Recovering from a major crash server: status and updates

Some details on the recovery of our database after a major crash we experienced a few months back. We had to restore the full database and re-install it on a new host maintaining the signature domain name. This has been somewhat elaborate and cost us time to put everything back online. We’ve been running in a stable fashion for some time now with upgraded stability and cloud-provided data. Same domain, same experience.

In the meantime, the restore has given us the opportunity to improve various aspects of the database and add new features. Some of them are quite apparent to the user, some exist in the backbone, where we have re-designed all scripts to meet the latest standards of php and ensure maximum compatibility with modern browsers.

An interesting, but still quite experimental, feature is the addition of trend plots for the values of magnetic moments for particulara isotopes. In the process, we have realized this feature can be implemented it efficiently, as various parameters, such as different spins for the ground states, the even-odd disparity and more can influence negatively the realistic representation of the trends in the plots. The only criterion applied for the plots is that we take the value for the lowest energy state, either this is a ground state or a first excited state (e.g. a 2+ in even-even nuclei). Therefore, all plots are provided as experimental and the user should exercise caution on scientific reasoning based on these.

A major upgrade is also in the work with more than 200 new measurements, as registered directly out of published works and not tables of recommended values that provide data in a subjective, non-evaluating way. We trust the data generators and their peer reviewers.

Comments are always welcome.

-Theo