[realprogrammers hosting] recent outage

[Paul Makepeace]

On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 02:59:15PM +0000, Paul Makepeace wrote:
> The good news is the machine is now in transit to an upgraded facility
> on a faster connection in London. More on that next time.

Hi again -

mythix, the main server, is now online again and all circuits appear to
be functioning perfectly. There are a couple of DNS changes propagating
that should resolve soon. Web and mail are up again. (w00t!)

Here's what happened. A BT (British Telecom) DSL router failed. (The
server itself--i.e. the bit I actually control--was fine; just cut
off.) The bad news of course was that your web and mail went down, while
I made a 400 mile round-trip to rescue it and take the visit from the
supplier to, er, supply a new one after a whole day of waiting. The
worst outage I've had in six years. However, I'm no longer relying on
something like that because...

The good news is that mythix and tantrix (the backup) are now operating
in physically secure, air conditioned, UPS'ed, high speed (1Mbps &
1.5Mbps) symmetric 'net connection-enabled facilities. And on different
continents too! Crucially, I'm not relying on the performance of
equipment I can't replace in 30mins or less. Details forthcoming on
http://paulm.com/hosting/

The sites are all backed-up online to California from London -- these
sites went up ASAP when the system failed in Bath. I'm working on a
high-speed hotswap here.

Sorry again for the lack of connection -- everything seems to be OK but
please call if you spot problems!

Cheers, Paul

PS If you got a load of spam: I switched off spam detection while I
   queued mail was flushed. There were literally thousands of queued
   mails. We're back to spam-filtered lifestyle from now :)

-- 
Paul Makepeace ....................................... http://paulm.com/

"If your DSL router inexplicably melts, it shall rain in ghana on my
 sweet potatoes."
   -- http://paulm.com/toys/surrealism/