We are writing to inform you that we intend to retire server 9 this week and hopefully as you read on the reasons will become clear. Whilst server 9 has been very reliable and very stable over the years the software is at end of life and has been for well over 6 months now.
Server 9 is running Linux CentOS 4.9
Server 9 is running a 32 bit operating system
CentOS 4.9 is very much at end of life as it stopped receiving any updates in February 2012. Therefore it is prudent we retire this server and move the sites to a new server with up to date software. Moving to CentOS 6 really future proofs the server as CentOS are promising updates to this release until November 30, 2020.
We have deployed a new server running CentOS 6.3 and running on 64 bit. The server uses the new Intel Sandy Bridge Architecture and we are confident when we do the final switchover you will be very happy with performance.
We have already migrated all accounts to this new server. The final step is to do a final sync of the home folders, mail folders and mysql databases. When we do that we will be changing the Name Server Ips to point to the new server.
Any sites using A Records we will work with you on an individual basis to get some changes made and you should wait for us to contact you later this week.
It is planned to do the name server switch over on Monday 24 September 2012 at 5pm. All affected clients have already been emailed and will continue to receive appropriate email updates.
