Other important hosting issues:
|
>
|
Application upgrades are done as part of the new version development process. Since new versions are produced on a flexible schedule, these updates occur as needed. Typically, application upgrades do not require any downtime or other interruption of service; however, major version changes may occasionally require a short downtime.
|
>
|
Application maintenance follows a similar pattern, occurring on an as-needed basis to resolve minor (non-programmatic) issues. Application maintenance also does not require any downtime or service interruption.
|
>
|
Server (machine and OS) maintenance occurs on a regular schedule. These maintenance periods will require the system to be offline, and are scheduled to last two hours, however, most should be much shorter. They will occur during off-peak times to minimize the disruption to clients. A calendar of downtimes is sent in advance to clients. Server maintenance periods will be suspended during high-use months such as December and April/May.
|
>
|
All scheduled application/server outages are communicated to clients as early as possible to minimize service disruption.
|
>
|
All AMS hosting servers are backed up nightly to preserve a copy of the CoursEval application environment(s).
|
>
|
These backups are stored offsite from our server co-location facility, and redundant copies are maintained in two physically separate locations (one in our offices in Amherst, NY, one on Amazon's S3 storage service--where all backup files are encrypted). Individual backups are retained for 30 days then are overwritten. In the event a restoration is needed, AMS will pull the appropriate backup file (within the 30-day window), and then will attempt to restore only the lost data; however, this is not always possible and then the client must decide if they want their entire site 'rolled back' to a previous point in time.
|
