Emergency Maintenance: cPanel02 Hosting Server
Replacement Drives and Migration of Data
What is being done:
Replacement of SSD Hard Drives and Migration of all existing data to the new disks, in order to proactively replace them prior to complete failure.
Who is affected:
Clients with cPanel/WHM Linux Hosting Services (web, email, personal, business hosting packages) on server:
- cPanel02
The server will need to be completely offline during the maintenance to physically swap hard-drives, and restore all data as quickly as possible.
During the maintenance window you will not be able to access any aspect of your hosting accounts through the Client Portal, via WHM/cPanel or by http/ftp/pop3/smtp/imap etc
The servers will need to be powered down, have all drives removed, duplicated and replaced, and other hardware changed before bringing up with limited access whilst services are started in a controlled manner and the reported disk-io and load investigations are completed.
This will involve a maximum of 12 hours of outage of all services (mail, web, databases etc) on server cp11 and some limited access for an additional 48 hours whilst the impact and improvements are monitored and tweaked.
We are unable to provide an exact time for you to regain any access to your hosting account as it will depend on the type of services you use – email only will be back first, followed by ftp, web, databases – if any ‘prioritisation’ of clients is necessary, then those with the advanced-support levels will be 1st, followed by Enterprise & E-Commerce clients, then Business, Personal and finally any trial and subsidised/discounted/internal services.
Incoming email during this time will ‘queue’ at the sender, Outbound emails will stay on your local machine (where using a mail client) – webmail access will be unavailable until the work is completed.
Websites will be down until the data has been restored, Websites which rely on a database will start to work once the mysql databases are restored and repaired.
FTP upload/download access will return once we have confirmed all data is available.
Access to other services/ports where supported will then be made available again.
When is this maintenance:
Starting Wednesday 29 April 2015 19:25
Completing <Unknown at this time>
Why do we need to do this:
Our internal monitoring systems have reported an ‘imminent failure’ of one of the primary disks in this server. We have taken this action to prevent complete loss of customer data.
Updates
29/April 21:15 Hardware has been replaced and data is being migrated over to the new system
29/April 23:30 All data has been restored and server is being returned to active duty
30/April 04:45 Maintenance and followup testing all completed – all services 100% operational
