Qw

...continued.


Mar 2nd, 2011
From 3:41 AM to 3:51 AM CST Mar 2nd our upstream connection was down due to planned maintenance.

Feb 13th, 2011
From 6:00 AM to 6:42 AM CST Feb 13th our web server mercy underwent a maintenance upgrade. No administrative or data changes were made, the hardware was swapped out for a faster machine. The system time went smoothly and we were back in prodution by 6:45 AM CST.


Maintenance Announcement:

on 2/13/2010 from 6:00 AM CST to 9:00 AM CST the web server mercy.icompute.com will be brought down to undergo maintenance. Downtime for mercy should be limited to about 30 minutes. No email or other data should be lost.

Please let us know if this downtime, is of concern. Thank you for your patience as we upgrade and improve our service.


Maintenance Announcement:

on 1/19/2011 from 11:00 PM CST to 6:00 AM CST and again on 1/20/2011 from 11:00 PM CST to 6:00 AM CST our upstream connectivity will be undergoing emergency maintenance, and may experience poor performance or be unavailable. If unavailable, all iCompute services will be likewise unavailable. We expect that our connectivity will be briefly and repeatedly interrupted during these periods, but do not expect to be down for the entire maintenance window. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns.


Dec 19th, 2010
From 6:00 AM to 10:21 AM CST Dec 19th our web server mercy underwent a maintenance upgrade, and now is running NetBSD 5.0.2, and a collection of upgraded supporting software for email, web service, ssh, and other services. The upgrade mostly went smoothly, but close to 9 AM, problems were discovered with the hardware for mercy, which caused the maintenance time to be extended. Mercy was returned to full service at 10:21 AM CST, with all of the intended upgrades and changes. Unfortunately, it was returned to service running on "temporary" hardware that is somewhat slower than the "real" mercy. Another maintenance window will be required to put mercy up on the proper hardware, and move it back to its proper rack location. That maintenance window will be in January. We apologize for any inconvenience.


Maintenance Announcement:

on 12/19/2010 from 6:00 AM CST to 9:00 AM CST the web server mercy.icompute.com will be upgraded from NetBSD 2.1 to NetBSD 5.0.2. This upgrade will include upgrades to the Apache web server, and other installed software. The entire iCompute site will be off-line briefly at times during this period, and mercy will be unavailable for a greater portion of that time. No email or other data should be lost.

An email announcement of this downtime has been sent out to detail the changes and how you can help verify a smooth transition.

Please let us know if this downtime, or upgrade is of concern. Thank you for your patience as we upgrade and improve our service.


Nov 17th, 2010
At 1:09 AM CST Nov 17th our upstream connection went down due for planned maintenance. Service was restored by 3:20 AM CST. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this interruption in service.

Nov 10th, 2010
At 11:25 AM CST Nov 10th our upstream connection went down due to upstream connectivity issues. Service was restored by 11:42 AM CST.

Nov 1st, 2010
At 5:36 AM CDT Nov 1st the web server mercy encountered a kernel panic. The machine was restarted and back in service by 6:06 AM CDT.

Oct 15th, 2010
Our upstream connection was down from 1:08 AM CDT this morning until 1:35 AM CDT due to a planned maintenance event. All services were unavailable between these times. We apologize if there was any inconvenience.

Aug 18th, 2010
A failure of our upstream connection occurred at 11:02 PM CDT on August 18th. The outage lasted until 11:20 PM CDT. All services were unavailable between these times. This was a planned outage of service caused by maintenance activity being performed by our upstream provider. We apologize if there was any inconvenience.

Jul 17th, 2010
A failure of our upstream connection occurred at 1:03 AM CDT on July 17th. The outage lasted until 5:24 AM CDT. All services were unavailable between these times. It is possible that some email senders to iCompute.com hosted domains got "warning bounces", but the outage was less than the normal threshold for incoming mail to be rejected, so no "hard" bounces should have occurred. Outgoing mail was delayed, but not lost. (Traffic at this time of day is normally very light, so the practical impact should be very slight). We apologize for the interruption of service.

Jun 4th, 2010
A brief reboot of mercy was required to perform system maintenance on the web server. The reboot was at 3:19 PM CDT, and downtime was approximately 90 seconds.

May 11th, 2010
At 9:10 PM CDT May 11th the webmail software was upgraded from hastymail 2, rc4 to hastymail2 rc9. Please report trouble to tech support.

April 20th, 2010
At 3:39 PM CDT April 20th the web server mercy encountered a kernel panic. The machine was restarted and back in service by 4:20 PM CDT. We are investigating the cause(s) of this outage.

