NT26 & NT27 Win2k3 VOTE NOW!

[admin]

Ok we have been working on NT26 and NT27 day in and day out as most of you know trying to get all these new bugs we keep finding out of it.. I thought we would be able to get them all out but its not looking very sunny over here.. Every time we get 1 or 2 new bugs kicked in the butt here comes 2 more.

So my poll is for this..

1. Keep kick MS's butt and stay on win2k3 for NT26 and NT27 and deal with the 2 to 5 min downtime it may cause here and there.

2. Put in 2 new servers with win2k and move every thing over to them and just forget win2k3 for the time being and keep going with what works best.

Here are the 3 topics with more info on whats been going on just in cause your not up to date on the 2 servers:

http://www.matrixreseller.com/forum/...4&page=1&pp=15
http://www.matrixreseller.com/forum/...&threadid=6240
http://www.matrixreseller.com/forum/...highlight=NT27

[newmem]

well....even though I don't think there's any need of this poll.....I have placed my vote here bcos I want the good old days of reliabilty back

oops...I hope I didn't unknowingly influence the vote of any other person....

hint: how much is 1000 + 1000?

[bigdave]

Well, I think I know the way this vote will go, now the question is before everyone votes is when to do this MASSIVE move. Brad says it takes about 7 hours (give or take) a machine to move them in hsphere? Since everyone HAS their #1 customer on NT26 and NT27 when collectively would be a good time to do this? Also, I mean how many more bugs could a new windows product have?

[newmem]

We already have 2 votes for Win2003?? I don't believe this. Now I am worried.......that's y I was against this voting

Wait.....I will post my concerns if and when 2003 wins.

Hint for new voters: 2003 is full of unknown incompatibilities and bugs. Your clients' visitors/members will keep getting time-outs every 1 or 2 hours and they won't be satisfied with the hosting.

Before moving to 2003 we should know what is going to come and we need to test a live site extensively on it. I do not want to be the guinea pig

[Alessandro]

You tech guys have all my solidarity for dealing with new MS products, but I believe that in such cases reliability must be the first choice.
No comment about the bad habit of abusing end users as beta testers on commercial products.

[Brangwyn]

Hint for new voters: 2003 is full of unknown incompatibilities and bugs.

I don't think that statements all that valid newmem, realistically moving to 2003 is no different than applying the latest service pack on W2K, theres a certain act of faith that things have been tested by the beta testers and it will be relatively stable. NT26 itself was actually quite stable for some time, I do personally believe no-ones yet actually really found whats causing the problem, I suspect it wasnt just ODBC/Jet (though that would appear to have been a contributing factor) but something else additional (like CDONTS being put back on, isn't that about when the problems started Brad?), or something else yet that no-ones yet thought of.

[Silverbug]

Brad can you post the pros and conns of moving in your first thread, this way new voters will know exactly what were in for if we do shift

[somereseller]

Win2k won't run coldfusion MX if I'm not mistaken. A no go for me.

[nabsUK]

I was under the impression we could have CFMX running on the new win2k boxes. If not, I'm for sticking with 2003 as they are, and slowly iron out the issues.

(ps. i voted for win2k)

[admin]

CF MX will run on Win2k now, we have it running on NT28 already and seems to be working well. Only difference in Win2K and Win2k3 is more on our side then the end user side. From MS we were under the imperession that win2k3 was more stable then win2k. I guess they were very wrong..

I could care less if its win2k or win2k3, my main reason for wanting to go ahead with win2k3 was secrity as it was improved in win2k3 but that does not help at all if the OS dies every day..

My next qustion would how much notice do you guys need for this move?? I can do it as soon as tomorrow. I do NT26 and then NT27. The 7 hour thing may no apply to this move like it did with some older systems because the hshome dir is on the D drive and we can just take it out of NT26 and NT27 and move it in to the new system. So the only part we have to wait on is H-Sphere to setup the sites in IIS. That still takes a long time but should be a little fast as we don't have to try and move a few Gig's of data.

[tkraffty]

For all my griping about nt26 and nt27 - I'm still stuck in a "6 of one, a half dozen of another" situation with this question...

My customers on those two boxes have a LOT of configuration and set-up time already invested in this - including e-mail, databases, A/MX records, domain aliases, redirects and custom error-pages. Moving (back) to W2000 boxes would piss them off, force them set-up their accounts all over again, and would cause some downtime while the DNS switch propogates - yes? Staying on the new W2003 boxes wouldn't require any switch or reconfiguration, but then there's the on-going outages issues...

I would vote for the roll-back if there was any way we might preserve the existing account settings... But I'd much rather keep my accounts right where they are - but ONLY if we knew that these 2003 issues were going to be resolved. Right now, it seems like those two machines are being held together with chewing gum, bandaids and string... and I'm growing weary of seeing the red color next to those machines on the server-status page

*** Oh, and also - If the existing files would be moved to the new (old) machines for us, I would just need a couple/few days notice to let the customers know the switch is coming, and that they need to start copying file/account settings.

Help us Obi Wan... You're our only hope

[admin]

When we go back the win2k the CP resets up every thing in you setup in the CP so it should be just the same as before.. It would not mess with mail or any databases at all.

[jmbeach]

Originally Posted by admin

So the only part we have to wait on is H-Sphere to setup the sites in IIS. That still takes a long time but should be a little fast as we don't have to try and move a few Gig's of data.

Brad, just an idea, but would it help you (and HSphere) if you cut outside access to HSphere while you did these changes? Would it make for a faster setup of IIS by HSphere if there weren't hundreds of us using the CP while you were doing this?

If you think it would, I would be all for pulling CP access while you migrated everything.

[tkraffty]

OK... It *sounds* like there's only minimal re-configuring required on our (or our customers') part, if any - which only leaves me worried about being able to give them adequate advance warning of the switch, since it appears their sites could be offline for a good part of a day.

[jmbeach]

Originally Posted by tkraffty

which only leaves me worried about being able to give them adequate advance warning of the switch, since it appears their sites could be offline for a good part of a day.

That's why Brad is asking for a timeline that we collectively think would be good in which to make this change, if and when it does happen.

I would say 48-72 hours notice would be sufficient... but that's just my opinion.