How 10,000 Geeks break the UK's biggest distributors, RS and Farnell (Raspberry Pi)

So, 6am this morning (Wed 29 2012), a bunch of geeks eagerly awaiting the Raspberry Pi have killed the websites of both RS Components and Farnell

Why, you ask? Because the servers were not prepared for the influx of visitors that such an announcement brings. Raspberry Pi themselves (a UK Foundation, like a Charity) were well prepared and are presently serving up a static page.

So, if you’re running an eCommerce site, like Magento or osCommerce, and are warned by one of your suppliers, or your manufacturing department that you’re launching a new product, be prepared. Raspberry Pi certainly were and provided their suppliers with the information that they would be getting a huge amount of traffic, unfortunately those suppliers didn’t listen hard enough.

This is to all intents a DDoS attack, but not an intentional attack. Well done for keeping everyone updated via twitter though @raspberrypi, we know it isn’t your fault.