A cloud server for Xmas

Today we've disabled our web server at Earthlink after almost three years - and 897 days of continuous uptime. Over recent weeks and months all hosted websites have been carefully migrated to a new Linode cloud server.

Moving to the cloud has been a gradual process for Chirp. We started with a DNS and MX server ('kitsune') in 2011, followed by a dedicated SSL server ('kentucky') in early 2014, and now this new server ('dorado') for the rest of our websites. We have also used cloud servers for individual projects where they are resource intensive or require special protection.

The main advantages of a cloud server are that we can scale up resources at any time without replacing hardware, and that we have access to 'full' backups of the server if anything goes wrong, rather than having to recover and replace individual files.

While you won't see any obvious differences on your website, there should be speed improvements due to reduced latency and the fact the Linode now uses "reliable, insanely fast, datacenter-grade SSDs" (solid-state drives) instead of spinning discs.

Other changes that have been implemented include upgraded PHP and Apache security, better firewalls and backups, IPv6 support, an upgraded CMS, stricter coding standards, a new ext4 file system, etc.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Office Closed Monday »