BlogCadre just made the upgrade from Media Temple's shared server platform to their new "Grid Server" system.

New GS Features
Instead of a shared server, the GS system places all your data on an NFS server. There are apparantly several load-balanced front end web servers that then access this data from the common data location. Ben over at cuddletech has some more details on the Grid Server set up.

Read on for more info about the transition, including migration notes and my skepticism as to whether or not this service is even a good move. If you want the 5 second version: the transition is frightening with no staging process or backout plan, and the "upgrade" leaves us with half the bandwidth and the real potential for expensive new mystery charges.

On the plus side, this upgrade should mean improved server response times, more mysql connections, and scalability under heavy loads, but I'm not sure how the external mysql server and data storage will affect read/write performance on a database heavy site.

One thing that's nasty, though, is that you are now billed for Grid Processor Units in addition to bandwidth and disk space. GPUs are supposedly based on processor use and disk access, but there is no mention of what that actually means. Supposedly, the allotted amount is way more than almost anyone will use, but it still freaks me out.

How many GPUs does BlogCadre use in a typical day? No idea. What happens if some glitch causes a script to go haywire? Instead of slowing my server down is it going to ring up a thousand dollar fee? With all these load balanced servers handling my site, will I even know if one server is chugging down and eating CPU, costing me money? As of this posting, even after the upgrade there is no way to even see how many GPUs you are using. That scares the hell out of me.

Finally, to keep the same monthly rate, I had to go with "Grid Server Lite" instead of paying two and a half times as much for the full package. This means half the GPUs (500--whatever the heck that means), and half the bandwidth (500GB). So that's half the bandwidth I used to have and the potential for new costs for the same base price. Yippee!

Freakiest Site Move Ever
In all, I'm not too happy with the process. While the transition is completely automated, there is no staging phase. They pack up your files, shut down the old setup, drop your stuff on the new server and switch the DNS record. There is no opportunity to configure the new site before the old one is shut down, and there is no way to back out of the transition if something goes wrong. It's like playing russian roulette with six bullets.

If anyone else out there is making the upgrade, here are the "gotchas" I ran into:

MySQL: The server will change from localhost to something else. The address of the new mysql server will be a mystery until the files are moved and your busted new site is launched. You'll need to ssh in quickly and update your config/scripts.

SSH: Confounding your scramble to update your settings, your server IP and username have also changed. Unfortunately, I found no mention of the new ssh info in the migration documentation, though I was able to dig some information up in the knowledge base. If your old access was domainname@domainname.com, your new account is serveradmin%domainname@domainname.com

Compatability: After updating the MySQL settings, things seem to be working correctly across the board. I have no reason to believe this isn't normal, but I'm feeling awfully lucky since there was no back-out procedure.

Lost Files: My html directory made it, but I had a lot of install files, backups and new upgrade versions that I was working on in my home directory. That appears to be gone after the move. There is a directory on the new server that I think may be housing all of these files, but its permissions are set wrong and I cannot access it.

Support: I've been with MT for a couple years and I've encouraged a lot of people to switch to MT for one reason: incredible support service. Not so with this transition. It used to be that you could submit a support request and a qualified server admin would email you back literally within minutes. I submitted support requests for a couple of transition issues (namely my lost files) and haven't even received a "looking into it" response. It's been an hour or two now. What's going on Media Temple??

Anyway, time will tell how this new system performs. I really hope it's awesome as hell, because MT has been such a great hosting provider in the past. At the moment, I've got some concerns, though. With new potential charges, less bandwidth, and no static IP, this forced upgrade feels like it might be a downgrade in disguise.

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