Buy on Amazon ~ 0345803450Article of interest
If you read earlier articles you will know that we had to do a major hardware rebuild and restore from backups. Well we have gotten everything back up and it all seem stable so we are moving on to work on the upgrade again.
We have been working on some handy upgrades on the database and user interface screens in some areas. Although the changes that are coming won't be dramatic from the user point of view, they are very dramatic on the database side of things.
Yes, you as the user will see some changes. Almost all of the changes center around how the company data is being stored. You will also see some speed improvements. But really, the vast majority of the changes are happening behind the screens and on the database itself.
You see, we have been storing the company data in a very old format for a while and planning on how to get it to a new, more effecient format for some time. The goal is to make it easier for end users to get to the correct and most current information quickly but also to allow company owners easier editing tools for their company information and their products.
The hardware issue from a couple weeks ago stopped all development as we worked hard to rebuild the production systems and make sure nothing got missed. We carefully monitored and any time any hiccup was detected we quickly corrected it. Mostly there were a few configuration settings that got missed during the rebuild. Nothing major was missed and we even managed to sneak in a couple minor but handy upgrades along the way. But now that things are back to normal, we are moving our focus back to the upgrade.
Hopefully, the new changes are only a couple weeks away. Unfortunately, because such a drastic change to the database is needed, when the time comes, the site will be off line for a couple hours as the data is unloaded then reloaded into the new format.
Don't worry, you won't get any errors of any kind. You will just see the "we are upgrading" message if you visit during that time. But we will be doing the work in the very early morning hours to minimize impact.