Archive for the 'Planned Work' Category

cPanel PHP Version Upgrade – 15/05/2012

Published on May 15, 2012 in Planned Work and Shared Hosting. Closed

Update 18:27 15/05/2012

Dear Customers,

All servers have now been upgraded. This concludes this maintenance window.

Kind Regards,
NOC.

Original Message:

Dear Customers,

We will be upgrading PHP from version 5.3.8 to 5.3.10 today after 17:00 GMT. We do not expect any adverse affects as this is a minor upgrade, however we would say all cPanel servers are “at risk” during the hours outlined below.

Why?

PHP 5.3.8 is now end of life and an upgrade is required to keep up with the latest security patches.

When?

Start: Tuesday 15/05/2012 – 17:00 GMT
End: Tuesday 15/05/2012 – 20:00 GMT

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact support.

Kind Regards,
Network Operations Centre.

*Scheduled* Maidenhead to Global Switch Fibre Maintenance

Published on May 3, 2012 in Planned Work and Transit. Closed

Dear Customer,

You are receiving this email as notification of the following maintenance work that will be carried in BlueSquare Maidenhead – please note this is “Service Affecting” maintenance. This work will be carried out on Friday 4th May 2012 19:00 – 00:00 GMT.

What?

Our fibre provider who we use to connect our Maidenhead site to Global Switch London 2 will be performing essential maintenance to their network to increase capacity. They will be upgrading their core switches in this site, and also adding a new 10 Gbe connection between BlueSquare 1 and 3. During the insertion of the new switch and 10Gb links, customers will see traffic drop as layer 2 and layer 3 re-converges. There will also be some packet loss experienced when Vlans are migrated to the new 10Gb infrastructure.

Why?
Certain customers within Bluesquare Maidenhead have been experiencing latency issues due to bottlenecks on the fibre network. As traffic flows have increased the latency issues and packet loss during peak times have reached unacceptable levels and need to be addressed as a priority. We wish restore the confidence with our customers in the fibre network and would ask that you bear with us whilst we implement this upgraded infrastructure.

When?

Start Date and Time: 19:00 05/05/2012
End Date and Time: 00:00 06/05/2012

If you have any questions please contact the NOC.

Kind Regards,
Network Operations Centre.

*Scheduled* – Maidenhead Generator Maintenance.

Published on April 24, 2012 in Planned Work. Closed

Dear Customer,

We have been informed by BlueSquare/Pulsant that they will be performing remedial generator maintenance on 01/05/2012 and 02/05/2012

What?

As part of our ongoing remedial works Pulsant will be changing and improving the bund alarms on the installed generators, and taking the opportunity to replace fan and alternator belts with new at the same time.

Why?

As part of our ongoing planned and preventative maintenance regime, and our commitment to environmental best practice, we carry out this work to ensure that the service offered to our clients is the best possible.

This work forms part of this regime.

When?

The work will take place over 2 evenings, to ensure that only one generator is being worked on, and returned to service at any one time.

The first engine will be worked on on Tuesday 1st May at 21:00 and is scheduled to last for 4 hours.

The second engine will be worked on on Wednesday 2nd May at 21:00 and is scheduled to last for 4 hours.

If you have any questions please get in touch through the usual channels.

Kind Regards,
Network Operations Centre

*Scheduled* – At Risk – Milton Keynes, Maidenhead Fibre Work

Published on March 9, 2012 in Emergency Work, Planned Work and Transit. Closed

Dear Customer,

We have a planned maintenance window starting Friday 9th March 22:00 GMT.

What?
Our fibre provide will be carrying out short notice maintenance in order to investigate & fix a deterioration of service in one of our ODF trays located in the Telecity HEX datacentre. This will affect our fibre links between Maidenhead – HEX and Milton Keynes – HEX.

The maintenance will take place over two evenings, your services should be considered at risk during this period.

