Server migration successful
Phew!
That was a long and hard-working day at the Spin Rewriter office... If you can really call 28 hours of constant effort by everyone at the office a "day". A huge thank-you to everyone involved, from server admins to our amazing customer support experts!
Even before we announced our scheduled migration to a newer server infrastructure on Monday, we had been looking into every possible way to minimize the downtime that inevitably comes with the migration. I believe we did a decent job... although the migration itself was still a major effort, and took a bit longer than planned.
You can read all about the migration with constant status updates here...
But now that the migration is over (and successful!), we couldn't be happier about it!
Mainly for two big reasons:
1) We've decided to go forward with the migration for a good reason — namely, performance. And looking at the performance metrics that we've been running on our entire codebase ever since the migration, we can hardly believe what we're seeing.
The new infrastructure absolutely FLIES! In some areas we're seeing 400-450% improvements in speed, and that's before we've even rolled out any hardware-specific optimizations! This is genuinely incredible...
2) Our previous operating system was only guaranteed security updates until the end of 2019 — which is fast approaching. We've decided to make the most of the inevitable downtime so we've taken the opportunity to update the operating system across our entire infrastructure. Truth be told, this cost us another 3.5 hours of service unavailability, but we believe the payoff will be more than worth it.
Our systems are now guaranteed full security updates until 2024! And as a geeky, techy, security-oriented person this makes my heart sing. 😃
You've probably already noticed the difference in speed and responsiveness when using Spin Rewriter — and we'll keep on working really hard to make the absolute most of this big upgrade to our infrastructure. I'm sure you're going to love it!
That was a long and hard-working day at the Spin Rewriter office... If you can really call 28 hours of constant effort by everyone at the office a "day". A huge thank-you to everyone involved, from server admins to our amazing customer support experts!
Even before we announced our scheduled migration to a newer server infrastructure on Monday, we had been looking into every possible way to minimize the downtime that inevitably comes with the migration. I believe we did a decent job... although the migration itself was still a major effort, and took a bit longer than planned.
You can read all about the migration with constant status updates here...
But now that the migration is over (and successful!), we couldn't be happier about it!
Mainly for two big reasons:
1) We've decided to go forward with the migration for a good reason — namely, performance. And looking at the performance metrics that we've been running on our entire codebase ever since the migration, we can hardly believe what we're seeing.
The new infrastructure absolutely FLIES! In some areas we're seeing 400-450% improvements in speed, and that's before we've even rolled out any hardware-specific optimizations! This is genuinely incredible...
2) Our previous operating system was only guaranteed security updates until the end of 2019 — which is fast approaching. We've decided to make the most of the inevitable downtime so we've taken the opportunity to update the operating system across our entire infrastructure. Truth be told, this cost us another 3.5 hours of service unavailability, but we believe the payoff will be more than worth it.
Our systems are now guaranteed full security updates until 2024! And as a geeky, techy, security-oriented person this makes my heart sing. 😃
You've probably already noticed the difference in speed and responsiveness when using Spin Rewriter — and we'll keep on working really hard to make the absolute most of this big upgrade to our infrastructure. I'm sure you're going to love it!
Server upgrade in progress...
Earlier today at 6:38 AM Eastern Time (3:38 AM Pacific Time) we've begun the scheduled migration & upgrade procedure.
This unfortunately requires some downtime of our website & API service which is the reason our website is unavailable at the moment.
To sum up our heads-up post on this migration, the procedure was proposed by our hosting provider, in order to move Spin Rewriter to an even newer & further improved infrastructure.
We've decided to go ahead with the migration and we've also scheduled a number of updates on our end for the same time frame. This way we'll make the most of the downtime this procedure entails.
Status update (8:47 AM EST): The migration is currently proceeding as planned. We're hoping to be back online relatively soon. Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience!
Status update (12:26 PM EST): The migration is taking a bit longer than planned, mostly due to the immense size of our machine learning dataset that we've built over the years. We're now rebuilding the dataset on the new infrastructure.
Status update (2:44 PM EST): The website is now back online. We're now fine-tuning the back-end algorithms which still results in some spinning errors at the moment. We'll keep you posted.
Status update (7:24 PM EST): We're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Most of the functionality is back online, including full functionality of the Spin Rewriter API. The web spinning process is still facing some sporadic issues, although we've already determined the cause and are working on resolving those issues as well.
Status update (7:46 PM EST): We've resolved the aforementioned issue. With that, we believe we're fully back up & running. The website is now once again offering full functionality. The web spinning interface and the Spin Rewriter API are also fully functional once again.
Status update (9:17 PM EST): We're now done with a significant part of our rigorous testing procedure that covers basically every aspect of the entire codebase. We've tested all features and user flows, and we're also running performance analysis of the code on the new server infrastructure. The first performance results are incredible — we almost can't believe what we're seeing! 😃
Status update (6:12 AM EST): We've identified and resolved what were hopefully the last two remaining (very minor) issues that were affecting Site Guardian Pro and Rankings Done Right, but not Spin Rewriter.
