What Have We Been Up To?
Entry posted by Paul
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[color=#1C2837][size=4]It's been a little while since the last update on our blog (must do better!), so I thought now would be a good time to give an update on what we've been up to behind the scenes, and some info on what we've got planned as we close out the summer and move toward autumn and winter.
The main thing we've been working on is a move to new servers, which barring a few bits and pieces is now complete. You may remember we also moved to new servers last year but unfortunately it didn't work out with the new company we moved as they weren't quite as reliable or responsive as we'd expected them to be, so we took the decision to move on again.
For those who into the technical side of things, we're now with Rackspace again but on a brand new setup which is a hybrid cloud solution, what this means is that we have a handful of dedicated servers alongside some cloud based servers. This gives us a huge amount of flexibility to run additional servers within minutes when we get a spike in traffic (like on days when severe weather is likely) to keep everything running smoothly, it also gives us a lot more capacity to run new models, add new features and generally push the boundaries a lot more in terms of what we can offer.
The major drawback of moving servers is the time it takes and the amount of work involved so to have done it twice in twelve months is not ideal, so we're certainly not planning any further changes like this again for the foreseeable future. The knock on effect it has had on our development schedule is also an issue - we are certainly behind where we wanted to be at this point of the year but once the last parts of the move are complete next week we'll be able to crack on.
So, what do we have planned? Mobile apps are high on the agenda, a new look and layout on the site is also on the way (no eta on this yet though as it's a major job), updates to the radar will not be far away, we'll soon have additional written and video content, more weather and site related tutorials, a new summer holidays area will be live next week and among other things there's also a fairly major upgrade to the forum to come within the next few weeks.
We're always keen to hear your views, so if you have any suggestions for features or improvements, or if you spot any issues with the site since we've moved to new servers please let us know!
Cheers
Paul[/size][/color]
The main thing we've been working on is a move to new servers, which barring a few bits and pieces is now complete. You may remember we also moved to new servers last year but unfortunately it didn't work out with the new company we moved as they weren't quite as reliable or responsive as we'd expected them to be, so we took the decision to move on again.
For those who into the technical side of things, we're now with Rackspace again but on a brand new setup which is a hybrid cloud solution, what this means is that we have a handful of dedicated servers alongside some cloud based servers. This gives us a huge amount of flexibility to run additional servers within minutes when we get a spike in traffic (like on days when severe weather is likely) to keep everything running smoothly, it also gives us a lot more capacity to run new models, add new features and generally push the boundaries a lot more in terms of what we can offer.
The major drawback of moving servers is the time it takes and the amount of work involved so to have done it twice in twelve months is not ideal, so we're certainly not planning any further changes like this again for the foreseeable future. The knock on effect it has had on our development schedule is also an issue - we are certainly behind where we wanted to be at this point of the year but once the last parts of the move are complete next week we'll be able to crack on.
So, what do we have planned? Mobile apps are high on the agenda, a new look and layout on the site is also on the way (no eta on this yet though as it's a major job), updates to the radar will not be far away, we'll soon have additional written and video content, more weather and site related tutorials, a new summer holidays area will be live next week and among other things there's also a fairly major upgrade to the forum to come within the next few weeks.
We're always keen to hear your views, so if you have any suggestions for features or improvements, or if you spot any issues with the site since we've moved to new servers please let us know!
Cheers
Paul[/size][/color]
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