February 2nd, 2010
At approximately 12:40 AM CST Fefruary 2nd our upstream connection was restored to full service. We apologize for the interruption of service.

February 1st, 2010
At 8:40 PM CST our upstream connection to the internet started experiencing intermittent failures. These problems have become increasingly severe, and as of now, the upstream connection is effectively down, due to high packet loss. The vendor has been contacted, and has reported that there is a regional outage affecting the Minneapolis, St. Paul area. We are working with the vendor to restore service. I will re-post here when the issue has been resolved.

December 5th, 2009
At 10:32 PM CST the web server mercy encountered a kernel panic. The machine was restarted and back in service by 10:51 PM CST.

December 3rd, 2009
At 10:29 PM CST the web server mercy encountered a kernel panic. The machine was restarted and back in service by 10:47 PM CST.

November 18th, 2009
Our upstream connection failed at 11:15 PM CST due to planned maintenance activities at our upstream provider. Partial service was restored within a few minutes, but full access from the internet was not restored until an hour later at 12:20 AM CST. We apologize for the interruption of service.

November 15th, 2009
Administrative error caused the loss of some anti-spam data, and a brief interruption of service of the e-mail server at 7:50 PM CST. All services have been restored.

September 27th, 2009
System time this morning was taken without incident. Hope was down intermittently from 6:17 AM to 6:33 AM CDT. All services have been restored.

September 23rd, 2009
We will be taking system time on the morning of September 27th from 6 AM CDT to 9 AM CDT to update the mail server mailhost with recent security patches, and to change the configuration of the mail server to improve security. Downtime should be less than 30 minutes. A full maintenance window has been reserved to allow for other maintenance that may also be done in this period. Additional maintenance, if required, will be announced here prior to the 27th.

August 30th, 2009
System time this morning caused mail server downtime between 6:45 AM and 7:15 AM. The upgrades were successful and all services have been restored.

August 25th, 2009
This evening between 8:30 PM CDT to 9:15 PM CDT the upstream T1 connection was saturated beyond capacity, and response to all services was sluggish at best. The cause is undetermined.

August 24th, 2009
For those customers with Postini service, some changes have been made today to the default settings. First, virus-laden e-mails will no longer be delivered to quarantine, but will be bounced. Second, "unregistered" accounts (domains covered by Postini, but addresses not listed with Postini accounts) will now be scanned for viruses. Third, "blatant" spam will no longer be subject to "blackhole" treatment, but will be bounced (error 571 - message refused). This should strictly be an improvement for our users.

The user interface has also been changed to Postini's "new" interface. This is improved in a number of ways, and we hope you like it.

The security settings on Postini have also been changed. Passwords are now required to be at least 5 characters, and accounts are temporarily "locked" if 10 attempts are made to enter an incorrect password.

Please contact us if you have concerns.

August 23rd, 2009
We will be taking system time on the morning of August 30th from 6 AM CDT to 9 AM CDT to update the mail server mailhost with recent security patches. Downtime should be less than 5 minutes. A full maintenance window has been reserved to allow for other maintenance that may also be done in this period. Additional maintenance, if required, will be announced here prior to the 30th.

July 30th, 2009
The mail server settings will be modified the morning of August 2nd, 2009 at 8:00 AM CDT to disable options that expand e-mail headers. No downtime or interruption of service is expected. It is possible that this will cause problems for some users. If you notice unusual e-mail behavior starting on August 2nd after 8 AM CDT, please contact us.

July 27th, 2009
Our main webserver, mercy, crashed for unknown reasons at 7:43 AM CDT. We rebooted it, and all services were restored by 8:12 AM CDT.

April 29th, 2009
This evening from 11 PM CDT, until 4 AM CDT April 30th, our upstream connection will be undergoing maintenance by our upstream provider. The connection may be unavailable for short periods. We appreciate your patience as this maintenance is performed.

April 1st, 2009
Starting the evening of April 11th at 11 PM CDT, and extending to the morning of April 12th at 6 AM CDT, iCompute.com internet connectivity will be affected by upstream network maintenance operations. Connectivity is expected to be intermittent during this interval, but outages should be few and brief. Please contact us if this service interruption will pose a problem for you.


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Policies:

Any significant downtimes will be posted on this page.

If the downtime is unplanned, it will be posted here as soon as possible after the fact.

If the downtime is planned, it will be posted here at least one week in advance. Downtimes will be planned on Sunday morning between 6 and 8 AM whenver possible. Urgent, significant planned downtimes that cannot be scheduled a week in advance will still be posted here. If we deem it necessary, we will also send out e-mail to our customers with notification for the downtime as far in advance as possible.

-sysadmin


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