IMPORTANT: Datacenter Move

Hi everyone.

Since 2003, TNTPowerHost's servers have been located in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the last year or so, the level of service from our current datacenter has gone way downhill. There have been several issues within the last few months that have caused downtime that could have been avoided or fixed so much faster had the datacenter done their job properly.

These problems include numerous hard drive failures that took way too long to fix (in some cases, over 24 hours of downtime while waiting for them to get everything setup so we can restore accounts), network problems on their end that keep arising with very vague explanations or assurances of them fixing the problem, as well as changes in their staff's attitudes and willingness to do things right the first time. The quality of their network has also decreased since we chose them. They have removed different providers and added in a lesser quality budget provider despite promising never to do so. Upon them adding that budget provider, they also promised that no traffic from the premium ("Gold") network (which we are on) would be routed out on that provider. After experiencing performance problems, we did some simple tests which prove they are indeed routing traffic from premium paying customers out on the budget network with sub-optimal performance. Despite explaining this to them several times, providing all the proof, and asking them to change the network routing for us so there are no problems, they denied it happening and refused to modify the routing to only send our traffic on the "Gold" network that we pay for.

Since we want to provide only the best to you, these kind of continued problems, rude attitudes, and unwillingness to give us what we are paying for is unacceptable. That's why we are moving.

We have thoroughly researched datacenters all over America, and have decided to make our new home Chicago, Illinois! Chicago is a great location due to the mass amounts of fiber and connectivity in the city. More long-haul fiber goes through Chicago than any other city in the USA, so this gives great routing and latency to all parts of the world. The new datacenter has redundant connections from six different quality network providers (Level3, SAVVIS, PCCW Global, Telia, AT&T, nLayer, and local peering), and an overall capacity of over 10 gigabits per second. They also have fully conditioned AC power, UPS battery backup for 3 hours, and a diesel generator to provide power during longer outages.

Last month, we moved another server to the new datacenter in Chicago and so far everything has been excellent. The whole staff is very friendly and has done everything right and exactly as instructed the first time. There has also been no downtime, alarms, or lag spikes like the current network experiences.

This all sounds great! When do we get it?!

Very soon

. We have been working very hard over the last few weeks in preparation for this move, and we will be fully out of the current datacenter by September 20, 2006. We apologize about the short notice, but we are still determining the best night to move accounts over. We want to double check and make sure everything is working on the new server before moving accounts over. Since the majority of customers are based in the USA, we will be moving accounts over in the middle of the night USA time unless other arrangements have been made. If you need your account moved at another time during the day, please email mark [at] tntpowerhost [DOT] com and I will get it done at your convenience.

I will update this thread as soon as I know the night of the move, and will be sure to do so at least 24 hours before anything is done. Right now it's looking to be early morning Tuesday (after 1:00 AM Eastern). We are taking the proper steps before hand to minimize downtime, and downtime should be less than 15 minutes. If you have a dedicated IP address with us, you will get a new IP.

Also, with the move will come some changes in our existing package features, as well as new packages being introduced. Existing customers are locked in with their current packages and features unless they want to change, so any changes will be for new customers only. In addition, we will be upgrading our hardware to plan for future growth.

We hope everyone will enjoy the new datacenter and the new confidence for stability and performance. We are very excited about the move, and have no doubt that the new datacenter will allow us to provide better uptime and performance than we currently are able to.

Thanks to everyone for their continued business and understanding!

If you have any questions about this, please reply to the thread or email me personally at: mark [at] tntpowerhost [DOT] com.

-Mark

UPDATE: The move will start on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 after 1:00 AM Eastern time. Most accounts should be moved over very quickly with little or no downtime.

UPDATE (09-20-06 5:09:35): Still working on things this morning. We are doing things more manually than expected, so they are taking a bit longer...however doing them manually ensures no problems caused by automated systems making mistakes. So far most sites have been moved with no downtime at all. For a few sites that we know have rapidly changing info like constant emails, e-commerce sites, etc, we have shut the sites down while moving the data over so everything is in sync. Average downtime on those sites are less than 10 minutes.

UPDATE (09-20-06 06:40:48): Just a quick note for those who manage their own DNS... the new shared IP will be 208.100.3.23.

UPDATE (09-20-06 13:07:47) Most accounts are now moved over with the exception of a couple that require special attention. The main tntpowerhost.com domain has been moved, and you are accessing us on the new server now. Going to finish a couple of things up and start nameserver IP updates very shortly.