NOTICE: Switching to a new network

[Andy R]

I wanted to let you all know that I will be switching the site to a new network today. The old provider has been giving some members very slow connection speeds for the last couple of weeks (read more about this issue here). We will be moving to a more sophisticated network with more backbone providers and route optimized technology to optimize the speed at which you connect to our server.

This switch should cause very little downtime but a DNS change will be required. Our DNS is set to refresh every 20 minutes so no one should be down longer then that. For most people the downtime will be significantly less.

I will post an update after the switch is complete and then solicit your feedback on site speeds after the changes. As always, thanks for your patience and continued participation in our community.

Regards,

Andy

[Dawg54]

I don't know if the switch is complete or not, but I can see a drastic improvement. Hopefully we are getting back to normal. Thank you.

[Andy R]

Originally Posted by Dawg52

I don't know if the switch is complete or not, but I can see a drastic improvement. Hopefully we are getting back to normal. Thank you.

Nope, the switch is not done yet but I guess AOL and Cogent got their issues resolved. In my research I read that this happens every year between the two companies.

Basically after Ben left I found some new server admins who are great and I would highly recommend them (link to their site). I told them I was looking for a new data center and they told me they offered collocation services in some space they lease in a telecom hotel (place where all the big backbones connect).

We briefly talked about network speeds but not the actual providers. They sent me a quote but it did not detail the specific backbone providers to be used. I was not aware that Cogent was one of the major backbone providers when I moved the servers to the new data center. Cogent is a low cost backbone provider and supplies a huge amount of bandwidth for services like YouTube. They are known for having traffic jams and other issues but I guess you get what you pay for.

We are now moving the extreme opposite of the spectrum to a network that uses different routing technology and backbone providers known for the fastest and most reliable speeds. It's about 3x the cost but a cheap price to pay for reliable service and happy members.

Once again, thanks for your patience through this...

[Dawg54]

They must have worked out their differences last night. Yesterday afternoon, I had no luck connecting to your site. Response time right now is better than ever. Whatever the reason, it's all good.

[Andy R]

Originally Posted by Dawg52

They must have worked out their differences last night. Yesterday afternoon, I had no luck connecting to your site. Response time right now is better than ever. Whatever the reason, it's all good.

Haha, Mr. Murphy strikes again!

[Andy R]

I just wanted to post and let you know that I am working on various issues. I will post an update shortly.

[Andy R]

UPDATE: The move to the new network was not as smooth as I had hoped. Along with changing the external IPs of the server to be on the new network, the internal IPs had to be changed. This caused all kinds of issues with permissions between the servers (web servers, replication between master and slave database servers, firewalls, etc). No data was lost but if you were online in the last 6 hours you probably saw some whacky looking stuff.

The site should be working fine now, although I need to go through and audit all the configuration settings that were messed with today when trying to troubleshoot the software. I will get that done ASAP.

Please post any errors you may find and also if you are getting faster or slower page loads.

As always thanks for your feedback and patience.

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Any errors I find are usually ones I have posted myself.

Seriously, no problems here. Lucky, I guess.

[cantlogin]

Whenever I click the forum jump button I get "Intermet Explorer cannot display the webpage".

When I click Explorer's refresh button the page opens and everything works fine until I click the jump again.

The overall speed of the forum seems slower than it used to be but it isn't terribly slow.

[cantlogin]

Two weeks later and everything works again. Good.