ColdFusion

We are planning on creating a new group of servers for ColdFusion only. In doing so, we will be removing ColdFusion off the current windows servers.

The reasons for this:

1) Saves money on licensing CFMX for each server. This will help keep plan costs down.

2) Will remove the load that ColdFusion places on the NT servers. This will help stabilize them for ASP/ASPNET applications.

We do not feel that there are enough Coldfusion sites on a single server to merit each server having its own license and taking those resources away from other web apps. There is no need for CF to run on a server that has 4 CF Sites.


The transitition will take place as follows:

1) We will create a new "Plan Wizard". This will be a "Cold Fusion Plan Wizard." It will be similar to the current "Windows Plan Wizard", except it will not offer .NET and will offer CF (CF will be removed from the Windows Plan Wizard).

2) Resellers who offer CF hosting or have sites using CF will need to create a plan using the new CF Plan Wizard.

3) Resellers or customers with sites currently using CF will need to create a new account for the sites running CF apps. Since the domain will already exist in Hsphere, you can either remove the domain from the old account first, or create the account without a domain. Once an account is setup, you can either move the content yourself or request that we move the content for you. We will also provide special mail routing if you request it so that mail is not lost if the mail server for the domain changes.

THIS IS NOT DONE YET. We still need to create the plan wizard and get the new CF server. We are looking for feedback on this plan.

In addition to your thoughts for the above, please let us know (if you use CF) if you use PHP, ASP, Perl, etc. along with your CF sites. We are trying to dedicate the CF machines to running CF only, so we do not want to install unneeded applications. If people aren't using combinations of ASP/CF/PHP, etc, then there is no reason to offer ASP/PHP with the CF.

[Wonderer]

Will you be adjusting the cost of CF sites with this change? I would expect that if your going to split them off to save money, part of those savings would be passed along to us? As to the asp/cf sites i would like to maintain this option if requested. Perhaps leave the current plans as is and add the dedicated servers without the extra $10 a shot.

Wonderer, we are getting rid of CF on all the windows servers, kind of the point in moving the stuff off along with the load stuff..

As for the cost it might be reviewed once we get everything moved over to the new servers for just CF. I think this will help a lot with loads and up.

[ramjet]

Is this version MX?

Yes.

[Two Roads Media]

Just my .02 here. As a Cold Fusion developer, this will be an absolute nightmare for us. We have eight clients currently with CF. Some of them have many emails to be set up, large databases and a TON of site information to be moved.

This would very likely take us several days barring problems that could occur, which I have to believe would at some point.

I'm sure you have good reasons for this and I'm sure it will help the servers, but moving is going to be really time consuming and difficult for us.

And, just to ask, what happens if the service domain is CF???

[Clutch]

"Nightmare" is in fact the correct word.

Let me preface this by saying I have been, for the most part, nothing but happy with Vortech and HSphere has been a tremendous tool. However, one thing that it is absolutely terrible at is transitioning a site and its information. Having to delete it then re-create it (or creating a new site without a domain, re-create all emails, databases, settings, then delete the old one and then add the domain later) is frustrating and time consuming.

I know - when I first did my reseller account I made the mistake of messing up my service domain setting, so I had to start over.

That was my fault. This, however, is not.

There is no way we should be expected to re-create all of our sites (including the service domain), DNS settings, emails and databases. Altogether I'm responsible for 12 sites using ColdFusion. I'm all for helping performance, but this is a work load being dropped on us.

Same process if its the service domain or another domain... You only have to move the end-user account... You dont have to delete server aliases or the E.Manager zones... Just make sure you select "Service Domain" when you configure the CF plan, and then you can add your Service Domain to the new account...

In the initial post I stated WE would move web content, database content, and we will setup redirects for mail so that its routed to the mail server they are on if their mail server changes. You just need to setup the account and send in a request for content move. You can do it yourself, and you will probably have to adjust any DSN's to point to new databases, but hopefully your script is wise enough that you only have to do so in one place... 8 sites isn't much You're probably one of the "bigger" CF hosters... So unless you want us to raise the cost of CF so that we can afford it on all the machines...

[Two Roads Media]

When you say you will move the account info and data, what about all of the emails? I have two clients who utilize a TON of emails, forwards and aliases.

