Please be aware that only persistent server issues are posted here and normally 30 minutes after an incident occurs as techs first need to check the issue before posting an update.

Please note that we will be performing scheduled network maintenance on Friday night to replace one of the copper blades in one of our core routers. Although the time frame for the maintenance is 2AM-8AM (Saturday, February 27), we do not anticipate any lengthy downtime as a result. We expect the transition to go smoothly, however, should complications arise, some customers might experience downtime during the maintenance window. We appreciate your patience and understanding while we make our network improvements.

During the same maintenance window we will be upgrading MailEnable on Meson to MailEnable Pro with its IMAP and TLS/SSL support. This is normally a 3-4 hour upgrade during which time mail is queued for delivery and outbound mail is temporarily stopped.

Tonight at 2am EST we will begin upgrading MailEnable on Positron to the Pro version. The Pro version supports IMAP and Email over SSL connections. The upgrade may last around 4 hours and mail will be queued and not delivered until the upgrade is completed. Apologies for the mail downtime but this is a great upgrade with a lot of benefits.

MESON SERVER

Meson server was replaced last month with one of our new generation Dual Quad Core Xeon Raid 10 servers. Since the replacement we have been unable to bring up the RAID interface. We have reinstalled the 3ware tools and had 3ware support look at the server but so far all efforts to fix it have been unsuccessful. We are seeing some RAID errors that appear to be network related and have been advised by 3ware support to reinstall the program while the server is disconnected from the network. We have scheduled this for 2am tonight. I know it’s short notice but we have a crazy weekend of maintenance windows so it really needs to be done now. Without a working 3ware interface we would have no way of knowing if a drive becomes degraded so it is crucial we fix this as soon as possible.

http://www.hostnexus.com/forum/meson-issues-announcements/12536-meson-raid-maintenance-tonight-february-12th-2am-est.html

Complete Hard Drive Replacements over 4 days - Gemini, Leo, Cancer, VPS1

We two major issues with the hard drives on our new generation Raid 10 servers that we will start fixing tonight. We have been using Western Digital Green Drives and we have discovered that they (a) spin slower in Raid 10 arrays and (b) Raid is causing them to degrade REALLY fast. “Green drives” basically are supposed to be more environmentally conscious and essentially spin at a lower RPM rate when they’re not being engaged. The problem is that in a RAID setup, the drives need to run full RPM, and thus the lowered RPM speeds, causing degrading of the array, thus the failed drives. We are replacing the drives with Western Digital Caviar Black Drives which are specifically engineered for RAID setups. Our Raid 10 arrays are 4 x 500gb drives so what we will do is take the server offline, replace one drive, rebuild the array and repeat this a further 3 times until all drives are replaced. So between 3am and 5am tonight and continuing till the 15th Gemini, Leo, Cancer, VPS1 will experience around 10-15 minutes downtime as the drives are replaced.

http://www.hostnexus.com/forum/plesk-linux-servers/12537-complete-hard-drive-replacements-over-4-days-gemini-leo-cancer-vps1.html

Please note that our data center will be performing scheduled network maintenance this Friday night to replace the core2 router. Although the time frame for the maintenance is 2AM-8AM (Saturday, February 13), we do not anticipate any lengthy downtime as a result. We expect the transition to go smoothly, however, should complications arise during the switch to the new router, some customers might experience downtime towards the start and end of the maintenance window. We appreciate your patience and understanding while we make our network improvements.

On Sunday 16th January at 3am US EST we will be upgrading Plesk on Atom to the latest 9.2 version. Downtime should be minimal - maybe 20 minutes but as always do allow for longer. Please check your sites on Sunday to make sure everything is working but there shouldn’t be any real issues. Please note that we will be switching the mail system from Qmail to Postfix as it uses less resources and has better Anti-Spam tools. If you have any email piping set up we will need to reset this for you in Postfix so please let us know of any piping settings you may have.

Libra has been a bit unstable since the server merge and upgrade. We’ve tried a few fixes but the server goes out of memory and locks up still so we need to increase the memory in the server to 6GB. This will be done tonight at 3am US EST and should be a fairly routine 15 minute maintenance window.

Currently there is an outage at our data center. All I know is that everything in the building is down and network engineers are working to resolve the issue. Hopefully will not be too long!

UPDATE:

The outage was over shortly after my last post. I have been told by the data technicians that I need to wait till later in the day for an official announcement explaining what happened. When I know more I’ll just post here and in the forums rather than mail again. Thanks for your attention and happy new year to you all.

Today we migrated Deimos server to one of our new Dual Quad Core Xeon Raid 10 servers. Your new server name will be LIBRA. The replacement is very easy. We took a full backup from Callisto and restored it to Libra. We then took the old server offline and routed traffic to the new server. This should be pretty painless but please check over your sites quickly and file a ticket with Tech Support if you find any issues.