Please be aware that we will "shortly" be moving RPoL to a shiny new server in a different location (Silicon Valley, California).
RPoL has been running off it's current software for about nine years now. The operating system is out of date and no longer supported. The hardware was upgraded once, three years ago, but the hard drives are the original and one has failed. It's time to move to a newer operating system and newer equipment.
Our current host (NetDepot) has been very good to us but pricing has unfortunately increased for a modern equivalent of what we currently have. Additionally virtualisation allows for a dedicated-like experience at a fraction of the cost. In this instance 19/52s of a fraction, or around 36.5% of our current cost (if you want to be all user-friendly about it).
We'll be going from 3 GB memory to 8, a faster CPU (though less cores), and storage will be nice and fast on SSD (rather than 9 year old spinning disks). Initial testing is promising and the new server looks very fast (up to 4 times faster for a very complex page), though take that with a grain of salt as it's not under any load at the moment.
Due to the fact we have to move a lot of data between locations there will be some downtime while the new server is updated with the latest from the current. I will do dry runs before the final migration to give you a better estimate of the time it will take.
I'm not sure when exactly. NetDepot have informed us they need to move our server in the next few days so it'd be nice to get it done by then, but I don't think I'd have sufficient testing by then to be comfortable to pull the trigger.
(Also posted in General RPoL where you can discuss this if you wish.)
This message was last edited by the user at 10:04, Tue 30 Jan 2018.
