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Yes, the pictures do not lie: we're leaving our current provider and moving all of TextDrive to a new and vastly better situation, with our own hardware, in one of the best colocation facilities in the world, where we'll be rubbing shoulders with such lightweights as Akamai and Yahoo.
Why the move?
Recent outages have shed bright light on an intolerable situation. We simply have not had the level of control and access we need to serve our shared hosting customers properly. Up until now, every time there's been a major problem with a server, we've had to rely on people we don't know (who work in a data centre far away from any of us) to do what it takes to get the problem solved. Often, to our immense frustration, we're the ones delivering very specific instructions on the best way to proceed, and just as often these must be told to someone who then hangs up, wanders out to the server, rolls over a 'crash cart', attempts to execute the instructions, and wanders back, whereupon phone communications resume. It's like trying to run a webhosting company in the age of the stagecoach and telegram. It can't continue.
How will you fix it?
We've made a massive capital investment in a fleet of the very best Dell servers, which we'll now be able to access in two rather expedient ways:
Sounds ... good?
Yes. Not only will this move improve our level of control immeasurably, it'll bring a huge upgrade in power and capacity, and allow us the flexibility to meet fast growth head-on. And fast growth and TextDrive appear to be synonymous these days. We'll be ready.
Okay. What do I have to do?
For the vast majority, who are using our DNS servers and have no custom IP setup, we'll take care of everything for you. Your passwords, logins, web & email addresses will all stay the same, and you shouldn't notice any interruptions. For those with special setups, you can expect simple instructions on managing the move here on the forum, on the weblog, and by email.
When will this happen?
We'll be snug and humming in San Diego by the end of August.
What about my damn European datacentre?
Our new colocation provider has centres all over Europe, and is eager to place us wherever we'd like. Expect more news after the big move.
Anything else?
Seriously: heartfelt thanks from us to all of you for being with us, for your patience and impatience as we find our stride, for having faith in our future, and for just totally getting it.
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Fantastic news!!!
Thank you TextDrive, I wish you the best of luck in what going to be a busy time for you. I'll be bringing you more business soon, now that the move is happening.
PS. can't wait for the new Gilford.
Last edited by Fire Fusion (2005-08-20 13:41:37)
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Great!
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excellent news! thanks for this amazing solution to the ongoing problems.
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Brilliant.
Good luck and bon voyage to the servers.
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Dean wrote:
Yes, the pictures do not lie
Thanks for the update and the geek porn: "Mother, hot daughter and fat daughter all on top of our good friend Barclay"
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Me thinks a memes been born. is that memes or meme's... all this possesive shit and pluralization of urban lingo is beyond me
Go to hell Dean
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This is great. Thanks for all your work, TextDrivers.
Dean wrote:
you shouldn't notice any interruptions.
Just curious: how does that work? Will you be mirroring the Texas servers with the San Diego servers until you turn off Texas?
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Andy wrote:
I assume that they'll be furiously rsyncing across until DNS servers across the world have been updated.
Not at all. If you're using our nameservers (which by the way mirror each other and certainly won't need any changes on your end):
It's really just a matter of us flipping a switch (actually, running simple bit of SQL) in our DNS system to point you from one server to another, with any TTL we like. So it can be a matter of seconds after the rsync.
Also: Go to hell Ray!
Plus: Go to hell Andy!
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Ah, right. But wouldn't there be a period when people with local DNS caches that hadn't been flushed (and weren't properly respecting TTLs) would be still viewing textdrive-old? That is, until their local nameservers re-requested the A record from the SOA. Or am I misinterpreting the way DNS works (which I may well be)?
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Dean wrote:
the machines are 8 minutes away from Jason's house
I had a hunch that this was going to happen... ;)
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This is great news
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My god man, this company rocks. Go to hell everyone!
Last edited by compooter (2005-08-26 15:52:44)
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What a wonderful example of refined search. But 118 returns? Seems a bit low. We can do better!!!
Last edited by reid (2005-08-20 16:22:12)
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This is absolutely fantastic guys, my hat goes off to you all. Next time I'm in the US and vaguely near any of you, beer is on me (or probably on the company credit card, but it's the thought that counts).
Cheers!
