AirNav - What Does the Future Hold?

[Anmer]

As we approach the end of 2012, I can't help wondering what's in store for us RadarBox "owners"?

The last RadarBox "software" release was December 2009.  Since then we had to endure the ShipTrax development saga, being promised "great things" as soon as that was released.  It was released in January 2012.

Then we were told we had to wait for the "new project" that would "amaze us".  RadarBox24.com was that new project and I for one am still to be amazed.  I've prepared a detailed comparison of RadarBox24.com against Flightradar24.com and Planefinder.net.  I'll publish it in January and I think you'll all be "amazed" at the gaps.

But still no RadarBox software update to fix the outstanding bugs and offer new functionality.  Will we ever see a new release?  And whatever became of AirNav's Mlat?

But to cap it all, the AirNav product set has totally disapperared for over 48 hours.  No forum, data sharing, photos. routes, 3D etc.  The only thing left standing is the AirNav Facebook page but that hasn't been updated for over 14 hours!  And my posts there have been deleted and my account blocked.

But let's not forget that as well as us "hobbyists". AirNav has many commercial customers who won't be too pleased either.  How is Boeing, the BBC and the Canadian Space Programme coping at this busy time of year?

So what does the future hold for AirNav and it's customers?  Who knows?  I suspect Andre Brandao. AirNav's elusive Blackberry carrying CEO hasn't got a clue.

But this post on the Flightradar Forum sums it up very well:

Down for about 50 hours now and I must say as an AirNav customer I'm very disappointed at the information from AirNav.

Saturday morning:

At this time and due to the extremlly high number of visits to RadarBox24.com website we are experiencing a flight data outage. We are working on this issue and we will port an update when we have more news. Our apologies for this fact.

Saturday afternoon:

We are continuing to work on this issue and it is possible that the server feeding data to RB24.com will continue to be down for the next 2 hours. We will keep posting updates on this portal.

Sunday morning:

Unfortunately we are still having maintenance issues with our central flight data server. One of the several HD that powers it crashed earlier today and is still being recovered. The backup servers will not work with this piece of hardware unavailable. It might take a few more hours for the situation to be restored.

Sunday evening:

Work continues on server maintenance. A lot of progress is being made. We will keep you informed when we have more news. Your RadarBox24.com will soon become available again.

Monday morning:

No information 

Seasons Greetings to all AirNav owners and customers.   

http://forum.flightradar24.com/threads/4794-airnav-com?p=25634&viewfull=1#post25634

[Anmer]

This is the latest update I can find from AirNav regarding the recent outage, which most think was caused by a hard disk failure and no backup.

Note that 21 hours ago AirNav was predicting everything would be back to normal within 8 hours.  It wasn't and insn't.

At time of posting the forum is back but no one has posted  for nearly 12 hours and I, and others, can't access it.

I've not seen any reports that RadarBox owners are able to access shared network data and RadarBox24 is still "temporarily offline" since early Saturday morning.

[Attachment deleted by Admin to save file space]

[Anmer]

In the 1980s I ran two large data centres servicing 30,000 online travel agents.  We had 30 x DEC VAX computers costing £250k each.  We had outages, everyone does.  But we also had backup procedures and processes to minimise any outage short of both data centres being destroyed.

AirNav is a data business, pure and simple.  It's servers are mission critical.

If I had suffered an outage for over 72 hours I'd have been sacked immediately.

In 2012 there's no excuse for this outage.  The technology has improved so much since the 1980s, in reliability, redundancy and cost.

Yet Brandao peddles out these lame excuses time and time again.

I'd be too embarrased to post what he fabricates.  If he thinks he had "backup in place" he's got his head in the clouds.  Maybe, as someone has suggested in his forum, he should concentrate on flying and leave flight tracking to the professionals.

[Attachment deleted by Admin to save file space]

[Anmer]

Just seen this post on the AirNav forum.

Perhaps it's escaped Runway 31's notice that AirNav exists solely to make money for its owner and not for the benefit of the aviation enthusiast or unpaid database editors.

Surely investing in decent technology and proper, fully tested backup procedures would have avoided this outage and AirNav's commercial and hobby customers wouldn't have been short-changed.

Brandao's Chistmas shopping is the last thing we care about.

"I just hope that whoever is beavering away trying to put the crashed server back together again had all there Christmas shopping done and wasnt leaving things to the last minute.

I am sure you had many important personal things to do and this wasnt the way you intended for the run up to the festive season.

Hopefully things will be back up and running soon and you get time to enjoy the holiday with your families.

Many thanks for your efforts."

http://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?topic=7370.msg87291#msg87291

[Anmer]

And for the past three days the AirNav server has gone AWOL yet again leaving its customers with no network flights, alerts, photo or route downloads, no 3D and lots more.

No wonder they're demanding compensation:

"No network here in UK .....airnav are we getting a refund or extension on our subscriptions ?"

http://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?topic=7408.msg87836#msg87836