Value Hosting News

The upgrade of Dingo server has been a success and the process is complete. You may still experience some weird DNS flip-flopping between the old and new server over the next 24 hours, however this should settle down once your ISP's update their records (an automatic process).

Over the next few days, please check that your website is functioning as expected. If there are any server-related problems, please let us know and we will look into it.
Also, please note that you might receive some email duplicates as we will copy some stray emails from the old server back to the new. You can just delete the duplicate.

Thanks very much for your patience.

Through our commitment to improving our network and services, we will be upgrading Dingo server's hardware and network connectivity.

You dont have to do anything! We will be taking care of this, and the wheels are already in motion with the new server being prepared right now. We aim to begin the migration within the next 24 hours.

NOTE: We have plans in place to ensure downtime is kept as minimal as possible. However, it is likely you will experience some interruptions for a few hours once we swap the servers over.

We will email you again once the migration is complete.

The migration of Alba server has been a success and the process is complete.

Over the next few days, please check that your website is functioning as expected. If there are any server-related problems, please let us know and we will look into it.

Thanks very much.

We have started copying data including website files and currently stored emails across to the new Alba server. Please hold off updating your website for the next 12-24 hours, as you could be updating on the old server instead of the new. This is because we will have both servers up and running at the same time to minimise downtime. However, if you do unintentionally update on the old server, no problem - we/you can just copy it over to the new server.

We emailed you a few weeks ago regarding the server migration of Alba. This has yet to take place since we have been waiting for some software licensing which has been slow to come through.
We are now ready to migrate all data across to the new server. We are aiming for the final cut over to be done within 72 hours from now.

This is just a notification to keep you informed. You dont have to do anything! Please note, it is likely you will experience some interruptions for a few hours once we swap the servers over. However, we have put procedures in place to ensure this is kept to absolute minimum.

For those of you wondering whether the migration has taken place yet - we have delayed it until next week.
We are installing additional software on the new server and need to wait for licence keys and a few bits and pieces.
You'll receive an email closer to the migration time.

After many years of hard work, Alba server will be put to rest. Customers on Alba server have been with us for many years as this was one of our first servers, based in America. During this time it has undergone 2 hard drive replacements and a CPU replacement, endured a massive fire and explosion at the datacentre (a few weeks ago) and is now heading for retirement.

GOOD NEWS: We will be migrating all websites/data from the old Alba server to the NEW Alba server which is based here in Australia! You will notice vast improvements in speed with better security and efficiency.

You dont have to do anything! We will be taking care of this, and the wheels are already in motion with the new server being prepared right now. We aim to begin the migration within the next 72 hours.

NOTE: We have plans in place to ensure downtime is kept as minimal as possible. However, it is likely you will experience some interruptions for a few hours once we swap the servers over.

Power has been restored to Alba server which is fantastic news. There will still be intermittent connectivity issues over the next few hours, so please be patient. The server is looking good, although its now very busy with everyone grabbing their emails. There are a large number to deliver so email will filter through slowly.

5PM
We are told they are making progress to restore power to the datacentre. The fire marshall has given them the green light to turn on the air conditioners, which is required to cool the servers. This is only the first step, but it's nice to see they are making progress.

We need to accept the reality that Alba server is likely to remain offline for at least the next 24 hours.

However, we urge everyone to remain in good spirits and rest assured the server itself has not been damaged (so we have been told).

We will be keeping an eye on progress overnight, and will post new information in the morning.


9AM
The datacentre that houses Alba server have been working around the clock to replace equipment and physically move servers to unaffected areas of the datacentre. At this stage, they believe the outage will last at least for the next 8 hours, as they need to install new equipment and test all systems. Unfortunately, this means Alba server will remain offline for most of today.

We continue to monitor the situation. As you can understand, this is out of our hands, but we are here to offer support during this time.

There has been an incident at the datacentre that houses Alba server.

Unfortunately, this type of thing is out of our hands. The datacentre techs are well aware of the problem and are working on it.

Here is a copy of the email from our datacentre:

-=-
Dear Valued Customers:

This evening at 4:55 in our H1 data center, electrical gear shorted, creating an explosion and fire that knocked down three walls surrounding our electrical equipment room Thankfully, no one was injured. In addition, no customer servers were damaged or lost.

We have just been allowed into the building to physically inspect the damage. Early indications are that the short was in a high-volume wire conduit. We were not allowed to activate our backup generator plan based on instructions from the fire department.

This is a significant outage, impacting approximately 9,000 servers and 7,500 customers. All members of our support team are in, and all vendors who supply us with data center equipment are on site. Rest assured we are working around the clock.

We are in the process of communicating with all affected customers.

I am sorry that this accident has occurred and apologize for the impact.
-=-

We will keep an eye on it, but the reality is that the server could be down for many many hours - if not days *shudder*. We have to be realistic and understand this is a major incident, but we are confident the datacentre will do everything it can to get the network back up and running ASAP.


Regards,

Justin

IMPORTANT: We have made some changes on all servers to prevent hackers from attacking your email addresses and our server.

To login to emails through Outlook or similar program, please change the email username/login to the full email address, not just the prefix.

eg, info@yourdomain.com.au

In your email program, when asked to enter your username or password, please enter the full email address as the username - and your password is unchanged.