I have the dates for this project now!
First outage: *Wednesday, 19 April 2017*
Second outage: *Wednesday, 3 May 2017*
I do not have the time of day yet. My assumption is that both outages are
likely to happen somewhere between 14:00 and 16:00 UTC (afternoon in Europe
and Africa/morning in the Americas), but the team has not settled on a
particular time.
There will be no editing, uploading, or other ways of contributing during a
critical stage in this process. The outages will last for about 30 minutes
on each of the two days.
The schedule may change. It could be postponed literally at the last
second if Ops is not satisfied with the situation. If you want to check
the schedule to make sure that it has not changed, then check these links:
Official schedule:
https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Switch_Datacenter
More information (draft):
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/Server_switch_2017
Please share this information, especially with any person who might be
scheduling a workshop during the next few weeks. If you are scheduling a
workshop on these days, or if you are worried that a delay might affect
your workshop, then feel free to send me information about your plans.
On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 6:01 PM Whatamidoing (WMF)/Sherry Snyder <
ssnyder(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
This is early warning of some planned server
operations, as an outage can
cause a severe disruption on a short workshop:
In April 2016, the Technology Operations team at the WMF did some work on
the servers that run Wikipedia and the other wikis. This resulted in all
editing being stopped at all wikis for about half an hour on two different
days.
A similar project is currently expected sometime in April 2017. I do not
have specific dates or times yet. However, I expect the first editing
disruption to happen during the first half of April and the second to be
about two weeks afterwards.
They are hoping that the editing outages will be shorter this time
(perhaps 15 to 30 minutes). The time of day is undecided; however, it will
almost certainly be when most of the Ops staff is online (afternoon in
Europe and Africa/morning in the Americas).
Last year, the official schedule was kept at
https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Switch_Datacenter and the same page
may be used again. *If you are scheduling short workshops during April,
then please consider checking that schedule* or checking with me before
you finalize your plans. If you need to reach me, then I am currently
subscribed to the GLAM mailing list, and you can always leave a note on my
talk page at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Whatamidoing_(WMF)
--
Sherry Snyder (WhatamIdoing)
Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation
--
Sherry Snyder (WhatamIdoing)
Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation