Unfortunately we have not been able to bring the server (prod6) back online remotely. After evaluation, we have decided to prepare a new server and migrate DP to that machine earlier than originally planned.
As noted previously, this is one of two identical machines graciously donated by Tom Kowal.
Prod6 has (literally) served DP well since 2006 and was slated for replacement in summer 2014 but, given the current situation, making that transition now should minimize the total disruption of service.
The new machine (prod7) has been in preparation since early this morning, already has the OS upgrade on it, and is being prepared/configured with the necessary software. In addition to being more recent hardware, prod7 also gives us two additional drive bays, a battery-backup unit on the drive controller, twice the RAM, and twice as many cpu cores as we currently have with prod6. Those factors combined with a move to the ext4 filesystem should make the server a bit more responsive during heavy load.
Brief stats: 2x Xeon @2.00GHz, 4 cores each. 8G RAM. 8x 300G drives (2 as RAID mirror for the OS, 4 as RAID-5 for the data, and 2 hot spares).
Once the build-out is complete, the new hardware will be transported on-site and we will begin transferring the databases, project files, etc. over. This may take an extended time, as we do not yet know exactly what conditions we will be working under.
Transport and on-site work is tentatively scheduled to take place tomorrow (Tuesday, March 4).
Once again, thanks for your patience. We’re working hard to bring you an improved experience.
DavidĀ (donovan)