On Friday, September 25, 2015 at 11:13:52 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Yup, you've got it -- self-identified non-nerd or not. ;-) A server can go off-line for a zillion different reasons, and sometimes for an extended period, so it's prudent to have two physically different sites as back-ups. There used to be a mirror in New Zealand, maintained by Philip Plane, but since it went offline I've been looking for a replacement.

While we call soaringweb.org the main site, when changes are made they are made to all of the sites in a matter of seconds, so they should all have all of the content all of the time. soaringweb.org is the main site only in that the others tell the search engine robots (think Google, Bing, ...) not to include the content of the mirror site, so that when you do a search you don't come up with the same thing from each of the Soaring Servers [although presumably the search engines have gotten smart enough over the years to avoid this]

Thanks for asking! It's good to clarify the why of all of this.

John L



I don't totally understand why we have mirror sites?? Why not just go to the main site?? Is it simply just a back up for the back ups?? I'm I guaranteed that I will get the latest waypoint file from all the sites at the same time??
Thanks
Glennnnn "non-nerd"

Also, depending on how they're set up, "mirrors" can handle heavy traffic better. If you "go to the main site" and it's busy, you will automatically (and invisibly/seamlessly) be directed to another server to have it handle your request.
IIRC, it's part of "load balancing" (techies can correct me if need be). Also being in different geographic areas can shorten latency times due to a shorter distance traveled for a request/reply.

In our case, I see it more of insurance for a server issue than load/request traffic.