Fair Warning: This article is probably going to see a few revisions to it as it gets updated!

Due to some awesome shifts with JoomlaCode to get newer, more powerful servers (thanks again to Rochen). However as a part of this we're going to have some scheduled downtime for parts of JoomlaCode as we reconfigure the system into a new environment. I'm intending this post to be a sort of rolling update page as I work through all of the items and get the different bits and pieces finalised with Rochen.

As these are pretty significant changes, I'm hoping to keep the amount of disruption to a minimum. This is one of the first times I've personally tried to shift JoomlaCode as a whole beast so I'm hoping for the best and expecting some issues to fall out. I'm aiming to structure the moves in such a way that we're going to cause as little disruption, move in as small a chunk as possible and get everything tested.

The deadline for this project is the end of November, however I hope to be up and running at least a weekend before then. More updates as they come to light.

14th/15th Nov 2009 Downtime

We're planning some significant (8 hour chunk) down time for JoomlaCode over the coming weekend (Saturday 14th November Midnight GMT to 8am). This will impact on all web based services - downloads, SVN, trackers and project services. During this time we are hoping to migrate the database from its current environment into a new server. This is the first of a few moves to migrate services from the current hardware onto newer hardware.

During this process we'll be upgrading from PostgreSQL 8.3 to PostgreSQL 8.4 for the database backend of JoomlaCode. The last PostgreSQL upgrade, from PostgreSQL 7.4, brought JoomlaCode to a new level of stability. Recently we've been having issues with the stability of the database layer with JoomlaCode so we're hoping a PostgreSQL upgrade and some beefier hardware will help us chew through even more queries as we grow.

At this point in time there is no major maintenance planned for the Sunday however if there is an issue shifting the database server, I will be redoing this again on the Sunday. For testing purposes the system may appear to be online during the scheduled downtime and hopefully I will be able to restore service earlier.

21st/22nd Nov 2009 Downtime

This will be a 12 hour downtime period to transfer non-database data from the old server to our new environment (Saturday 21st November Midnight GMT to 12pm). This will impact on all services, including web services and mailing lists. During this time the non-database data will be shifted. This includes Subversion repositories, mailing list archives and file releases. During this switch, we will also be able to upgrade the version of SVN we provide for all projects. As the current version of SVN is quite dated, this is going to require an upgrade to the repository to provide the newer features. I'm hoping I'll be able to complete this over the weekend during the allocated downtime however it may take longer. This should not impact on the normal operation of Subversion however I'd suggest avoiding any Subversion commits for the duration of the weekend should the repository upgrades take longer. Repositories will be converted in alphabetically one after the other.

As with the previous downtime, should any work on the Saturday fall through the down time will be again attempted the following day. All going well we should be up and running on new hardware on the Saturday.

Again, I'd like to reiterate the thanks to Rochen for helping to make this happen. Without the great, professional services provided by Rochen, the web infrastructure for Joomla! would not be the same.