Blog

Web Site Updates

This morning I moved the database backing the Muonics web site to a new server–part of our on-going (but thankfully almost complete!) IT infrastructure upgrades that have been consuming so much of my time of late. I haven’t seen any problems with the site yet, but if you notice any that aren’t resolved quickly, please do let me know (either by comment or email to support).

The web site itself will also be moving to a new server soon, once we’ve got email services integrated with our LDAP server (another of many upgrades to our internal systems I hope to write about in the articles section soon). Then we can retire the old server hardware that’s been in operation since 2001 when our flagship product, MIB Smithy, was just a spark of an idea.

I’m totally amped to get the last of this migration done. For one thing, I’ve been feeling a bit down on myself for getting behind on product development and neglecting to get the articles section rolling (too many commitments over the last year or two), and it will free up time to get back into it. But mainly I’m amped because of all the potential for reducing drag.

Internally, I’m looking forward a ton of automation, ability to handle and delegate to more staff, room for expansion, speed and capabilities that moving all our x86 platforms to high-end hardware running VMware Server will provide.

Externally, you can soon expect IPv6 and 64-bit platform support for our products and speeding our release cycle back up. We’re bringing the popular FogBugz bug/support tracker online with the last bit of web/email server migration, and I hope to have it integrated directly into our products soon thereafter. Since we’ve outgrown our current bug/feature tracking systems, and email inquiries aren’t currently handled directly through a tracker, this should be a big improvement in our planning, scheduling, and handling of such inquiries.

Overall I’m excited because all of these changes, while they’ve been time consuming and occasionally frustrating, represent a whole new chapter for Muonics: one that will feel to me much less like a startup and much more like a well-oiled machine.