At 9:19 PM Central Time, ovz-hulk became unaccessible.  We are currently investigating the issue and will provide a resolution shortly.

EDIT: Issue has been corrected.  Server had to be rebooted.  We will be investigating the cause to see why this server went down.

Virpus Networks has initiated migrations to the OpenVZ platform from Virtuozzo at this time.  This will require some moderate downtime (usually less than 30 minutes) while we resync changed data and boot your VPS up on the new node.  After you have been moved, you will receive a letter letting you know, and also login details for HyperVM.

Thanks,

Virpus Networks, Inc.

I would like to address a few things that effects all of our customers.  I will address it starting with the broadest topics first.

1. NETWORK OUTAGE FOLLOWUP - Per the e-mail that I had sent out, there was a network outage earlier today from our connection from Time Warner Business Class (Road Runner).  Because our IP addresses were newly allocated, and because of our second providers (TW Telecom) policy, we received a turn-around time of 3-4 months before our IP addresses would be routed.  So in other words, we were single homed.

As stated in the e-mail, Virpus Networks was going to try to get our ticket escalated with TW Telecom, which was  success.  As of tomorrow morning, TW Telecom will be routing our IP addresses.  You will start noticing the routes before noon Central Time.

2. OVZ-gus Issues - Virpus Networks has been experiencing some issues with the ovz-gus server, as many of you know.  The symptoms were that there were higher than generally accepted loads on VPS’s and slow responses when pulling up sites and entering commands in the CLI.

After applying a PAE kernel, the issue has ceased for good.  Everything should be running at optimal levels at this point.

3. New Mailing Address - For customers that mail in their payments, please note that Virpus has a new mailing address.  The mailing address is as follows:

Virpus Networks, Inc.
2300 Main St, Suite 900
Kansas City, MO 64106

4. Support Tickets - There have been some delays with the Management queue which are being caught up on.  If your ticket has been outstanding for a while and needs immediate attention, please e-mail general (at) virpusnetworks.net.  If you do not receive a reply within 8 hours, then it is likely we did not get your mail.  Alternatively, send it to virpusnetworks (at) gmail.com.   We have been working very hard to get things settled in the back end of things (migration, network, server setups etc.) which for the past month, has been an on-going task.  We can finally rest and return to our normal tasks at this point.  Support replies from Management departments should be back to normal at this point.

Thank you for your patience, and loyalty.  We’re looking forward to bringing you unbeatable performance and serving your hosting needs!

Warm Regards & Happy Hostings,

Kenneth Odem
Virpus Networks, Inc.

For the most part, the migration is complete.  We are having some issues with the vz-cobra server, which the server is in critical conditions right now.  We have our technicians actively working on the server to come up with a resolution.

A lot of customers have been asking about HyperVM, and why they can’t access any management panels.  Those who are on our Virtuozzo nodes, please note that you have NOT been moved over to the OpenVZ platform.  We are currently working on changing the IP addresses of what is called our “Service container” which manages the web interface.  Until this can be resolved the Virtuozzo Power Panel (Infrastructural Manager) will not be available.

We also have some customers who are still attempting to access their old IP addresses.  It is highly advised that you please read the previous vblog entries.

If you have any questions about the migration, please common on vblog, as your question may also be the question of other customers.

I would like to thank you all for your patience during this transition, and we’re looking forward to smooth sailings after all is settled.

Happy Hostings,

Kenneth Odem
Virpus Networks, Inc.

This is a notice to alert you of a new Maintenance Alert issued by Virpus Networks, Inc. at 6:13 PM Central Time on Friday, May 23, 2008

==========================
MAINTENANCE ALERT NUMBER VN-019
==========================

Effected: vz-metro, vz-cobra, vz-wendy, vz-win1, vz-chris, ovz-monk, virpus.com
Maintenance Window: 12:00 PM - 2:30 PM Central Time
Date: Sunday, May 25, 2008
Estimated Downtime: Up to 1.5 hours.

Description: Virpus will be moving nodes to our new facility.  This will require us to shut down, move, and boot the servers back up.  There is a slight possibility that there could be more downtime than anticipated if a FSCK (file system check) is done on a node, which we have noticed have been coming up often after we reboot a machine.   If this should open, we will update vblog and send an e-mail.

If you have any questions, please e-mail support@myvirpus.com.

Happy Hostings,

Virpus Networks, Inc.

ovz-gus.dnsslave.com customers - please ignore this entry.  You are already on our new network.

