List hardware change upcoming

The following from the owner of Freelists.org re: the upcoming change of the 
hardware 
that hosts this list.
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It's been just over 3 years since our last hardware upgrade 
(http://www.freelists.org/archives/freelists-news/11-2001/msg00000.ht
ml) and our need for it has never been greater.

Since 11/2001, we've been running on a custom-built server with 512MB
RAM, two PIII/800 cpu's, and some fairly slow storage.  The fact that
we've been able to continue running on such ancient hardware is, in
my opinion, a testament to the quality of the Open Source software we
so heavily depend on.  Nonetheless, as we've grown, demand for
resources has gradually outstripped the capabilities of our hardware.

For several months now, I've been researching and shopping for a
server that will carry FreeLists for the next few years.  While there
are several servers that make up the backend here, there's just one
that does 90% of the work, so it's got to be a performant, reliable
box.  I nearly went with Dell for their simplicity, my experience
with them (we've already got an 1850 here), and the fact that they're
so cheap.  Their lack of support for the AMD Opteron CPU (far better
than Intel's 64-bit offering) dropped them from the running.  

Matrix to the rescue: I was put in touch with a nearby VAR called
Matrix Integration (http://www.matrixintegration.com), a big HP
reseller.  While I can't go into detail on the specifics, let's just
say this upgrade wouldn't have been possible without them.  Their
sales people really went to bat for us and put us into a server I
never thought we'd be able to afford.  </plug>

We'll be moving to a roomy HP DL585 with 2 Opteron 850's and 2GB RAM.
 The server also provides for upgradeability -- I can drop in two
more CPU's and another 62GB of memory if we ever need it.  

So here's the plan: We'll be doing the migration on Saturday the
22nd, starting at about 9am.  It's a complicated migration and I do
expect there to be bumps along the way, but I plan to have everything
operational by mid-afternoon.  During that time, of course,
FreeLists' services will be unavailable.  The rest of the weekend
will be available to finding and ironing out any remaining problems
that crop up.

Any questions or concerns?  Please don't hesitate to ask.

John

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Roger


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