Date:  March 27, 2018

Time:  10:00AM PST (GMT -7:00)

Scope of Work:

At 10AM PST we will run our generators for the monthly testing that we perform.  We do this to ensure that in the event of an emergency, they will function flawlessly.  There is no interruption to your services, or any downtime associated with this as we are just powering them on and running them for a specified amount of time, and turning them off again. 

This is just an informational message.

Date:  January 4, 2018

Time:  Ongoing

Scope of Work:

We will be patching our systems as erratas become available.  There were multiple vulnerabilities found in Intel and AMD chips.  It is called speculative execution.  As it stands now, Centos 7 servers can be patched, and we will be patching all Centos 6 systems when the patch is made available.  For dedicated server clients, please contact us and we can try to schedule your system patches at a time that fits best with your business.  For all others, we will be rolling out updates all day and it will probably take mulitiple days due to the amount of systems that will need to be patched.  Once the patch is setup on the server(s), then a reboot will need to be initiated.  You should also look at your own computer (home or office) as there is a high probability that it too would be affected as this is a massive vulnerability. 

https://access.redhat.com/security/vulnerabilities/speculativeexecution

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/01/03/intel-meltdown-spectre-vulnerabilities-leave-millions-open-to-cyber-attack/#458703d33932

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

Date:  September 6, 2017

Time:  10:00PM PST (GMT -8:00)

Scope of Work:

At 10PM PST we will add another provider into our bandwidth mix.  The provider is Tata Communications and they are one of the world's largest ISPs.  They specifically have a huge presence in Asia, the United States, and the Middle East.  They have undersea cables which connect continents.  We don't anticipate there will be any issue during the turnup.  Tata ranks amoung the top 3-4 ISPs worldwide in many reports which is why we wanted to get them added into our already formitable bandwidth blend. 

This is just an informational message.

Date:  August 5, 2017**

Rolling Update Work Window:  10:00PM PST (GMT -8:00) - 4AM PST

Scope of Work: 

Cpanel introduced a new backup system which is going to replace it's legacy backup system.  At some point in the near future, CPanel will no longer support their legacy backup system.  In an effort to stay ahead of this, we will be converting the backups from the legacy system to the new backup system every night.  We don't anticipate any loss of backups, but it's always advisable to retain your own backups as well.  We have tested and verified the upgrade and don't expect any issues.  Dedicated and VPS clients please contact us to schedule upgrades to this new backup platform.

The new Backup system now functions with a new user interface (UI) and having the following features:

The new Backup system also now supports multiple incremental backups.

Retention behavior - When a complete backup finishes, the system deletes the oldest backup. When the system backup partially completes (fails), the system will not delete the oldest backup, and it will continue to retain the oldest backups. This procedure ensures that the system retains at least one retained complete backup.

After the next complete backup finishes, the system will delete the oldest backups to return to the desired number of backups.

** This upgrade will run nightly on the stated start date during the work window described above until upgrades have been completed on all affected server devices.

Date:  July 17-23, 2017

Time:  10:00PM PST (GMT -8:00)

Scope of Work:

During this maintenance window, we will be upgrading the version of the control panel software on our servers.  This upgrade will bring some exciting new features such as EA4, CPanel's new system for Apache management, PHP-FPM, and a host of security patches.  We do not anticipate any issues during this upgrade, and you will now be able to use a PHP selector where you can test upgraded versions of PHP simply by logging into your control panel and selecting the version you want to use.  This is especially helpful for software upgrade tests and subsequent deployments.

For any clients with VPS or Dedicated Servers, we strongly urge you to contact us to schedule an upgrade.