[Rebuild] Update on plan after feedback from weekend

[Harry Wood]

As Tom indicated on here this morning, he was definately not happy with the plan. Today there's been a lot more discussion. I haven't been in on all of this, but I can update the list here with some details.

We've gone over the ins and outs of the situation (I can re-cap those here too if you like) and Tom has chatted with Matt and others to find out more about the details of the plan, particularly around code to be deployed. There's still uncertainty around this and tension for various reasons. I can't say that Tom is happy now, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, but...

We really needed to decide today whether we could put out a downtime announcement, and we now have the text for this (below), which Tom has worked on too, and which sets a the time 1st April 8am UTC, for sysops to commence downtime.

I feel like we've done well to reach some level of agreement today. We're planning to go ahead with this downtime announcement in an hours time, to give everyone just under a week's notice.

Harry


---- 

The long awaited and eagerly anticipated license upgrade is coming soon. To minimise disruption to OpenStreetMap mappers and users, we're taking the opportunity to install our new database server (funded by your generous contributions) at the same time - reducing the total amount of downtime needed.

Please be aware of the following service schedule and the list of dates further on in this article.  The license upgrade will start with the database server migration.  All times and dates are subject to change: our volunteers are working flat- ut on this, so thanks in advance for your patience and support.

Mappers
There will be a several-day period of limited API availability.  The API will be Read Only while the database is moved to the new database server, ramoth.  This new database server was funded by your contributions during the December 2011 fund raising campaign.  No map editing will be possible while the API is Read Only.

During the remainder of the upgrade, the API should operate normally.  Please postpone bulk edits where possible, until after the license upgrade is complete.  As always with system improvements, your patience while you find items to refine is appreciated.  Consider monitoring the friendly <a href="http://irc.osm.org/">OSM IRC chat channel</a>, #osm on irc.oftc.net, if you have questions.  

Data consumers
The typical planet file scheduled for this week has been postponed. The final old license planet file will be created from 01 April 2012 data.  It will be published once the planet file generation completes which may be delayed by a few days.  

The old license replication diff service will stop when the database goes to Read Only mode for the server migration.  A new license replication diff service will begin at the completion of the license upgrade from a new address.  There will be another message with details for using the new diffs when you are ready to start consuming them.

Important Dates
These dates and times are subject to change without notice.  
1st April: Enter Read-only mode. 8am UTC http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20120401T08
4th April: Enter Read-write mode on new server. Our estimate is that this will be in the morning, but could be subject to change.
5th-6th April: bbox-based live-data tests of rebuild logic.
7th April: Start automated processing of all remaining non-clean objects.
9th April: Progress report and estimation of remaining license upgrade time.
To be Determined: On completion of the processing, subject to satisfaction with the outcome we can re-declare the dataset to be ODbL. Immediately afterwards, a first new license planet file will be generated/published, and diff creation will resume.

Thanks
Thanks, as always, to the many people who make OpenStreetMap great.  These people include: the countless mappers who have improved the data, the operations volunteers who make so many things "just work", the programmers who make participating in OSM easier every day, the donors who provide the hardware and hosting we rely upon.  Many of you 'overlap' in more than one of these areas.  Please be aware that the thanks are cumulative.  :-) 





----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Hughes <tom at compton.nu>
To: Dermot McNally <dermotm at gmail.com>
Cc: rebuild at openstreetmap.org
Sent: Tuesday, 27 March 2012, 7:12
Subject: Re: [Rebuild] Update on plan after feedback from weekend

On 27/03/12 02:05, Dermot McNally wrote:

> * 31st March: Declare last CC planet, halt diff generation (to be
> resumed from a different diff file location after ODbL declaration)

This date still provides less than one weeks notice of a 3-4 day downtime which is, to my mind, completely unacceptable.

In addition, there is no way we can set that date when the necessary code hasn't even been written yet, as there is no way we can know that suitable code will be written, reviewed and ready for deployment by that date.

Tom

-- Tom Hughes (tom at compton.nu)
http://compton.nu/