Dear USGA. What's up with GHIN Mobile and....

fjmdfw · May 5, 2016

Now back up and running.

QMany · May 5, 2016

GHIN Mobile App Restored

Functionality of the GHIN Mobile app has been restored and is available for score posting. In order to ensure that the app operates properly on your mobile device, you will need to perform an update. Depending upon the preference setting on your mobile device, you may be alerted automatically that an update is available or you might need to initiate the action to check for an update.

If you are unsure how to update the app, you can delete and reinstall GHIN Mobile from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store.

Please Note: The scores filter within stats no longer has the option for "Scores – Past 12 Months" and "Scores – 2016".

We appreciate your patience as the USGA worked to resolve the problem.

NateRobards · May 5, 2016

The app is such a convenience! Need this fixed ASAP.....

sheppy335 · May 5, 2016

It is fixed now, mine updated this morning and works fine!!!

matchavez · May 9, 2016

GHIN Mobile App Restored

Please Note: The scores filter within stats no longer has the option for "Scores – Past 12 Months" and "Scores – 2016".
We appreciate your patience as the USGA worked to resolve the problem.

There is your answer. That's not a simple database pull. It sounds like they were hammering their own server capacity. The simple fact is they weren't adding new load with scoring (unless the app was horrendous), because whether you do it on the web or on the app, the data transfer is roughly equal.

If you start pulling extensive queries (like last 12 months), you need to have a strategy. There are a bunch of possible strategies, but it seems like no matter how you spin this, their sql server demand exceeded capacity. It also sounds like they didn't want to throw tons of money at it, either. I could make the case this is exactly when you use something like Amazon RDS. It might have been too expensive for their liking, but then they just remove the feature (or store it locally in the app! - just a simple sqlite!) from the app and move on.

Nice case study in database server scaling... Dear USGA, give me a call if you need an advisor. :)

larrybud · May 9, 2016

There was a member at my old club in northern California who in conjunction with the USGA developed the original rules of golf app. He basically did this while sitting on his couch, in between rounds and while at a coffee shop. I think his take was $1 per app purchase. True story! So, I'm betting they didn't go with their "A" team on the app update.

You might be surprised at how many apps have been architected on a beer napkin ;-)

The rules of golf app isn't all that. Just a database of info.

golfnhack · May 10, 2016

GHIN Mobile App Restored

Please Note: The scores filter within stats no longer has the option for "Scores – Past 12 Months" and "Scores – 2016".
We appreciate your patience as the USGA worked to resolve the problem.

There is your answer. That's not a simple database pull. It sounds like they were hammering their own server capacity. The simple fact is they weren't adding new load with scoring (unless the app was horrendous), because whether you do it on the web or on the app, the data transfer is roughly equal.

If you start pulling extensive queries (like last 12 months), you need to have a strategy. There are a bunch of possible strategies, but it seems like no matter how you spin this, their sql server demand exceeded capacity. It also sounds like they didn't want to throw tons of money at it, either. I could make the case this is exactly when you use something like Amazon RDS. It might have been too expensive for their liking, but then they just remove the feature (or store it locally in the app! - just a simple sqlite!) from the app and move on.

Nice case study in database server scaling... Dear USGA, give me a call if you need an advisor. :)

Hmm... as a SQL server programmer... if your DB can't handle a "SELECT * FROM Scores WHERE PlayerId = @playerId AND (ScoreDate >= @startDate AND ScoreDate <= @endDate)".... you have some serious issues. That is like the MOST BASIC query you can have. Assuming they have an index on PlayerId and ScoreDate, it should take milliseconds to return the data needed.... even if you have 10,000 people doing the operation at the same time.

The USGA DB is MINUSCULE compare to bank/insurance company DB's.

b.helts · May 10, 2016

GHIN Mobile App Restored

Please Note: The scores filter within stats no longer has the option for "Scores – Past 12 Months" and "Scores – 2016".
We appreciate your patience as the USGA worked to resolve the problem.

There is your answer. That's not a simple database pull. It sounds like they were hammering their own server capacity. The simple fact is they weren't adding new load with scoring (unless the app was horrendous), because whether you do it on the web or on the app, the data transfer is roughly equal.

If you start pulling extensive queries (like last 12 months), you need to have a strategy. There are a bunch of possible strategies, but it seems like no matter how you spin this, their sql server demand exceeded capacity. It also sounds like they didn't want to throw tons of money at it, either. I could make the case this is exactly when you use something like Amazon RDS. It might have been too expensive for their liking, but then they just remove the feature (or store it locally in the app! - just a simple sqlite!) from the app and move on.

Nice case study in database server scaling... Dear USGA, give me a call if you need an advisor. :)

Hmm... as a SQL server programmer... if your DB can't handle a "SELECT * FROM Scores WHERE PlayerId = @playerId AND (ScoreDate >= @startDate AND ScoreDate <= @endDate)".... you have some serious issues. That is like the MOST BASIC query you can have. Assuming they have an index on PlayerId and ScoreDate, it should take milliseconds to return the data needed.... even if you have 10,000 people doing the operation at the same time.

