On Saturday 8th July we are planning on moving our server array to a larger “rack” with our existing datacentre (we’re remaining with our excellent hosting partner Custodian). The move is to allow us to further enhance the security and resilience of our servers by introducing a new hardware firewall and remote access capability across our systems.
In physical terms, it means powering off all servers and switch, unwiring, removing from their existing location, moving to a new one (about 100m away!), putting into their new home, rewiring and bringing back online.
We have looked at options but we see no practical way of doing this work without some server downtime for all clients, and have therefore opted to do this work at a weekend to minimise the disruption this may cause.
We will try, as always, to keep any downtime to a minimum, but we would anticipate that all website and email we host may be off-line for up to three hours on Saturday 8th of July from 10am.
We will post at https://twitter.com/praterraines at the start of the downtime and when the servers are back up, along with any other helpful updates as useful.
If you have any questions or specific issues with downtime on the 8th July, please contact us directly.