[pure-silver] Why pure-silver was down (Saturday-Sunday in the US)

  • From: Jim Brick <jim@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 16:10:28 -0800

It's been just over three years since our last hardware upgrade
(//www.freelists.org/archives/freelists-news/11-2001/msg00000.html) 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.

=============================================================================================================
To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your 
account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) 
and unsubscribe from there.

Other related posts:

  • » [pure-silver] Why pure-silver was down (Saturday-Sunday in the US)