Server Upgrade & Maintenance

[Decker]

Hi all, just an advanced notice of a major server upgrade coming soon.

This is a major upgrade as the operating system is being updated not just security patched so all websites based on this server will be offline for the time it takes, this is difficult to estimate but we may have a better idea nearer the time if we get a chance to calculate it.

So in short we're not going away but will be offline for possibly a few hours, we will be running complete backups in the background and so this may impact server performance whilst these run.

We'll try and post a couple of days before this takes place to give you all a better idea of when it will happen.

Kind Regards
The Staff

[Decker]

First stage of the server upgrade will take place in the next couple of days.

It should take no more than 15-20 minutes and the board will be unavailable during this time.

To minimise disruption we will be monitoring traffic and when it drops to a very low level we will start the first stage.

If your checking in whilst the server is unavailable please just try again in 10 minutes or so.

Kind Regards
The Staff

[GWD]

Congratulations on the upgrade. GL could learn a thing or two about such things.

[Decker]

Already threw them a few bones on the old forums, unfortunately 'learning' doesn't seem to be their strong suit.

[Decker]

Stage 1 of this part of the upgrade completed successfully, we'll leave it a couple of days before the second stage to gauge stability, but all tests show a 100% success so far

[Decker]

Next stage of the upgrade will be in the next couple of days, again we'll monitor overall traffic and perform a complete server backup.

This involves shutting the server down to get the most accurate snapshot, after that we will have a better timescale for the complete OS rebuild.

So don't panic if you try to visit and it appears to be down, it most likely is powered off to allow the backup to complete, just try again in a few minutes it shouldn't take too long.

[GWD]

Go for it.

We appreciate your efforts to keep this site up and running well. To GL: Please note how it is done.

[Decker]

Pleased to say the server stop/backup/restart went very well

We now estimate when the full OS upgrade happens we should be down for under 2 hours, it is a massive upgrade so that's a pretty good result too.

[Corporal Kiwi]

At least someone can manage an Upgrade without a Cluster F... happening. Cheers Decker

[Decker]

We do try, maybe that's the difference

[Decker]

Quick update, all required steps except one are completed and ready to upgrade the OS, the last remaining issue we think is connected to our uptime monitor once confirmed that's an easy one.

The upgrade may take place a lot earlier that we thought

[Decker]

Upcoming scheduled maintenance notice;

Start time
Aug 1, 20:00 BST
Estimated duration window (server will not be down for the whole time just 2-3 minutes)
4 hours

During this time the server will be rebooted, this takes 2-3 minutes maximum to complete, so if the site is unavailable try again in a couple of minutes.

Again we will look for a low load time to carry this out, also this is not upgrade related just scheduled maintenance.

Kind Regards
The Team

[GWD]

You have a team!!?

[Decker]

40 years in the industry and you ask that

I have we work remotely but as a team.

[Decker]

OUTAGE - Sorry we had a minor outage at approximately 12:30 GMT, this was due to a network issue at our datacentre .

This has been resolved and we don't foresee any further issues regarding this, thank you for your patience.

Kind Regards