July 2008 Newsletter

Dear Customer,

July brings exciting news here at Sargasso, as we are performing significant upgrades to our network this month. This includes a complete hardware refresh, relocation to a new data center with an increase in our power and bandwidth capacity, and improvements in network infrastructure and resilience.

We are intending to do this with the absolute minimum of disruption to your business, so there will be a period of parallel running, and most customers will not experience any downtime at all, but please read on to see how it may affect you. We'll be keeping you informed throughout the process by e-mail.

I'm also pleased to announce a new expanded range of services which you can read about below and on our website.

New Services

We're pleased to be able to offer a new option for dedicated server customers: HP blade servers. These plug-and-play servers save space, are incredibly powerful and hot-swappable, and the management features are unparalleled. IP KVM facilities enable you full remote access to your server, right down to the installation of the OS. Full details are on our website: http://www.sargasso.net/servers/blades.jsp

We are also now offering a Hosted Storage solution, where you can rent space on our storage arrays using the lightning-fast iSCSI protocol on your existing Gigabit Ethernet port. Avoiding the need to upgrade server disks, overprovision or buy expensive drive arrays, this on-demand service lets you scale your storage from 500GB to 7.5TB and beyond as your needs grow, keeping your costs in line with your growth. To read more see our website: http://www.sargasso.net/servers/storage.jsp

We're also launching Virtual Private Servers for customers would like the flexibility and power of a dedicated server but without the demands for a full dedicated server. The efficient VMware virtualisation technology securely partitions a server giving you full administrative access. Details are here: http://www.sargasso.net/servers/virtualservers.jsp

Finally we can now offer our complete range of services in our new state-of-the-art data center in the UK. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your options including geographical diversity, replication, on-line/off-site backups and disaster recovery plans.

New Control Panel

The new Sargasso control panel is currently in testing and scheduled to go live on the new network in August. The initial release consists of DNS and Domain Name management, allowing you to quickly modify DNS or WHOIS records via our website. Blade customers can also access their server KVM over the Internet, allowing full remote management, and both dedicated server and colocation customers can control their power outlets to perform remote reboots on-demand.

Many more features are planned and their implementation will be scheduled according to demand - so let us know if there are any features YOU would like to see. I will be writing further about these new developments in August, at which point you will also receive your control panel login by e-mail.

Network Upgrade and Migration

Our new data center at 60 Hudson Street, New York is going live on July 21st. This new location massively upgrades our space and power capacity, enabling us to deliver state-of-the-art services with our trademark reliability. For the period of July 21st - 31st, both old and new data centers will be running in parallel and all customer websites and hosting will be migrated seamlessly to the new network. Dedicated and colocated servers will also be relocated during night-time maintenance windows that we will communicate to you in advance.

How does this affect you?

First, all IP addresses will be changed during the move. All 198.77.x.x addresses will be removed and the new site will exist solely on the 78.158.x.x range.

• If your DNS is hosted by us, no action is necessary as we will update the DNS automatically when your site is migrated. Visitors with cached DNS will be redirected to the new site seamlessly.
• If your DNS is not hosted by us, please get in touch with support and we will inform you when your migration is scheduled (alternatively you may wish to consider switching to our free DNS hosting service).
• Database servers will be consolidated during this move. If you are currently using "localhost" as your database server, please change this to "mysql1.db.us.sargasso.net". You can do this now, ahead of time, as the new hostname is currently aliased to the old servers.

Dedicated Server and Colocation Customers

• If you have elected to upgrade your servers or migrate to blades, then both your old and new servers will be available simultaneously at no extra charge from 23rd - 28th July to allow you to migrate smoothly and redirect visitors to the new servers.
• If you are keeping the same hardware, it will be moved during a night-time maintenance window between 23rd - 28th July. N.B. servers on the old 198.77.x.x address space will be moved to new 78.158.x.x addresses at the same time as the hardware move.

Network Operations Center

From August 1st our network operations center will be available by live-help on the website and by telephone at 212-400-1694. This will enable you to more quickly contact us in the event of any problems with your service. Non-urgent queries should still be sent to the support desk where they can be ticketed and routed to the person best able to help you.

UK Contracts

Finally, UK customers currently hosting with Infotrek should note that their contracts are being assigned to Sargasso Networks Ltd. The same team is behind the new company with the additional resources of leading ICT company Comtec Enterprises. There is no other impact of this change.

If you have any questions on any of the above, please get in touch.

Best regards,

David Croft
Director of Technology

---

This announcement was sent to all Sargasso customers. To view the archive or unsubscribe, visit lists.sargasso.net.