Spacey Cluster Move!
Due to space and power constraints in our primary datacenter we are moving the entire shared cluster “spacey” to our LAX facility at 10:00PM PST (GMT - 8), two weeks from today, Friday, November 30th 2007. All webservers, mail servers, file servers, and MySQL servers in the spacey cluster will be unreachable during the move, which we expect to take approximately 8 hours.
The spacey cluster contains the following web servers:
7up, amp, aquafina, arizona, barqs, bawls, boba, brisk, cactuscooler, calpico, cappuccino, caprisun, chai, clamato, codered, coffee, coke, crush, crystallight, culligan, dads, dasani, dietrite, drpepper, eggnog, endless, espresso, evian, fanta, fetish1, fiji, frappe, fresca, fuze, gatorade, geyser, gingerale, hansens, hi-c, hiball, horchata, ibc, inko, izze, jolt, koolaid, lipton, martinellis, milk, minutemaid, monster, mountaindew, mrpibb, mug, musclemilk, nehi, nesbitt, nestea, niagara, odwalla, oj, optimizer, orangebang, ovaltine, pellegrino, pepsi, perrier, plentymag, pom, powerade, propel, punch, redbull, refresco, riptide, rockstar, rootbeer, schweppes, seagull, seltzer, shasta, silk, simpledollar, slice, slim, sly, smoothie, snapple, sobe, sparkletts, sprite, squirt, stewarts, sunkist, sunnyd, tab, tampico, tang, tea, tejava, tizer, tonic, tropicana, v8, voss, welchs, wishserver, worldtown, yoohoo
If your site is on any of these servers this status post applies to you. Also, if you check the “Account Status” button on the upper right hand of the webpanel ( https://panel.dreamhost.com ) you should see your cluster under the section “Your Email Server:”. We are also sending out an email announcement about this downtime window to affected customers.
We do apologize for this inconvenience. Rest assured we will do everything possible to keep downtime to a minimum.
If you have any questions regarding the server move, please contact our support team.
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November 20th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
@Vittal,
You can accomplish what you are saying using the DNS failover I mentioned above.
Instead of going all-out site duplication, you can keep it simple. Just get 1 alternate cheap-cheap host somewhere with little storage space, create a simple static page that says your site is down for maintenance at the alternate site’s index or default page, setup the failover, then when your site is down, you have an automatic “down for maintenance” page that will switch back when DH is backup.
Or you can research a hosting company that does this by default. Though I haven’t run into one yet other than Dynamic DNS companies. Doesn’t mean they are not out there…
You are looking at total cost for 1 domain of approximately: (err-ing on the higher month to month cost side)
$11/m - DH account (month-to-month)
$3-5/m alt cheap-cheap hosting account (you can add more hosting accounts for how much failover you want)
$1.25/m failover 1-3 domains (there are several plans to encompass how many domains you want failover for)
Your time setting it up= priceless!
This is typically cheaper than going dedicated.
Have fun!
November 20th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
@omg,
You are right on the money. There are to many options out there to do a step by step, but you need a certain level of knowledge on how to operate your web site fully before attempting.
I love it, works great. I use 2 alternate hosts myself…the changes would be astronimical that all 3 are down simultaneously…unless they use the same backbone. Choose wisely!
Also, you can add to the mix by setting up several free web site monitoring services that alert you when an outage is detected…that way if minutes count, one of the several monitors you use will have detected the outage before the failover kicks in and you can get to work on uploading your current database.
good practice is to always make changes to all hosting accounts at the same time when you update…so you don’t get sloppy.
November 20th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
ah, typeo…if reading my last comment, it reads funny:
I actually meant: “…the CHANCES would be astronomical that all 3 are down simultaneously…”
November 20th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
@Hilary Clinton
In that case, Dreamhost…please destroy the shared server she is on!
btw, That isn’t really Hilary if you haven’t figured out already. She doesn’t even have hosting though Dreamhost.
