New Database Servers

[1bird2]

Agreed. Time to move on to true enterprise "production" of services. Change windows need to be planned around "your time", not customers' time. Like the idea of lots of info to customers, but, time to minimize downtime or even potential down time to customers -- which I am one of.

"Beta" is one thing. I would think production would be 99.5% uptime (no, not 99.9% or 99.99%)

Keep up the good work -- please condsider your maintenenace windows after hours.

-bird

[fisamo]

Some people don't agree with the timing, but I don't want to do something at night and then risk something happening when support is not fully staffed to handle the flood of calls.

The main reason we do this stuff during the day is so that our support center is fully staffed and available if issues do come up.

OK, I understand your reason for making changes like this during the day. However, abward brings up an excellent point--more people are going to be using their phone at 4pm on a weekday than at 3am on a Sunday. The "flood" of calls, therefore, would more likely (than at 4pm on a weekday) be a "trickle".

Scott2020 also brings up a good point that the phone should work 24/7. After all, you never know when an emergency call will need to be made. Well, you do have to perform your maintenance sometime, and when your call volume is the lowest is the best time for it to be done, even if your support staff is all sleeping (OFF the clock, of course! ).

Perhaps the best way to handle these potential issues is to have a maintenance recording for your support line. In the case of this database server addition/reconfiguration, it could have said, "On Sunday March 15 at 3AM Central time, Voipo began scheduled maintenance. These activities were anticipated to be complete by 4AM and should not affect anyone's service. If your service is not working, we apologize for any inconvenience, and we invite you to submit a ticket by typing in your voipo number now. We will restore your service as soon as we can."

You could then log all tickets submitted at that time so you can be sure any affected customers (who reported problems) are back online.

[usa2k]

Good thoughts. My ISP often has recorded messages on their support line.

"If your service is in Livonia, WideOpenWest is aware of a cable service issue ..."

[HelpNYC]

Agree................

This was a pretty critical change (will eliminate the latency issues that have come up a lot lately).

Some people don't agree with the timing, but I don't want to do something at night and then risk something happening when support is not fully staffed to handle the flood of calls.

The main reason we do this stuff during the day is so that our support center is fully staffed and available if issues do come up.