Migrating website to new hosting service!

Post by **brentp** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 8:21 pm

We have an interesting relationship with our current hosting provider. While the support service is great- I mean, they are super responsive to trouble tickets- I still wish I wouldn't have to interact with them as much.

We are currently working on migrating Autosport Labs over to a more stable, powerful hosting service. After this is done I anticipate the periodic website "server errors' will be a quickly fading memory.

This migration work will continue over the next week. If possible, I'll provide links to the new sites for testing purposes. When all seems well, we will cross our fingers and make a crisp cut-over to the new system.

In the meantime, carry on...!

Post by **brentp** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 8:22 am

Note - we have been testing the website migration and it looks pretty solid. The way the hosting is configured prevents simultaneous access to all of the websites. Best thing to do is throw the switch and fix any glitches that come up. I'm fairly confident the problems will be minor.

When the change goes into effect, DNS will be updating throughout the internet- so it may take a bit of time for you to get to the new site. To prevent confusion and duplicate data, the old servers will be disabled.

NITROPIXIE · Post by **NITROPIXIE** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 7:52 pm

All sounds great Brent. When will this likely happen???

To be honest fro my point of view there isn't anything wrong with the site as it is

Post by **brentp** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 8:01 pm

About 6 hours and counting. the primary disruption will be waiting for the DNS servers to update.

I'm surprised the problems haven't been noticable to you- "Internal Server Error" and "cannot connect to database" are the common errors I've seen. it's a classic problem of overselling user accounts. If it's annoying for me I pretty confident it's been prominent enough to cause problems for others! One manifestation of the problem is when a double post appears in the forums: it's likely because the system only partially handled the request, then generated an error. The user then re-tries, usually resulting in the double-post.

So we're making all of our 3 sites more stable, and also building up capacity, which we will need in the future.

Post by **brentp** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 9:54 pm

Actually, we're delaying by about 24-36 hours- we've updated the DNS settings to refresh more frequently. We'll let the internet flush itself with the current DNS TTL (Time To Live)- once most everyone is running with the updated, shortened TTL we'll make the switchover.

It's a technical way for saying we're trying to reduce the perceived down-time for you guys.

Post by **brentp** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 8:45 am

We made the switch! Please reply to this thread if you see this message.

Post by **brentp** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:32 am

I can see the DNS entries updating from different vantage points on the 'net. Good.

The server seems pretty snappy too..

Ratsun · Post by **Ratsun** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 8:42 pm

All seems well!

Yeah, I had gotten the errors you mentioned a couple of times, but just tried again and it was fine.

Post by **brentp** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 8:44 pm

Thanks! Server response time has visibly improved- every page load seems to be very snappy.

Ken555 · Post by **Ken555** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:45 pm

brentp wrote:We made the switch! Please reply to this thread if you see this message.

found you

NITROPIXIE · Post by **NITROPIXIE** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 8:44 pm

Fantiddilyastic, the site is super smooth and very much quicker. Will make navigating the site a whole much better and easier for people to research previous threads.

Well done

Gassed'58 · Post by **Gassed'58** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 7:54 am

.............................All cool here, well done all concerned...................

dannyb · Post by **dannyb** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 6:16 pm

All good this end

Post by **brentp** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 6:21 pm

Thanks! Performance and stability continues to look really good.

DannyP · Post by **DannyP** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 5:38 am

Looking fast on page loads, no more errors.