There will be emergency network maintenance on FCR01 which our Neptune server is on. This window is on Monday November 30th starting at 1:00am EST and lasting until 2:00am EST. Although the window is for 1 hour we estimate that there will only be a down time of 15-20 minutes. This maintenance is necessary to correct an issue that could cause network interruptions that would not be scheduled.

Details

The following details were provided by SoftLayer,

The following notification is to inform you of an EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE event on the SoftLayer Technologies IP Network. Due to the severity, the time frame between this notice and the maintenance window has been shortened.

Start Time: 01:00 EST (06:00 UTC)
End Time: 02:00 EST (07:00 UTC)

Summary:
SoftLayer Technologies in conjunction with Cisco Systems have identified a service impacting bug in the current IOS version running on this router. A vendor recommended upgrade has been provided as a resolution and needs to be implemented immediately.

Original Issue Reference:
With the introduction of 4-byte ASNs (Autonomous System Numbers), a newly devised method of injecting a specifically crafted prefix into the global route table allows for the BGP process to be reset on older IOS code.

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/707…0729-bgp.shtml
https://forums.softlayer.com/showthread.php?t=4585

Customer Impact:
During this maintenance, customers will notice a complete loss of connectivity to their servers on the frontend network (public network). Backend network (private network) connectivity will NOT be impacted during this maintenance. While the upgrade duration is scheduled for 1 hour, we only expect between 15-20 minutes of downtime as the routers reload and fully converge. Again, this will NOT impact the backend network (private network) for customer servers.

Emergency Data Center Maintenance – FCR01.WDC01 [11/30/2009]
Date: Monday, November 30, 2009 (11/30/2009)
Start time (EST): 01:00
End time (EST): 02:00
Services affected: Public Network
Location: WDC01
Duration: 1 hour

Topics : Maintenance Network Upgrades

We will be migrating the accounts on the Neptune server starting on Friday November 27th and this will last until Tuesday December 1st. The reason for this upgrade is our continued commitment to having exceptional quality of service.

For the migration process we will be moving accounts in sections based on IP address. We anticipate no more than 5 minutes of down time per account in order to make the switch. We migrate the account data then re-route the IP address to the new server. Thus there is no down time associated with the upgrade.

The specifications of the server will be a Dual Xeon 5520 with 12GB ram and four 300GB SAS drives in raid-10.

Current Neptune:
Xeon 5430
4GB RAM
4×250GB SATA II Raid-10

New Neptune:
Dual Xeon 5520
12GB RAM
4×300GB SAS Raid-10

You’ll notice three times as much memory and SAS drives which are significantly faster than the SATA counterparts. It’ll also have twice as many CPU’s and will be using the newer 5520 CPU.

If you have any concerns about this migration please do not hesitate to contact us.

Start Date: 11/27/2009
End Date: 12/01/2009
Estimated Down Time: less than 5 minutes
Duration: 4 days

Topics : Maintenance Network Upgrades