(And just so I don't feel left out, Go To Hell TextDrive!)
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Ah, and finally Ray's got some gear after his name. Me jealous, you bigmama ;-).
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This is excellent news esp. with all the weird issues with database timeouts, etc. and recent downtime.
Are you guys getting your own dedicated IP ranges for the new machines?
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bsdguru wrote:
Are you guys getting your own dedicated IP ranges for the new machines?
Yes, it's a completely real setup and ARIN stuff just sent out.
This has been done in ... well ... 3 weeks (mainly because Dell's emerging business unit is about as good as something get's and we hooked up with a networking company --named nextlevelinternet -- in san diego to come in on contract and get all the network stuff all done: dual routers and BGP etc)
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padawan wrote:
Ah, and finally Ray's got some gear after his name. Me jealous, you bigmama ;-).
No worries, I have you earmarked for the Big-IPs, netscalers or netcache.
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Next thing we know you're going to be selling naming rights to the light switches.... ;)
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Big-IPs... cool. Me green.
Can't wait to hear about IPOs ; )
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jason wrote:
bsdguru wrote:
Are you guys getting your own dedicated IP ranges for the new machines?
Yes, it's a completely real setup and ARIN stuff just sent out.This has been done in ... well ... 3 weeks (mainly because Dell's emerging business unit is about as good as something get's and we hooked up with a networking company --named nextlevelinternet -- in san diego to come in on contract and get all the network stuff all done: dual routers and BGP etc)
Great stuff!
Have you guys placed any pictures of your routers online somewhere?
Last edited by bsdguru (2005-08-20 18:38:48)
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This is great news. I have to admit that the streak of recent outages had me wondering if I'd have to start looking for another host. Thankfully, you guys have stepped up yet again. One of the things I really like about TxD is that you fix things "the right way" instead of limping along with quick fixes and duct tape.
So, thanks for laying out the cash to fix the real problem.
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Ted wrote:
Awesome news. Which colocation provider are you guys going with?
The blurb is now
"We're a Dell Emerging Business partner housed in the San Diego Level (3) gateway, a Tier One facility that provides power redundancy (down to dual power grids with SDG&E), multi-level security, flexible bandwidth from multiple providers, and world-class reliability. The Level (3) infrastructure is based on dual OC-192 backbones with direct routes out of San Diego to Los Angeles and is the only east bound route out of San Diego to Phoenix. This the same facility that provides connectivity for every major voice, mobile and internet provider that serves the San Diego area."
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jason wrote:
The blurb is now
"We're a Dell Emerging Business partner housed in the San Diego Level (3) gateway, a Tier One facility that provides power redundancy (down to dual power grids with SDG&E), multi-level security, flexible bandwidth from multiple providers, and world-class reliability. The Level (3) infrastructure is based on dual OC-192 backbones with direct routes out of San Diego to Los Angeles and is the only east bound route out of San Diego to Phoenix. This the same facility that provides connectivity for every major voice, mobile and internet provider that serves the San Diego area."
That is quite a mouthfull ;)
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Don't understand but I trust him.
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ngungo wrote:
Don't understand but I trust him.
Basically we can expect way better service from Textdrive without them having to rely on The Planet's clueless staff members!!! Which is an added bonus as Textdrive can now do all their own on-site server related stuff without relying on a third party.
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reid wrote:
What a wonderful example of refined search. But 118 returns? Seems a bit low. We can do better!!!
It looks like the TextDrive forum is currently the 5th most likely place you'll be told to go to hell. Go to hell Google!
Last edited by compooter (2005-09-01 18:42:32)
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I get it! Your going to name a server "hell." It must be one amazing Dell server, because everyone wants to "go to hell." How does one get on this server?
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For those of us using DNSME or whatever for dns management and pointing A records to our server IP, will you publish/email a list of corresonding new IP's and an appointed time to change our records? Actually, if I had the new IP in advance I could go ahead and stick it in the failover box, in case I'm not around a computer when you throw the switch.
Was in SD in June for sister's wedding and daughter's birthday and can vouch for ideal environment: http://chappells.us/blog/?p=95 I'm seriously jealous of anybody that moves there. Way to go! Buying into VCII is looking like the best investment I ever made.
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