Regular Maintenance

Oct 7, 2010

Previously, when we’ve had software updates to install or other small maintenance tasks to perform, we’ve sent out a service notice and scheduled a maintenance window specifically for the work we’re performing. We’ve also tended to group all of our updates into one big monthly update, rather than installing updates as and when they become available. (Security updates are of course the exception to this, and we always install those as soon as we can.)

From now on, we’re changing how we schedule software updates and other minor (i.e. non-disruptive) maintenance. We’ve scheduled a regular weekly maintenance window for Fridays, between 12:00 (noon) and 16:00 (UK time). Any work which we don’t expect to disrupt our services will be performed during that time, without a specific announcement being sent out. Anything that might cause a disruption will still be announced via service notice (but will probably be performed during that same maintenance window as well).

This should allow us to more easily keep everything up-to-date, and also to avoid sending out as many notices so that we don’t annoy people with unnecessary messages.