I am heading home today, and will return home late tonight to begin the second FeedLounge migration. Seems that we just did this last week, but it was actually almost 2 months ago. Wow.
The first migration was such a smashing success that we are going to be leaving the poor old alpha server melting down in a small pool of its own solder, and moving on to our own rack in a colo closer to home. Busy holiday weekend for the FeedLounge crew.
After stopping the server tonight, it goes down for one final backup, rsyncing that over to the new server. We will also be adding the DNS changes, so that the new servers are ready to go once we finish the install.
Then it is off to the colo in the morning, with a small truckload of hardware. Cabling and installation (don’t forget the cable ties) should take about 4-6 hours, and then we can stop and have a snack (dinner?).
After all the connectivity is sorted out, then it will be a sit down root-fest, making sure all the configuration is correct, nagios is all set up, etc.
Then for the test run. Start up the daemon to start working the queue, trying to catch up on the feed backlog (making sure to time it to get a feel for the new hardware).
Need to remember to take as many pictures as necessary to document the adventure, so I can share with everyone the joy that is a colo move.
Previous experience (moving the apache.org colo) tells me estimates are an impossibility to get right. One thing I did learn though: a smaller crew, or at least small crews focused on single tasks, get the job done faster than a big crew (too much concensus decision making).
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