How to make a Try Again Later message?

[jhall251]

We are running an interactive find-a-vendor application and the demand is sometimes straining our server - if 10+ people are searching at once the searches start timing out - Is there a way to give the users a message, e.g. "Too many people are searching right now, please try back later..." instead of their session timing out with no information?

Thanks for any help...

Joe Halloran

 

[ChrisHirst]

If you are timing out on 10+ users I would feel the first concern would be to either the server hardware or the search algorithm, or both, rather than telling visitors to try later which they probably will never do. unless you offer an absolutely unique service of course!

Any other solution would only add to the server overhead thereby exacerbating the problem!



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

 

[jhall251]

Yes we do need to beef up and we are working on that - the application is a database/mapping application and is cpu intensive - but we dont ever plan much more of a load than 10 at a time - nor do we have the financial resources to support a massive setup - we are a small non-profit. OTH, it is a fairly unique service and people will likely come back - we can also give them the option of calling a human. I know I have seen sites put up a message saying "Server busy, try later" or similar - but I dont know if there is an easy way to do that on IIS.

Thanks for any info....

Joe Halloran

 

[ChrisHirst]

Ok,
It will depend on what error is being generated, what you need to do is replace the 500 error (internal server error) page and/or the 500-13 error (Server too busy) in the IIS MMC with a custom page with whatever message you want pass on or any scripted page you want to run.



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

 

[jhall251]

Thanks Chris - that sounds like the ticket.

Joe Halloran