- Admin
- #1
Hello everyone!
We have another server host move coming up. I know, it does seem frequent, but I see no other choice at this moment. We have been trying our best to provide the MSC community with reliable servers while also keeping our costs down. Unfortunately, our current server host (Ubiquity Servers) seems to have way too much issues with their network lately. I know they're not a high availability data center such as Peer1/ServerBeach (our really old hosts), or Colocrossing; but there's a point when the cheaper costs are not worth it. As of this moment, our monthly availability for the Chicago servers has fallen below 99.8% (we consider any situation with packet loss >= 10% to be a complete loss of connectivity as it interferes with VoIP communications), and the monthly availability for the NYC servers have fallen below 99.9%. The Dallas server has also been affected by random lag spikes which gives it a reliability of 99.5%. Although these values seem like high reliability, 99.9% availability translates to approximately 45 minutes in a month during which the server had zero, or degraded internet connectivity.
Now in an effort to provide you with better reliability, RKS is moving all servers from Ubiquity Servers to various other datacenters. These data centers are much higher quality, and I actually have servers hosted there for other business purposes. They have a much higher reliability (for example, one server I have in the Chicago location is currently averaging 99.99999% reliability over the last 365 days, equating to just 2 seconds of downtime during the past 365 days). Hopefully this will eliminate loss of connectivity to FN that has happened numerous times I am sure, as well as being dropped out of a server all of a sudden when the server suddenly loses connectivity to the internet.
Not all servers are effected by this move. We are only moving servers in Ubiquity Servers data centers. So although FN and MSC will go down temporarily, the MSC website will stay up for the entire duration. The following are our plans for the server move.
Server Restructuring
Odyssey and Daedalus (Chicago Servers) will move to the Chicago SteadFast datacenter.
Prometheus (Dallas Server) will move to the ColoCrossing datacenter in Los Angeles.
Phoenix (NYC Server) will move to the ColoCrossing datacenter in Buffalo, NY (This server may be moved to NYC at a later date due to its proximity to Chicago).
Big News Maybe?
With the new budget plan for 2013-2014, RKS is going to have a EU server up again. This is a temporary budget authorization so I don't know how long we will keep it up for. Although this server won't be up with the restructuring, we expect it to be online within 1 month after finishing the restructuring. No datacenter has been chosen yet and evaluations are currently taking place.
Timeline
10/14 - Server move begins
10/15 - All MSC servers shut down.
10/17 - FN is moved during the late AM hours.
10/17 - Afternoon/evening - All MSC servers restored.
10/17 - All server move completed
Unavoidable Downtime
As usual, the DNS for FN is going to take sometime to update. The TTL on fn.rkszone.net is set to 30 minutes so most servers should autoswitch to the new FN server within 30 minutes after the switch.
Unfortunately, the MSC servers will have to go down starting on tuesday and not coming back online until thursday. This is due to the fact that we use TCAdmin to manage all our game servers and its licensing does not allow us to simultaneously activate both the old and new servers simultaneously. We will have to uninstall TCAdmin from all of our servers, file for a IP address reset, wait until it is approved, and then reinstall all services.
Apology
This part should really be at the top in big letters, but i thought you guys needed to know what I am apologizing first, hence it's all the way at the bottom.
I apologize for the disruption. Please bear with us while we try to improve our service. We appreciate all the support everyone has given the past few years.
We have another server host move coming up. I know, it does seem frequent, but I see no other choice at this moment. We have been trying our best to provide the MSC community with reliable servers while also keeping our costs down. Unfortunately, our current server host (Ubiquity Servers) seems to have way too much issues with their network lately. I know they're not a high availability data center such as Peer1/ServerBeach (our really old hosts), or Colocrossing; but there's a point when the cheaper costs are not worth it. As of this moment, our monthly availability for the Chicago servers has fallen below 99.8% (we consider any situation with packet loss >= 10% to be a complete loss of connectivity as it interferes with VoIP communications), and the monthly availability for the NYC servers have fallen below 99.9%. The Dallas server has also been affected by random lag spikes which gives it a reliability of 99.5%. Although these values seem like high reliability, 99.9% availability translates to approximately 45 minutes in a month during which the server had zero, or degraded internet connectivity.
Now in an effort to provide you with better reliability, RKS is moving all servers from Ubiquity Servers to various other datacenters. These data centers are much higher quality, and I actually have servers hosted there for other business purposes. They have a much higher reliability (for example, one server I have in the Chicago location is currently averaging 99.99999% reliability over the last 365 days, equating to just 2 seconds of downtime during the past 365 days). Hopefully this will eliminate loss of connectivity to FN that has happened numerous times I am sure, as well as being dropped out of a server all of a sudden when the server suddenly loses connectivity to the internet.
Not all servers are effected by this move. We are only moving servers in Ubiquity Servers data centers. So although FN and MSC will go down temporarily, the MSC website will stay up for the entire duration. The following are our plans for the server move.
Server Restructuring
Odyssey and Daedalus (Chicago Servers) will move to the Chicago SteadFast datacenter.
Prometheus (Dallas Server) will move to the ColoCrossing datacenter in Los Angeles.
Phoenix (NYC Server) will move to the ColoCrossing datacenter in Buffalo, NY (This server may be moved to NYC at a later date due to its proximity to Chicago).
Big News Maybe?
With the new budget plan for 2013-2014, RKS is going to have a EU server up again. This is a temporary budget authorization so I don't know how long we will keep it up for. Although this server won't be up with the restructuring, we expect it to be online within 1 month after finishing the restructuring. No datacenter has been chosen yet and evaluations are currently taking place.
Timeline
10/14 - Server move begins
10/15 - All MSC servers shut down.
10/17 - FN is moved during the late AM hours.
10/17 - Afternoon/evening - All MSC servers restored.
10/17 - All server move completed
Unavoidable Downtime
As usual, the DNS for FN is going to take sometime to update. The TTL on fn.rkszone.net is set to 30 minutes so most servers should autoswitch to the new FN server within 30 minutes after the switch.
Unfortunately, the MSC servers will have to go down starting on tuesday and not coming back online until thursday. This is due to the fact that we use TCAdmin to manage all our game servers and its licensing does not allow us to simultaneously activate both the old and new servers simultaneously. We will have to uninstall TCAdmin from all of our servers, file for a IP address reset, wait until it is approved, and then reinstall all services.
Apology
This part should really be at the top in big letters, but i thought you guys needed to know what I am apologizing first, hence it's all the way at the bottom.
I apologize for the disruption. Please bear with us while we try to improve our service. We appreciate all the support everyone has given the past few years.