ADMIN: Changes happening this weekend - read this message

[TECHWR-L Administrators <admin -at- raycomm -dot- com>]

All,

Due to some sudden and unfortunate changes at the
Internet hosting company where the TECHWR-L
servers reside, we will be moving to a new
co-location company over the course of the 
next couple of days. 

In brief, our original co-location company was
unexpectedly bought out by another company, and the
change led to a "reassessment" of the rates we were
being charged; our rates went up by more than 100%
for July, and would go up again by 100% in September
if we were to continue co-location services there. 

As such, we're taking advantage of this opportunity
(making lemonade out of lemons, as it were) to
upgrade the servers and move to a new facility that's
closer to our office in Colorado. The new TECHWR-L
servers will be hosted at Netrack (http://www.netrack.net)
in Boulder, Colorado. Their rates are  more reasonable 
(approximately a 20% increase over our current rates), 
and based on references and consultations,  they are 
well-positioned to serve our needs for quite some time. 

We're planning to make the full cutover tomorrow
(Saturday, August 11, 2001). While it should not take too long
to make the change, do not be surprised if the site or 
list is intermittently accessible for a period of time 
during the cutover. If you are unable to access the list 
or site for more than a day after August 11th, please 
contact Eric (ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com) and let him know. 

For those interested, the Web server and list server (Lyris) 
will continue to run on separate systems. Both of the new 
servers are rack-mount PIII 700Mhz systems with 1Gb of RAM, two
internal 9Gb SCSI drives, and one internal 40Gb IDE drive. 
Additionally, a third system (a Pentium 166 with about 5Gb of 
disk space) provides primary DNS services and a variety of system
monitoring capabilities. All systems are on UPS (Uninterrupted 
Power Supply) and are running a variant of Linux. 

A private network (inaccessible from the Internet) interconnects 
the three systems to run backups and manage the systems. 

Each of the three systems is connected directly to the 
Internet through 100Mbps Ethernet interfaces and a 100Mbps 
switch. The available capacity out to the Internet is currently 
DS3 (45Mbps of bandwidth), and the connections are available to 
four major Internet backbones. 

These changes will likely result in improved performance and 
availability for all TECHWR-L services, as well as more 
flexibility to manage future changes. We'll provide more information
about the servers, the move, and related details after the move 
is completed. In the meantime, please feel free to contact Eric
(ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com) directly with questions or comments. 


Deborah and Eric

**************************************************
TECHWR-L: Empowering Technical Writers Since 1993
        http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/
Eric -- Listowner     Deborah -- Webmaster/Editor
**************************************************

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