topic Pay as You Host platform update in Community Announcements

Pay as You Host platform update

Dan — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:46:25 GMT

As you may be aware, we've been working on upgrading our PAYH platform. We are currently building Plesk servers and integrating them into our existing platform for PAYH. We plan to have the first batch of servers available by the end of this week, by which time we also hope to have migrated a small batch of customer accounts. Once we are comfortable with the migration process we'll automatically move all websites that do not interact with a database that we host - I'm aiming for us do this in a couple of batches over next week (w/c/ 23/07) and the week after (30/07). Finally we'll migrate the remaining websites that make use of a database that we host.
We have started to email our customers with initial details of the upgrade, and we also have a set of customers that have volunteered to help us with the migration.
Our main priority within the first 10 days of the project was to build a secure and reliable platform that customers can be migrated on, and to have at least a couple of accounts migrated, and this is currently on track. I'm aiming for us to have the migration complete within the first week of August.
Myself or the Comms team will keep giving regular updates over the next couple of weeks. Thanks for your patience so far.
Regards,
Dan Kirkland
(Platform Manager)

Re: Pay as You Host platform update

Dan — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:00:16 GMT

Ok, my first excuse for not replying sooner is that there was a glitch in the Community Site that meant I couldn't actually reply to my own post within this forum. I know, it sounds contrived but it's honestly what happened (remember the site was beta when I originally posted). Anyway, Colin kindly fixed it for me.
Nonetheless, the Comms and Parbin teams have been keeping the affected customers up-to-date with mail shots and website updates.
Understanding and configuring Plesk's overall system has proved to be complex - with various licensing requirements and integration points - therefore, it's taking longer than originally hoped. The last thing I want to do is migrate customers onto a new platform that we understand less than our current one, so the key here is to not rush into the migration process.
The good news is that we are nearing the end of build, and migration is now likely to start on Tuesday. We now believe we understand the migration process and better understand the Plesk system, so it's just a case of getting the servers fully commissioned before we start. We've already got the servers built for one data centre, we're just finishing off the other centre to ensure we have site resilience.
Thanks to Rupert and Mike for their hard work on this.
Dan

Re: Pay as You Host platform update

Dan — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:38:14 GMT

I'm pleased to say that migration did start last week and we have several customers as well as test accounts now on the new platform.
The plan is to continue headlong into migration this week with a view of getting the bulk of the migration completed next week.
Well done all involved.