Virpus Networks is now allocating new IP addresses to our customers. Once your IP addresses have been re-assigned, you will receive an e-mail including the new IP addresses as well as some notes. What we are doing is just adding the new IP addresses to your VPS, along with keeping your current on the VPS. This is done to allow you to transition your sites on the new IP addresses. Once you receive the e-mail, you may need to update your cPanel license with the following command:

$ /usr/local/cpanel/cpkeyclt

We will be moving our nodes on May 26th to the new location, so at that time, the old network will not be accessible, so we ask that you please change over as quickly as possible.

Thank you,

Virpus Networks, Inc.

We have a slight change of plans in the migration, which will make it even more easier to do the transition.  Additionally, I also want to confirm that no VPS’s have yet been migrated, as there has been a delay with getting one of our carriers to start routing our IP block.  We are expecting a turn-around of sometime before Friday of this week.

Here are the timeline of events of what will be taking place and around what time.

As stated above, we are expecting to get our IP block on or before Friday, to be routed by one of our carriers.  Next week, we will be doing some network engineering, and adding a second connection (our first connection being from LightEdge, who is our current ISP), which will be our uplink to our new carriers that the new IP block is to be routed on.

By Thursday, May 15th, this line will be established.  At this time, we will begin re-assigning IP addresses, which should be completed within two days once we start re-assigning IP addresses to our customers.  What this will allow for is for our customers to start changing over their DNS and re-assigning IP addresses to your sites and applications before we actually do a physical move to the new facility.  By May 21st, we will begin to schedule maintenance for our VPS nodes, to allow for up to 1.5-2 hours of downtime, while we shut down, move, and bring the nodes back online.  At this point, the migration would be complete.  The last task would be to seamlessly migrate customers to the OpenVZ server cluster, which does not require any downtime of your sites since the DNS would already have been propagated.

As previously stated, this migration will prove very beneficial for both our customers, who get to take advantage of a true leveraged BGP (minus Cogent), and for Virpus.  Not to mention the discounts our customers can take advantage of, and also more competitive VPS plans on Virpus’ end.

Now that I have cleared up the migration plan, I would like to make another announcement.  Because of a very low turn-over as far as customers who wish to stay on Virtuozzo, it has been decided by Management that we will in fact, NOT have any linux Virtuozzo nodes.  We only have a handful of customers who want Virtuozzo, which it is not cost effective to leave a node with Quad Core processors, 16 GB of RAM and the rest of the works, with only 5 customers on it.  So because of this, we will not have any Virtuozzo linux nodes.  We apologize for any inconveniences this has caused those customers who wanted to remain on Virtuozzo.

There is no change of plans for Windows customers.  They will remain on Virtuozzo for Windows.

I would like to thank you for your patience on this, as I think we have a truly loyal customer base who believes in the success of our company, and we greatly appreciate this.

If you should have any questions, please do not open a ticket. Instead, comment on vBlog, as we are trying our best to separate questions and concerns on the migration from the help desk so our techs can focus on technical issues, and so that management can focus on management and account issues.

Hope this wasn’t too long :)  Thanks for your patience, and please comment on vblog if you should have any questions or comments.  Your feedback is also appreciated.

Warm Regards & Happy Hostings,

Kenneth Odem
Virpus Networks, Inc.

I wanted to address a few things and provide further information.  First, I just wanted to confirm that we will start the migration Thursday evening, and at the latest, Friday morning for VPS customers. vz-Cobra is going to be the first node to be moved over.  All customers of this node will be placed on a 8 core Xeon 2.7 GHz, 32 GB of RAM, 1 TB of storage in a RAID with a 100 Mbps uplink (to be named ovz-gus.dnsslave.com).  All other customers will be placed on a server with at least 16 GB of RAM, 750 GB of data storage in a RAID array, with Dual Core Xeon processing (most have Quad Core Xeon processors).

If you are on vz-cobra, and do not wish to take advantage of going to OpenVZ, please be sure to open a ticket up with us as soon as possible, as these customers will be the first to be moved.

Note that if you wish for us to just set you up on a blank environment (OS + ordered addons) then this is also an option.  Some customers have asked this, and prefer to just be setup on a blank environment versus migrating data from the Virtuozzo setup.  Just open up a ticket and we will note your account.

If you should have any questions, please feel free to comment on this entry.  Commenting on the entry will allow for other users also have further insight as they may have a similar question.

Thank you,

Kenneth Odem
Virpus Networks, Inc.

Currently, vz-cobra is experiencing some issues.  We are currently upgrading the kernel on this node and applying the latest Virtuozzo updates.  Once this is done, the node will be rebooted.

We apologize for any inconveniences, and would like to thank you for your patience.

Kenneth Odem
Virpus Networks, Inc.