Sponsored Links

Notice: ISPreview.co.uk Dedicated Server Upgrade

Mark.J

Administrator
Staff member
ISPreview Team
This is an early warning to say that we will hopefully be moving ISPreview.co.uk on to a significantly faster and more powerful dual-core dedicated server, with twice the amount of available RAM, within the very near future - possibly this very week. The server is on order and we're just waiting for the GO light before beginning our work.

We'll post more information as soon as we're sure of the timescale because such things can take awhile to organise. Naturally we aim for only the minimum of disruption but these things almost always cause problems with the odd system, while bug fixing can take time.

The move is necessary because in the future we hope to start using a new Content Management System (CMS) and the current server isn't well suited to handle all of the new features. Migrating servers is the last piece of the puzzle before that work can truly begin.
 
Sponsored Links
looking forward to seeing the new features and playing about with them ^_^
 
No, same host, different kit. The host is indeed quite poop, they don't even have a service status page and the support response times can be quite dire, although the dedicated server we have has for the most part worked quite well (..and I bet that just jinxed it hehe). We're also use to all their little quirks now and have better direct contacts for support than before.

Anyway, lots of work ahead..
 
The upgrade should be completed and if we've done our job right then you shouldn't have noticed it :) . Most of our current pages aren't hugely CPU demanding and as a result won't be hugely faster than before, although you might find that some sections are still quicker to the eye. The important thing is that we can now handle a lot more than before.
 
We had a slight problem with the server being down for several hours yesterday morning, although obviously this has now been fixed. The site was kept on the old and new DNS details for three days to limit downtime and when the old ones were switched off that appears to have caused the new ones to screw up.

Xilo has also pointed out that some of the reader reviews (accross various ISPs), albeit so far only a small number, appear to have gone a bit wonkey since the migration. The review content largely shows but some of the ratings and menu details on specific reviews appears to be missing, which is very odd. We have a db backup and so I should be able to manually correct the problem but further testing is required.
 
Sponsored Links
Upon further inspection I've found that some reviews lost their ratings (or part of them) before the recent db move, the furthest we traced the problem back to was between Nov and Dec 2010. Luckily we had monthly backups for most of those and could restore the individual ratings (I did not do a general restore as that would have wiped out recent reader edits) by checking through each of our monthly SQL files to find the related tables.

Almost all of the periods coincided with unexpected server downtime, though that rarely causes database information to be wiped in such a way. Luckily the problem was only very sporadic and I've now manually restored the ratings for about 7 or so affected reviews. Only one review is still missing 1 of its 4 rating fields, which suggests that the problem dates back a bit further. Sadly we don't have backups older than Nov 2010.

Will keep an eye on this.
 
Top
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £24.00 - 26.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £24.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £25.99
145Mbps
Gift: £50 Reward Card
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £17.00
200Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6026)
  2. BT (3639)
  3. Politics (2721)
  4. Business (2439)
  5. Openreach (2405)
  6. Building Digital UK (2330)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2146)
  8. FTTC (2083)
  9. Statistics (1901)
  10. 4G (1816)
  11. Virgin Media (1764)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1582)
  13. Fibre Optic (1467)
  14. Wireless Internet (1462)
  15. 5G (1407)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules