congratulations to the technical wizards who work hard day in and day out to make all of this happen.  It is far beyond anything we ever tackled when I was in the industry.  I'm up for some bumps in the road and hope that they are all smoothed out soon.  Welcome to the world of innovation. I just hope it does not happen again or I may have to start checking to see if there is a conspiracy to destroy the reputation of the blockchain.  

All is forgiven by me.  I hope others are as generous.  Peace to you all.