The USGA DB is MINUSCULE compare to bank/insurance company DB's.

Great post. Maybe they were using sql 2005 express and ran into the 4GB limit lol

I don't really get it either. The kind of thing you posted is EXACTLY what sql is designed to do on a scale a lot bigger than USGA members and their score history.

Maybe they aren't using sql. MSDE lol

North Butte · May 10, 2016

Maybe like some internet discussion forums (NOT GOLFWRX!) somebody at USGA has a buddy who sells some off-brand server software that has 20x worse performance than the usual products.

golfnhack · May 10, 2016

GHIN Mobile App Restored

Please Note: The scores filter within stats no longer has the option for "Scores – Past 12 Months" and "Scores – 2016".
We appreciate your patience as the USGA worked to resolve the problem.

There is your answer. That's not a simple database pull. It sounds like they were hammering their own server capacity. The simple fact is they weren't adding new load with scoring (unless the app was horrendous), because whether you do it on the web or on the app, the data transfer is roughly equal.

If you start pulling extensive queries (like last 12 months), you need to have a strategy. There are a bunch of possible strategies, but it seems like no matter how you spin this, their sql server demand exceeded capacity. It also sounds like they didn't want to throw tons of money at it, either. I could make the case this is exactly when you use something like Amazon RDS. It might have been too expensive for their liking, but then they just remove the feature (or store it locally in the app! - just a simple sqlite!) from the app and move on.

Nice case study in database server scaling... Dear USGA, give me a call if you need an advisor. :)

Hmm... as a SQL server programmer... if your DB can't handle a "SELECT * FROM Scores WHERE PlayerId = @playerId AND (ScoreDate >= @startDate AND ScoreDate <= @endDate)".... you have some serious issues. That is like the MOST BASIC query you can have. Assuming they have an index on PlayerId and ScoreDate, it should take milliseconds to return the data needed.... even if you have 10,000 people doing the operation at the same time.

The USGA DB is MINUSCULE compare to bank/insurance company DB's.

Great post. Maybe they were using sql 2005 express and ran into the 4GB limit lol

I don't really get it either. The kind of thing you posted is EXACTLY what sql is designed to do on a scale a lot bigger than USGA members and their score history.

Maybe they aren't using sql. MSDE lol

My suspicion is that they are using tinySQL or sqlLite. It really would not surprise me.

pingfool · May 10, 2016

nice to see everyone survived a month (or so) of life without their ghin mobile app

some of us discovered our state associations have their own mobile app

golfnhack · May 10, 2016

nice to see everyone survived a month (or so) of life without their ghin mobile app

some of us discovered our state associations have their own mobile app

Another one that doesn't get the point.

crich88848 · May 10, 2016

I believe the GHIN App is coded in COBOL, and they are having a hard time converting it to Visual Basic 2003.

Lol, and they think that VB is an upgrade?

matchavez · May 11, 2016

GHIN Mobile App Restored

Please Note: The scores filter within stats no longer has the option for "Scores – Past 12 Months" and "Scores – 2016".
We appreciate your patience as the USGA worked to resolve the problem.

There is your answer. That's not a simple database pull. It sounds like they were hammering their own server capacity. The simple fact is they weren't adding new load with scoring (unless the app was horrendous), because whether you do it on the web or on the app, the data transfer is roughly equal.

If you start pulling extensive queries (like last 12 months), you need to have a strategy. There are a bunch of possible strategies, but it seems like no matter how you spin this, their sql server demand exceeded capacity. It also sounds like they didn't want to throw tons of money at it, either. I could make the case this is exactly when you use something like Amazon RDS. It might have been too expensive for their liking, but then they just remove the feature (or store it locally in the app! - just a simple sqlite!) from the app and move on.

Nice case study in database server scaling... Dear USGA, give me a call if you need an advisor. :)

Hmm... as a SQL server programmer... if your DB can't handle a "SELECT * FROM Scores WHERE PlayerId = @playerId AND (ScoreDate >= @startDate AND ScoreDate <= @endDate)".... you have some serious issues. That is like the MOST BASIC query you can have. Assuming they have an index on PlayerId and ScoreDate, it should take milliseconds to return the data needed.... even if you have 10,000 people doing the operation at the same time.

The USGA DB is MINUSCULE compare to bank/insurance company DB's.

Maybe that's correct, but something was clearly wrong about the way the app was doing that. My guess is that either the query wasn't that straight forward, the preprocessor was doing too much to make the data "work" in the app, or a combination. I'm thinking it might have been something more where the app left the connection open, or it was getting every hole, or might have been doing the calculations server side.

One can only guess, but they seem to have run into an unexpected capacity issue over one method. That leans towards the relationship between the app and what it was making the database do (not straight retrieval) or what it made server side data formatting do for each request.

Can't ever really know, though.

North Butte · May 12, 2016

The point remains, they are presenting this as some sort of difficult technical hurdle when it is in fact tecnically trivial to look up and serve a couple hundred stored scores and differentials. They paid someone to bodge a prototype/demo quality app and backend server and are describing it as if it were some kind of Moonshot.