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:56 am
it is not abt the money, but the way the business is conducted, the worth of it.. 8 hours of downtime may worth than jus 13 cents of ur balls. i get $10 a hours by havin my site online. 8 hours means $80.. dh is not gng to be payin me that amount..
hey, come one this is the first time i hear a webhost moving their entire cluster physically! and they categorise it as a medium severity?
November 24th, 2007 at 8:53 am
@previous poster: If you earn $10/hour to have your site online, why are you being cheap and using a $10/month shared hosting plan?
I use DH for stuff that is not vital to my business, like a personal photo album. For my business, we pay around $25k per year for colocation in a Tier-1 datacenter (Equinix).
November 28th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
DH should really be providing assurance that email won’t bounce and a page that doesn’t come up 404 during the move.
I don’t have time to take away from my business to figure it out on my own, I really am surprised that DH is not doing something along these lines, they are usually so customer friendly.
The attitude of “go elsewhere” or “shut up and like it” by those posting here is as useful as “I want my fourteen cents back!”
At the end of the day 8 hours is lengthy and more than advanced notice should be done in this case, it dramatically affects the expectations of customers, pure and simple - whether it’s just your puppy and baby pictures, your business, or your warez site it reflects on the customer not the host and this should have been considered in advance of the move.
DH it would be nice if you’d address this now, while there’s some time - and if it’s possible.
*shrug* it’s irksome and we’ll all survive but this and other outages make me wonder if I should be looking at another host if I am that concerned about downtime affecting traffic etc. And THAT is lame, because I love dreamhost.
What would be an easy solution from them is a pain and tedious for their customer base.
November 29th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Eight hours is a bit long -hopefully it gets done quicker and does not take longer. And as the poster above says - something should have been done to ensure everything kept working until the actual switch over.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
MHhhhh…. it’s nearly time now, one day to go. I really really hope it works out fine.
November 29th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
this is scary. i wouldve thought there’d have been mirrors at least somewhere for times like these let alone real emergencies??
why do i have this bad bad bad bad feeling that our sites are going to be down for days and days? i hope they prove me wrong but i gotta bad feeling about this one and it getting set back up properly and fast. fingers crossed
please dreamhost try to be as fast as possible,which i know you will. good luck
November 30th, 2007 at 6:16 am
I’m thrilled to death that we got two weeks notice this time! It allowed me to come up with ways to deal with it. Not my idea of fun for it to be down at all, but I can definitely cope with 2 weeks notice. Thanks guys!
November 30th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Anyone having issues with servers -not- part of that cluster at the moment? My mysql is on “courage” (which isn’t listed) and unreachable. Not sure if it’s related to this, but the timing makes me think it’s likely…
November 30th, 2007 at 8:59 am
My sites have been down since ~10:30, reporting that the mySQL database is unreachable. It’s hosted on “checkers” which isn’t in the above list, so who knows.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Yeap, that’s when mine when out too.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:13 am
What time is 10:00PM PST (GMT -
in Norway? I am trying to figure it out, but only get confused. Please help! 
December 1st, 2007 at 3:25 am
I’ve been hear a long time through the many hiccups that growth has caused to DH and its crew and I have one thing to say.
GET OVER IT YOU WERE WARNED WEEKS IN ADVANCE
I see the severity of this outage as being medium in that it is a simple hardware move, not an outage or a failure where no one knows what happened or what was affected. Power down cluster of servers , move equipment 40+ Miles, reconnect everything, power on, seems fairly simple to me and well within the skills of our gracious hosts.
Keep up the good work guys.
December 1st, 2007 at 5:51 am
My sites are coming back up again, everything seems in order. Thanks.
December 1st, 2007 at 5:58 am
My site is back. Thanks.
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:47 pm
I am going to cut his balls. It’s true.
December 22nd, 2007 at 2:08 am
Thanksss..
January 13th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Oh, btw: Take some pictures for the BLOG! I want to see tea being moved!
March 30th, 2008 at 8:04 am
For all those people who want to be compensated, the downtime works out to be about 8.5 cents. 10 cents if you round up! Be sure to submit all your requests to support to get your account credited! morons.
May 31st, 2008 at 3:24 am
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