Monday, March 26, 2012

Major Downtime Scheduled

So, here's the thing. For a few years now, Atlas Quest has been running out of space. And I've run through all sorts of tricks in order to squeeze a little more out of it. AQ regularly deletes the largest version of all images uploaded after about a month to save space. Virtual boxes no longer allow AQ-hosted images. Even the nightly backups of the database are no longer stored on AQ's servers--there just isn't room for them anymore.

I've squeeze and squeezed, and I've run out of tricks. As of right now, AQ has run through 96% of it's allowable disk space.

So, I'm making arrangements to move AQ to a bigger, faster, and better server. That's the good news. The bad news is--major downtime ahead. It'll take me awhile to copy all of AQ to the new server. And to add insult to injury, the old IP address won't be coming along for the ride and I've had issues with IP address propagation in the past where some unlucky people were not able to access AQ for as long as a week after the IP address changed.

So mark your calendars! Right now, it's my intention to take AQ down Wednesday morning, March 28th, at 10:00 AM Pacific time. At the very least, it will be down for most of the day. If I run into snags and other problems, it might even take me more than one day. And even then, if the IP address change doesn't propagate to your part of the Internet quickly, it could be several days before you'll get onto AQ again.

If you plan to be boxing later this week or even this upcoming weekend, print your clues now! Even your letterboxing apps won't be able to get new clues so you may need to go old school and print your clues. (If your app has stored clues, those you'll still probably be able to pull up--but you won't be able to sync for updated clues or get new ones.)

Sorry for this, but AQ just outgrew it's current server. Without this move, AQ would probably implode sometime within the next month or so and I've run out of tricks to extend the currently available disk space.

10 comments:

Alice said...

No apologies necessary. Growth is a good thing but it is a double edged sword. I hope the server upgrade goes without a hitch. As an IT person myself involved with 3 major upgrades right now, my recommendation is to keep the reminders coming via every avenue possible. There will undoubtably be those that will overlook the notice and complain that "we should have been warned ahead of time". A construction theme perhaps? Thanks for all you do, it means a lot for a variety of reasons.

Jenn said...

With all that you do for us, I think I can suck it up, keep my chin up, and not panic (much).
I'm putting paper in my printer now.

Papercrafts by Cindyellen said...

Mr Umbrella just did this with his company -over Christmas, just for giggles. i watched from the sidelines. i'd bring YOU coffee and bagels too, but you have Amanda. Good luck! Go get 'em!!

In My World said...

Good luch with that, Ryan. The Big Blue team is heading out today for a couple of days of letterboxing but we do it old school . . . always print out the clues . . . just in case . . .

MichKathy said...

Is there any way that you can leave AQ running in a read-only mode? Perhaps make the read-only data accessible via the IP address?

-- MichKathy

Ryan said...

I never really designed AQ to run in a "read only" mode. Technically, I could probably get something like that to work, but considering how rarely something like this has to happen, it doesn't really seem like it would be worth the effort.. And I have my fingers crossed that it won't take more than a day to get everything straightened out. That counts for something, right? =)

-- Ryan

Greg said...

Will you be able to put up a page on the old server with a "We've moved" message for a few days after the move? If you have your own IP address at the new place, you could post that, but if it's a shared host, that won't help.

onceuponatime said...

wow that's great that its grown so much! congrats and have fun with all the adjustments... we will be patient...:)

Anonymous said...

We all will be keeping our fingers crossed the move goes smoothly, while we count the minutes till AQ is back online. Since I'm not sure I can get any boxing in the weekend, if I do find the time and things are not going well I'll use the time to plant. Good Luck!

Guzzelin' Gal

Whimzee2010 said...

Thank You Ryan for all you do! Connie