It could mean literally hours and hours of work recreating all of those.

Also, what about SSL I have set up on a particular site? This was based on a key created from a site on a dedicated IP.

And, yes, we do use PHP on several sites with the CF.

[Two Roads Media]

One additional question...

What about site data that is being updated during the transition? For example, if records are being added to either database during the propogation from one server to the other, how do we deal with differing databases?

[bootNumlock]

what if we have cold fusion enabled on plans/accounts, but not utilizing--what do we do then?

After examining your accounts I do not think it would take "hours" to recreate those mailboxes. Only two of your accounts had a significant number of mail resources, and its still not "TONS".

SSL is tied to a private key/certificate pair. You dont purchase SSL based on an IP address, you just need a dedicated IP to run SSL. As long as you have the key and the cert you are fine; even if you dont have that info (which you should...) its still possible to export the information from old machine to new machine.

As for your additional question, the site will only be live on one server. If you want to move the site first, then the database, or the database first, then the site, its up to you. Its not possible in Hsphere to have the same domain running on multiple servers. Unfortunly this means there will be a slight downtime for a few hours while the new IP propagates. We are here 24 hours so this downtime could occur at 1 or 2am and you could tell your customers its scheduled maintainence (which it will be since we are announcing it now...)

[Two Roads Media]

Originally posted by Bladesnitz
After examining your accounts I do not think it would take "hours" to recreate those mailboxes. Only two of your accounts had a significant number of mail resources, and its still not "TONS".

With all due respect, it is not yours to determine how long it will take. I had to recreate the emails for one of those sites and, thanks to a very slow HSphere, it took me nearly 2. That's just in addition to all of the other settings for each server that have to be made. You may have enough staff to spread out the workload over several people. We don't.

All of that notwithstanding, this isn't being done for our convenience. It is being done for yours. If you chose to raise rates due to exorbitant server costs, that is up to you and we can decide from there.

Since we are the one's actually paying for the service, the burden is upon you to make sure any changes not resulting from our negligence or errors on our side are done quickly and correctly. It is not our responsibility to fix problems that we did not create.

I appreciate your explanation of the issues at hand and I understand the need for you to make these changes. However, I also have a business to run and the whole reason we pay for hosting is so that we don't have to deal with issues such as these.

It should not be incumbent upon us to make these changes. If the sites are down for planned maintenance, fine. That is not unreasonable. But, we shouldn't have to be responsible for maintenance to your servers.

Two Roads Media, Let me start of by saying I understand moving the site from one server to anther "might" seem to be a pain. But I think your over reacting just a little.

Put this way, 26 servers right now, to upgrade CF around $700 per server x 26 = $18,200 plus about $1,200 per new server or we have the option of about $2,000 for 2 servers for all the sites running CF.

What does this mean besides us saving over $18,000 to put back in to new servers and other things to improve other things. It means your CF will not goup in price but most likley down from $10 per domain to maybe $5 or less per domain.

You also may not have to even do any thing for moving your CF accounts besides letting us know what domains you need moved. There is now a tool in H-Sphere that does let us move just the "site" from server to server. Not having to DELTE any thing. We have not tested it just yet as most of this is still the works but from what we have seen it does work and allbugs have been worked out.

That would also mean you would not have to do anything more then send an email to use and change the plan your site is hosted under to one that was created by the CF plan wizard.

We want to make this as simple as can for everyone here. This will improve service for sites with and with out CF for 2 reasons. The servers will have about 50 to 100 MB less of memory being used by CF plus CPU power.

It was not till a few days ago we found out this could even be done with in H-Sphere or we would of done it a long time ago before we spent all this money on CF 5.0.


In all from what I have found there is about 100 to maybe 200 sites max on all 26 servers even running CF. This means those sites are going to be on a server all by them self. If you want better up time thats one way to get it for sure..

[Brangwyn]

If only Psoft would get account moves on windows servers working life would be soo much easier

Just a thought too, will there be anything preventing people putting "non-CF" sites onto these servers ? be a shame if everyone moved to these servers thinking they will be less loaded only to have it get loaded by the people shifting their non-CF accounts there too.