Services At Risk:

BlueSquare Milton Keynes – All Services
BlueSquare Maidenhead – All Services

Investigations are required to confirm the fault, a fix will then be put in place the following evening.

When?
The maintenance will take place at the following times:

Start: 09/03/2012  22:00 GMT
End: 10/03/2012 04:00 GMT
Start: 10/03/2012 22:00 GMT
End: 11/03/2012 04:00 GMT

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, please feel free to contact support through the usual channels if you have any questions.

*Scheduled* Client Portal Maintenance Tonight

Published on February 14, 2012 in Client Portal and Planned Work. Closed

Dear Customer,

We have a planned maintenance window starting 14/02/2012 – 17:00 GMT

What?
EX Networks will be performing upgrade works on our Client Portal and Ticketing system. During the maintenance window customers may experience sporadic outages of http://noc.exn.org.uk/. Our support email support@exn.org.uk will remain active and monitored.

Why?
This maintenance is essential to stay up to date with the latest patches of our software we use to power the Client Portal. With this upgrade we will also be rolling out some new features.

When?
Start: 14/02/2012 17:00 GMT
End: 15/02/2012 05:00 GMT

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, please feel free to contact support through the usual channels if you have any questions.

Kind Regards,
EXN NOC

*Completed* 28/12/2011- Global Switch London 2 Router Maintenance

Published on December 28, 2011 in Completed, Planned Work and Transit. Closed

Dear Customer,

We have a planned maintenance window starting 28/12/2011 -23:00 GMT

What?
EX Networks will be performing upgrade works on our core equipment in Global Switch 2. This will affect a number of services including all colocation clients on the 7th and 9th floors. During this time, both edge routers will be upgraded and circuits will be rerouted. Customers may notice an outage of up to 10 minutes during this time. This maintenance will be carried out by on-site EX Networks engineers as well as engineers from our upstream providers.

Why?
This maintenance is essential to increasing our capacity at Global Switch 2 and is in line with our upgrade roadmap for 2012.

When?
Start: 28/12/2011 23:00 GMT
End: 28/12/2011 23:59 GMT

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, please feel free to contact support through the usual channels if you have any questions.

Kind Regards,
EXN NOC

Update 23:31 – Engineers have started the above work.

Update 00:02 – All works have now been completed. We will continue to monitor the routers throughout the night. If customers are experiencing any issues please contact support.

*Completed* 27/12/2011 – cPanel PHP 5.3 Upgrade

Published on December 4, 2011 in Completed, Planned Work and Shared Hosting. Closed

Dear Customer,

We have a planned maintenance window starting 27/12/2011 21:00 GMT.

What?
We will be upgrading ALL cPanel servers from PHP 5.2.17 to PHP 5.3.8.

Why?
PHP 5.2.x is now EOL. This upgrade is a major one, there are several depreciated functions in 5.3, we recommend all our clients upgrade their scripts to handle PHP5.3. For information on the changes in 5.3, please see this page: http://php.net/manual/en/migration53.php

When?
Start: 27/12/2011 21:00 UTC
End: 27/12/2011 21:30 UTC

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, please feel free to contact support through the usual channels if you have any questions.

Kind Regards,
EXN NOC

*Completed* – At Risk – Loss of redundancy on Maidenhead – London link

Published on November 30, 2011 in Completed, Planned Work and Transit. Closed

What?
We have been informed by our fibre provider that they will be performing maintenance work in the window below on one of our fibre from Telecity HEX 8/9 to Maidenhead. During this time our Maidenhead site will be ‘at risk’

Why?
Our fibre provider requires to complete cable re-splicing in order to divert fibre around a major National Rail project

When?
Start: 10/12/2011 22:00 UTC
End: 11/12/2011 09:00 UTC

Update 14:62 11/12/2011

The planned maintenance on the fibre between Telecity HEX 8/9 to Maidenhead has been completed and given an all clear. This is an update to say that the at risk period is now over.