Rennlist Planned Outage and Site Change - PLEASE READ...

This is a short update on the Rennlist Site schedule and action items for upcoming network change. PLEASE READ THIS NOTE - AS IT DIRECTLY AFFECTS EACH AND EVERY ASPECT OF THE RENNLIST SITE, ALL USERS ALL RENNLIST SERVICES AND RENNLIST SITE VISITORS. 

To begin with, I would personally like to thank the President of Tweeks (www.tweeks.com), Mike Yeager and his Senior Executive staff for contributing substantial funding towards these Rennlist efforts and site change expenses. Without these funds, frankly, the cost of the hardware, connection and software changes and required upgrades would be personally insurmountable - certainly given the required initial capital outlay. Further, as other Sponsors may step forward in addition to Tweeks - each will have special mention in their own Administrative announcement and area of the Rennlist site. My sincerest and warmest thanks to Tweeks and other businesses for their caring, generosity and show of support for this community and site. 

As of today, we are approximately 1/4 of the way into recoding all the primary Rennlist site pages. While the majority of the more difficult tasks have yet to be undertaken, I am cautiously optimistic that everything will continue on-track. 

- On December 27 at approximately 13:00 EST, you may notice a brief Rennlist network outage of less the 10 minutes. This will be necessary to cut new conditioned high-speed lines into our existing blocks and circuits. 

- On January 3 and 4, 2001 - there will be a planned outage at approximately 15 minutes duration on EACH of those two days beginning at 07:00 EST. During that time, I will be bringing on-line some additional new routers and programming their routing tables against the new IP addresses as well as re-programming one of the Rennlist FQDH to these new IP address blocks. Further, I will be moving a temporary backup set of servers to a local co-hosting facility to minimize any potential of any unplanned interruptions in Rennlist services. 

- Beginning January 6, 2001 - the main websites will undergo their final programming changes. These major sites include the following areas: all 52 Rennlist e-mail lists, 14 public and private Web Discussion Boards, the main Rennlist Website pages and Services. This work is expected to take approximately seven days to complete. 

- On January 14th, 2001 - I will "pull the plug" on the current existing circuits, and Rennlist will be running 100% on the new lines. During that cut-in, it will be necessary to bring the entire Rennlist site off-line. That expected outage will be less then 15 minutes and will be performed at 03:00-04:00 EST. 

- On January 15, 2001 - we will begin the final phase of the software re-coding including the backend databases, archives, LINUX servers, and internal IP routings. During these times, you may notice brief interruptions in services (RennQuest, 914 Registry, FAQ Searches, etc.). At that time, we will also upload our new routing tables to the second on-line router. 

Rennlist Members who do experience any technical difficulties with the site will continue to get first priority responses from either Jen or myself. 

Thank you for your understand and support during this transition - it is very, very appreciated..!!! 

My Best to all for a Wonderful Holiday Season!

John D.