Well we did it
My first day working for Livejournal was almost 3 years ago, and it started with setting up our 3rd cabinet in the Seattle facility with Brad. Next week Matthew and a guy will be removing all the leftover equipment still sitting there, and by December 1st it'll be emtpy.
(as a side note, I met Brad 5 years ago when he moved the couple of LJ servers in to the closet "noc" at Speakeasy)
When LJ was acquired in January last year I knew eventually we'd have to move the data center. Managing multiple centers in such distinct ways isn't efficient, and we weren't able to convince the Six Apart ops team to move their machines up to Seattle. It isn't often that we physically have to be there, but I personally have installed about 1/2 the equipment in that data center so maybe I've got emotional attachment. Yes, to computers.
But to be totally honest, I really really didn't want to have to manage moving 130 pieces of equipment to another state.
We stalled as much as we could, but finally the time to move came and over the last 3 weeks we've succeeded. All of Livejournal.com is now hosted out of a data center in San Francisco (365 Main).
I couldn't give enough praise and thanks to everyone on the LJ team, the Six Apart ops team, and the most uber respect to matthew, brad, crucially and xb95. I showed up Thursday in San Fran without a lot of sleep and worked straight through until last night when we finally got to have some sushi in celebration. Mark, Artur and Brad were in the office with me almost the whole time, each of us grabbing short breaks for sleep where we could. Matthew rocked managing the team of movers for the physical move, hopping planes and joining us by phone when he could.
And thanks to anyone who has had to come in contact with me in dealing with my crabbiness and one track mind.
The LJ team really do seem to have a unique way of being able to work together without killing each other. Its not all fun and games, but we get things done and when there are problems everyone is smart and dedicated enough to solve them. I'm thankful Management also seem to recognize this and allowed us to work the way we needed to get this done.
Personally I'm beating myself up about all the things that could have gone better, been better planned, how I want to fix things going forward. But I think in general, from a users perspective, the bumpiness over the last 5 days was manageable. Correct me if I'm wrong!
There is a fair amount to clean up, but for the first time in a month I should be able to go to sleep tonight without fighting fits of anxiety. And in my own bed, too!
In personal news, my brother Mark is getting married on Saturday. I'm flying to Phoenix Friday morning and coming back Tuesday. I haven't seen the family since New Years, so I'm really looking forward to it. I'm meeting my nephew Ethan for the first time. I've been putting my personal life on hold for the last month, and I can't wait to get back to "normal."