Service UpdateIf you are a current client, please take time to read this post as you will need to take action to get your server back online in the very near future. As an effort to constantly improve our service, we've decided to move to a new server provider. RTB hosting has been around for well over 6 months now and we've learnt a lot about the hardware, network and support requirements we need from a provider for most efficient operation. From today we'll be gradually migrating all active Blockland servers to brand new hardware in Buffalo, New York. For anyone interested, the next generation hosting nodes have the following specifications:
Intel Xeon E3-1270/1240 v3 Haswell (3.5/3.4GHz, 4 cores, 8 threads)
32GB DDR3 ECC RAM
120GB Intel 520 SSD
1Gbit network connection
This is a big upgrade from our current servers which utilise desktop parts (Intel i5-2500, slow SATA harddrives) and we hope the new nodes will solve current I/O and network jitter issues. The servers are no longer in the New York City metro area but we've stuck with an East Coast provider for the best connection to players in Europe and the USA. The servers have a 1Gbit connection to a blend of premium Tier 1 carriers provided by ColoCrossing.
Migration ScheduleThe following times start from the time of this post.
- 0 - 48 hours - migrations will be available for servers on NY02 only, you will be able to put yourself in the queue at a time that suits you.
- 24 - 48 hours - any servers on NY02 that aren't in the migration queue will be shut down and added to the migration queue.
- 48 - 96 hours - migrations will be available to all remaining servers on NY01 and NY03, all servers on NY02 should be migrated by this time. You will be able to put yourself in the queue at a time that suits you.
- 96 hours + - all remaining, unmigrated servers will be shut down and added to the migration queue.
Migration ProcessThe migrations will happen 1 by 1 for all 95 servers we currently host. To put yourself in the migration queue, simply follow the instructions at the top of your server dashboard. When you reach the front of the queue, all your files will be automatically transferred to a new node and you'll be all ready to host again after re-entering your authentication key. If you're concerned about keeping your server up as long as possible, please wait for the migration queue to drop to a low number before joining. Whilst your server is moving to the new node, a live update of progress will be displayed, as shown in the preview below.
If there are any problems with your migration, please submit a ticket immediately, do not post in this thread.Backup PolicyAlongside the deployment of the new nodes, we're changing our backup policy. Previously we took full server backups weekly and stored them offsite, these were slow to compile, slow to transfer and difficult to restore from. Effective immediately, we're moving to daily incremental backups stored off-site in Las Vegas, Nevada. These backups will happen at 10am UTC and be rate limited to avoid network or I/O degradation. The nature of these backups will make them easy and fast to complete and restore from in the event of a hardware failure. Whilst we'll make our best effort to restore your files in the event of loss, it still remains your responsibility to maintain effective backups of your server.
If you have any questions, please feel free to post here or submit a support ticket. Thanks!