Status update (9:21 AM EST): We've now completed our entire testing procedure which concludes this successful migration to a better, newer server infrastructure.
We're soon going to publish another post with more details on the benefits of this migration. 😃
Bottom line: We're now back in the saddle, and better than ever! 😃
This unfortunately requires some downtime of our website & API service which is the reason our website is unavailable at the moment.
To sum up our heads-up post on this migration, the procedure was proposed by our hosting provider, in order to move Spin Rewriter to an even newer & further improved infrastructure.
We've decided to go ahead with the migration and we've also scheduled a number of updates on our end for the same time frame. This way we'll make the most of the downtime this procedure entails.
Status update (8:47 AM EST): The migration is currently proceeding as planned. We're hoping to be back online relatively soon. Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience!
Status update (12:26 PM EST): The migration is taking a bit longer than planned, mostly due to the immense size of our machine learning dataset that we've built over the years. We're now rebuilding the dataset on the new infrastructure.
Status update (2:44 PM EST): The website is now back online. We're now fine-tuning the back-end algorithms which still results in some spinning errors at the moment. We'll keep you posted.
Status update (7:24 PM EST): We're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Most of the functionality is back online, including full functionality of the Spin Rewriter API. The web spinning process is still facing some sporadic issues, although we've already determined the cause and are working on resolving those issues as well.
Status update (7:46 PM EST): We've resolved the aforementioned issue. With that, we believe we're fully back up & running. The website is now once again offering full functionality. The web spinning interface and the Spin Rewriter API are also fully functional once again.
Status update (9:17 PM EST): We're now done with a significant part of our rigorous testing procedure that covers basically every aspect of the entire codebase. We've tested all features and user flows, and we're also running performance analysis of the code on the new server infrastructure. The first performance results are incredible — we almost can't believe what we're seeing! 😃
Status update (6:12 AM EST): We've identified and resolved what were hopefully the last two remaining (very minor) issues that were affecting Site Guardian Pro and Rankings Done Right, but not Spin Rewriter.
Status update (9:21 AM EST): We've now completed our entire testing procedure which concludes this successful migration to a better, newer server infrastructure.
We're soon going to publish another post with more details on the benefits of this migration. 😃
Bottom line: We're now back in the saddle, and better than ever! 😃
Scheduled server migration (Wednesday, November 14)
In two days (on Wednesday, November 14th) we will be migrating and upgrading our Spin Rewriter servers which will unfortunately require some downtime of our website & API service.
The migration itself was proposed by our hosting provider because they want to move us to a new & improved infrastructure, and after a careful examination of the potential benefits we've agreed to move forward with the migration.
Before we agreed, though, we've performed an analysis of our usage patterns and determined that the best (or least inconvenient, if you will) time for a couple of hours of service unavailability would be early Wednesday morning.
We've also scheduled a number of updates on our end for the same time frame, to make sure that we make the most of the migration & upgrade procedure and the downtime it entails.
So — please expect a few hours of downtime on early Wednesday morning, and then we'll be back stronger than ever! 😃
Bottom line: On Wednesday, November 14th, our website & API service will experience some expected downtime as part of a scheduled migration & upgrade procedure. We apologize for any inconvenience!
The migration itself was proposed by our hosting provider because they want to move us to a new & improved infrastructure, and after a careful examination of the potential benefits we've agreed to move forward with the migration.
Before we agreed, though, we've performed an analysis of our usage patterns and determined that the best (or least inconvenient, if you will) time for a couple of hours of service unavailability would be early Wednesday morning.
We've also scheduled a number of updates on our end for the same time frame, to make sure that we make the most of the migration & upgrade procedure and the downtime it entails.
So — please expect a few hours of downtime on early Wednesday morning, and then we'll be back stronger than ever! 😃
Bottom line: On Wednesday, November 14th, our website & API service will experience some expected downtime as part of a scheduled migration & upgrade procedure. We apologize for any inconvenience!
Improved design of modal windows
Time for another UX update — we've just improved the design and usability of modal windows (i.e. pop-up windows with additional controls) that you'll encounter when using Spin Rewriter.
The new modal windows are more scannable, easier on the eyes, and easier to close once you're done with them (they respond to clicking X, pressing Esc on your keyboard, clicking outside the modal window where applicable, etc.).
I'm pretty sure you're going to love this update. 😃
The new modal windows are more scannable, easier on the eyes, and easier to close once you're done with them (they respond to clicking X, pressing Esc on your keyboard, clicking outside the modal window where applicable, etc.).
I'm pretty sure you're going to love this update. 😃
For more posts, check out the Monthly Archives.
Our blog posts let our users stay up-to-date with all of the updates here at Spin Rewriter. This way you can discover all of the latest features — so you can try them out and tell us what you think.
We really appreciate all of your feedback — thank you!
