HFU HF Underground

General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: John Poet on February 12, 2014, 1857 UTC

Title: Free Radio Cafe now 'on the cloud' or getting there
Post by: John Poet on February 12, 2014, 1857 UTC
The Free Radio Café website has been moved to cloud servers residing in the USA!

(Thank God, I had the devil's own time doing it, too.  I now know more about moving phpBB3 than I ever wanted to know...)

The DNS was just changed about an hour ago, and may take 24-48 hours to resolve to the new host for everyone.

The old forum is closed, so if you get the message "The Free Radio Cafe forums will be closed overnight" or "Sorry, this board is currently unavailable" or some such, you're still ending up on the old host.
 
http://freeradiocafe.com/forum/index.php

If you can see the forums, you're being sent to the new host.

You may get sent back and forth between the old and new accounts as the internet tries to digest the DNS change... I am.
Title: Re: Free Radio Cafe now 'on the cloud' or getting there
Post by: jFarley on February 12, 2014, 2109 UTC
Thanks for all the hard work, John!
Title: Re: Free Radio Cafe now 'on the cloud' or getting there
Post by: Fansome on February 12, 2014, 2125 UTC
Seems to be working here. Congratulations.
Title: Re: Free Radio Cafe now 'on the cloud' or getting there
Post by: John Poet on February 12, 2014, 2140 UTC
Seems to be working here. Congratulations.

Well, I haven't been able to get back there since I posted that FRC Pirates Den message, LOL!
Those crazy interwebs!

Title: Re: Free Radio Cafe now 'on the cloud' or getting there
Post by: redhat on February 12, 2014, 2258 UTC
Might I ask why the interest in cloud hosting?  Everything I've read and experience lately about anything to do with the cloud had me avoiding it like the plague.

I like to keep my own personal cloud, in a jar, on the shelf ;)

+-RH
Title: Re: Free Radio Cafe now 'on the cloud' or getting there
Post by: John Poet on February 13, 2014, 0048 UTC
Just for the benefit of anyone who may not know, 'cloud hosting' refers to redundant web servers hosting a website:  instead of residing on just one web-server, it resides on several (and usually in more than one location)... So, instead of the website being 'not found' when a server slows or dies, it is then served up by the others.  The result should be the elimination of any downtime associated with a web server being overloaded or failing (although you still have your DNS nameserver  to worry about).

I've experienced some 404s (not found) from time to time when trying to access the site, so hopefully that situation will be nearly eliminated now-- and theoretically, loading speed should be improved.  This account is also based in the US rather than the UK, which may be of some performance benefit to the vast majority of our members in North America.

I've actually had the "new" account for about a year, for other things.  The only reason I hadn't moved the Café over there is I thought it would be a complicated mess-- which it kinda was.  

I finally moved it now because the disabling (http://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,15239.0.html) of our site last week turned out NOT to be a "mistake" by the web host, but a deliberate move to extort exhorbitant monthly fees out of customers who had paid for multi-year web hosting-- and that disabling of accounts came with no notice whatsoever.  In fact, it was 24 hours before they even told anyone what was going on.  They only restored web access to the sites temporarily because so many, like myself, complained of the need to access areas like the board administration which can only be reached from the front-end of the site.

Needless to say, after such a display of blatant disregard for their customers, I was resolved not to have anything more to do with them if at all possible...  and now we won't.
Title: Re: Free Radio Cafe now 'on the cloud' or getting there
Post by: redhat on February 13, 2014, 0338 UTC
OK, that makes sense.  I've heard other hosting companies refer to distributed hosting rather than 'cloud hosting.'  In all fairness though, especially when dealing with something as touchy as pirate radio, and the NSA being what they are, the USA is probably the last place I'd want to host a site.

...just my 2¢

+-RH
Title: Re: Free Radio Cafe now 'on the cloud' or getting there
Post by: John Poet on February 13, 2014, 1718 UTC
I actually made certain "arrangements" when I first started the site to protect my identity... the UK hosting may have been part of it.  Since my cover was subsequently blown with the FCC, there doesn't seem to be any need for it.  The NSA can go read the FCC website if they want... or maybe our emails...

When a problem crops up with your web hosting (or any other business transaction), it's a lot better if they're in the same country as you are.  That lesson has just been reinforced on me...

Title: Re: Free Radio Cafe now 'on the cloud' or getting there
Post by: CoolAM Radio on February 13, 2014, 1917 UTC
Seems a lot quicker overhere!

Tnx John!

André
CoolAM Radio