Downtime for server move

The current server running weather-watch.com is beginning to suffer from errors which I suspect may be hard disk related. I’m therefore in the process of moving the site across to the backup server. The site is large and complex with various parts inter-linked so moving it isn’t quick or easy. Unfortunately it isn’t possible to move the whole site in one outage and it is likely that moving one part of it may break other parts.

To minimise impact I will give priority to getting the WML and Forum sub-systems migrated and up and running. Bug Tracker, Wiki, Gallery and other less used parts of the site may be broken whilst I move the WML and Forum components.

There will be also outages when WML and the Forum are unavailable. I will try to keep those to the minimum possible time and post a note in this thread when those outages are likely to take place.

Wish me luck!

I’ve got some of the non-essential stuff on the server moved to prove that the other server is set up correctly.

I’m currently working on verifying that the WML code runs on the other server and have found a problem with the buoy data import routine. The good news is that the problem exists on the old server. The bad news is that it’s delayed me by an hour working out how to fix it. It’s possible that I won’t finish the move today, but I’ll let you know how i get on.

The best of luck Chris, I know these types of moves are a PITA at best…

-Bob

Most of WML is configured on the new server now. I hit another snag though…some of the components used by the WML map generator have been significantly upgraded since I last installed them so I’ve had to do quite a bit of work to get them working (missing dependencies in code I don’t use :frowning: ). I think I’ll be at a point soon where WML could be switched over in the next hour or two, but I don’t want to do that just before going to bed in case it falls over.

The WML server backend is now set up but inactive on the new server. The front-end (subscription and Management Centre) is still to be done, as is the forum, main site, Wiki, Gallery, Bug Tracker, etc. It’s a long job!

thanks for all your hard work with this Chris :smiley: :slight_smile: :o

Work continues…

Mantis Bug Tracker has changed URL (but not server yet). If you have links to the Bug Tracker stored in your favourites please follow the link from the Forum and save a new copy of the URL. The host part of the URL has changed from wxd.weather-watch.com to www.weather-watch.com

Whilst this might seem insignificant in the overall job of moving, it is important because I’ve managed to unpick two parts of the system that were linked by a common database and scripts. That will make this (and any future) moves easier.

WML will be moving either this evening or tomorrow. The DNS timout entries for weather-watch.com have been significantly reduced to facilitate the move. That will place a little more load on the server and also mean that you have to query DNS more often for w-w.com addresses. Both of these things may cause response times to be a little slower than normal, but hopefully not to badly.

been more responsive if anything lately I think ?

The DNS change has only just been made in the last 10-15 minutes so will only become active for everyone within 45 minutes based on the previous settings.

WeatherMap Live and the GFS data system have been transferred to the other server. The WML data should be up-to-date now and there’s a GFS data import running right now to get that fully up-to-date (it might be a few hours out by now).

Please report any oddities you find in the WML Forum Board. I’ve done a quick run through of the functions and they seemed to be OK for me, but I might have missed something.