Scheduled Forum/Server downtime FINISHED

[Richard Barrow]

This is advance notice that we have to allow the server people to run some investigation on the server hardware. There is possible damage on the hard disk.

There will be THREE periods of downtime which will last for FOUR HOURS each. We will probably set this to be the same time each day over a period of three days. Before dawn Thai time seems to be the quietest time. I will post again here once we have decided on what times the forum and chat rooms will be offline.

[Richard Barrow]

We will be doing some major backups of all files on the server shortly. And then move them over to our other dedicated server. It is over 100GB of files. You might experience some server strains this evening (now).

At the moment we are planning to authorize the downtime for early morning Thai time as it is the quietest time. Maybe 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. Thai time. I will post info on Paknamweb.com if needed as that is on a different server.

This downtime will affect forum, chat room and about a dozen or so of our sites.

[Richard Barrow]

OK, I have fixed the time to 9 p.m. GMT so the UK people can view the forum until 10 p.m. BST. That is 4 a.m. - 8 a.m. Thai time. That will be afternoon in America I guess.

The server wide backup is running now. You might experience some slowness.

[Richard Barrow]

Sorry for the downtime just now. It was caused by us running the gzip programme for the backups. This has now been done and we are transferring the very large file to the other dedicated server. This shouldn't affect the running of this server now.

At the moment we are not sure if the server people will be checking the hardware 9 p.m. GMT today or the next day. If today, we will be down for four hours starting in about five hours from now.

[Richard Barrow]

The server technicians have finished their analysis and have come to the conclusion that there is a fault on the hard disk and we would need to have it changed. This is a big deal as we would need to take everything offline, do backups of all files and databases, request that they physically change the hard disk, then once they have done this we would have to reinstall the operating system and then all the websites etc. This sounds like a lot of downtime. So, we might use this opportunity to do a server upgrade. I think we need some more RAM anyway and maybe a faster processor. We had a new forum sponsor this month and hopefully if they stay for a while we can afford a faster server. We need to think this through properly.

So, this is advance notice of a server upgrade with some downtime expected. I would think the earliest will be this time next week.

[Richard Barrow]

At the moment we are planning to do the major server upgrade this weekend - 11-12 July 2009. We will be moving to a server with a better processor and also adding more RAM. If things go well we shouldn't have too much downtime. I will post here as soon as we have narrowed down a time slot to do this. It will either be Saturday or Sunday. As before, if we have problems or delays during the move we will post on www.paknamweb.com which is on a different server and is not affected. Probably a good idea to bookmark that site.

[Richard Barrow]

We have decided that this Sunday will be d-day for the server move. We will give you as much notice as we can before we take the forums offline.

[Richard Barrow]

We have now set the time for about 11 a.m. on Sunday morning (12 hours from the time of this post). We will take the forums offline to do a final backup of the database with the latest posts. We will then copy this across to the new server. We will next change the nameservers so that when you type the website address it points to the new server. As some of you found from last time, databases around the world update at different times. Some people will see the new server quite quickly in less than an hour. Others might take most of the day. I sometimes find a trick to make it faster is to clear your cache and if you normally enter the website by typing www.thailandqa.com then try without the www part. But don't try that trick too soon.

I will try and give a ten minute warning on this thread. Then I will post again when it is on the new server so that you know which server you are looking at.

[Richard Barrow]

This is now your short notice to say we will be taking the forum offline very soon. If we do experience problems for some reason, we will post updates on our www.paknamweb.com website.

[Richard Barrow]

The forum and chat rooms will be going offline in about five minutes for about an hour or so. We will post updates on www.paknamweb.com if there is a delay.