I have been planning this web server upgrade for several months. Our old web server was really outdated hardware, a simple Celeron single core processor with 512MB of memory. During many tasks, it simply could not deal with the demand our services put on it. It was more than capable when we first started using it in 2005, but site mergers, new site features (e.g. image gallery, support center) that are database driven, and advent of digital downloads all combined to overwork our lowly but trustworthy server. Even late at night, doing automated site backups was taking longer and longer. I sure those folks down under, who are hitting the server when I am doing most of our maintenance tasks, must have wondered some times what they had done to deserve such slow service.
NOTE: more than just latter-dayvillage.com runs on this server. I get to move more than three dozen web sites of various shapes and sizes. But I really only worry about LDV, it’s larger in size and complexity than all the others combined.
When our data center provider, theplanet.com started advertising specials on new servers, we (Debra went along with my recommendation) decided to take the plunge and upgrade. Our new server is a dual processor hoss with 2GB of memory and three times the disk space. The drives are faster and have faster controllers with more cache memory. This means we will be able to accommodate an ever growing customer base and site complexity.
These changes are never easy; they are best done by people smarter than me. It’s Saturday morning and working with our datacenter support staff, most of the problems have been resolved. The Internet is really kludgy in the way it handles site changes; your browser and email programs are at the mercy of your ISP when it comes to finding our new location. Of course there all kinds of hoops we have to jump through in configuring our services so that we do not appear as a spammer, your email server needs to be able to trust giving us your email messages and vice versa.
Ok, Saturday late afternoon and everything appears to be working EXCEPT for LDV email. The server is rejecting anything coming in. OK, more time on the phone with datacenter support.
Fixed, latter-dayvillage.com will now accept email. I wish I had spent more time learning Linux system administration….I am not a sysadmin, I merely play one on TV.
The seminary list is back up and running, sales cart and membership systems OK, knowledgebases, image gallery, forums, support center, all OK.
I apologize for any inconvenience this ‘upgrade’ caused our users, but we will all be better off for it.
