* * * * *
Abrupt move
Since March 3^rd, 1999, tower has been in service as a web and email server
for a few sites. At some point in late 2000/eary 2001 we moved tower down to
DialTone Internet (our friend Chris allowed us to colocate with his server;
in return we would help run his machine). Fast pipes, good power, no real
problems. The only complaint I ever had with DialTone was their rather
paranoid policies towards security; getting in to service the machines is a
painful process, but security is a tradeoff with convenience and it's not
like we have to go down there all that often.
But over time the number of sites has slowly increased, as well as the amount
of email it's processing, but it's becoming apparent that it is slowly
reaching the end of its useful life as a colocated server.
It's still running:
> [spc]tower:~>uptime
> 5:16pm up 441 days, 17:29, 2 users, load average: 0.38, 0.68, 0.63
> [spc]tower:~>
>
And there are projects that Mark and I would like to do that tower cannot
handle; it is, after all, a 33MHz 486 based machine:
> [spc]tower:~>more /proc/cpuinfo
> processor : 0
> cpu : 486
> model : 486 SX
> vendor_id : GenuineIntel
> stepping : 3
> fdiv_bug : no
> hlt_bug : no
> f00f_bug : no
> fpu : no
> fpu_exception : no
> cpuid : yes
> wp : yes
> flags : vme
> bogomips : 16.59
>
For the past six months or so, Mark and I have been in discussion about what
system we wanted to replace tower and where to host the replacement server.
At one point we almost had a replacement system but that fell through. Now
though, we have one system pretty much ready to go, with another one that
will be at our disposal Real Soon Now (woo hoo! Load balancing, redundancy,
mirroring, here we come!). And we've found a new colocation facility, since
DialTone has been planning on moving and we would prefer a local facility in
case we need to service the machine.
We were planning on a smooth transition to the new server(s) and we were
pretty much on track and probably would have been doing this in a week or
two.
Until today.
That's when Mark found out that DialTone no longer wants colocation customers
and we have until Monday to move our server.
Well.
Love the advanced warning there. A whole weekend to locate, negotiate and
move a server to new facilities.
Good thing Mark and I have been planning this anyway (okay, DialTone stopped
taking new colocation customers shortly after we moved in, and the impending
move prompted us to start locating a local company anyway) but the short
notice is rather abrupt though.
More details as things fall into place …
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