We have scheduled an upgrade of our R1Soft Server Backup (formerly Idera Server Backup or R1Soft CDP) platform software on cdp01.steadfast.net to version 6.4.1.  This upgrade introduces a significantly redesigned user interface with improved performance.  The new user interface renames "Servers" to "Protected Machines" and simplifies the management of policies and disk safes for each machine.  The concept of archive points was converted to "Retention Points" and allows easy management of recovery points kept at specific time intervals such as monthly or daily.

This upgrade is being performed during the daytime, mid-week, because it is the lowest utilization period.

Date: Tuesday, August 8th, 2017
Start Time: 2:00 PM CDT (GMT -5)
End Time: 3:00 PM CDT (GMT -5)
Maintenance Scope: cdp01.steadfast.net Backup Server

Customer Impact:

Backups will not be performed and restoration services will be unavailable during the maintenance period. This maintenance will not impact customer equipment or services other than backup tasks.

It is safe to upgrade the agent to version 6.4.1 before the manager has been upgraded.  There are no important changes to the agent in this release.

As this upgrade includes changes from multiple releases, the full official release notes may be viewed in the following articles:

• 5.14.4
• 6.2.1
• 6.2.2
• 6.4.1

If you have any questions regarding this maintenance, or for assistance in upgrading the agent on your server(s), please feel free to contact us via our helpdesk or by email.

We have scheduled an upgrade of our internal email system.

Date: Sunday, June 4th, 2017
Start Time: 12:00 AM CDT (GMT -5)
End Time: 1:00 AM CDT (GMT -5)
Maintenance Scope: Steadfast Email System (all steadfast.net email addresses)

Customer Impact:

During the maintenance, steadfast.net email addresses may be unavailable for up to 1 hour.  Email support requests will not be received promptly, but they will be processed when they are received after the maintenance completes.  This may cause temporary error messages and delayed responses to emailed tickets and ticket replies.

This maintenance will not impact any customer services or customer email systems.

If you need assistance during the maintenance, or if you have any questions about this planned work, please contact us via our helpdesk or by calling (312) 602-2689 or (888) 281-9449.

We have scheduled an upgrade of our cloud hosting control panel server (https://vm.steadfast.net).  This maintenance will upgrade the software to a new major version which fixes many bugs, adds new features and improves performance.

Date: Sunday, March 19th, 2017
Start Time: 12:00 AM CDT (GMT -6)
End Time: 4:00 AM CDT (GMT -6)
Maintenance Scope: Cloud Hosting Control Panel at https://vm.steadfast.net

Customer Impact:

Access to information about and control of VMs will be unavailable for part of this maintenance.  Both customers and staff will be unable to provision, control, or view system details of VMs and related resources.  No impact is expected to running VMs and support and billing systems will remain available for the entire window.

There are no significant user-visible changes in this release.

There are some new features added in this release which will not be enabled immediately upon upgrade.  We will provide additional information to customers if and when we decide to enable any of these in the future.

If you have any questions or need assistance during the upgrade, please visit our help desk or email us.

We have scheduled an upgrade of our internal email system.

Date: Sunday, February 12th, 2017
Start Time: 1:00 AM CST (GMT -6)
End Time: 2:00 AM CST (GMT -6)
Maintenance Scope: Steadfast Email System (all steadfast.net email addresses)

Customer Impact:

During the maintenance, steadfast.net email addresses may be unavailable for up to 1 hour.  Email support requests will not be received promptly, but they will be processed when they are received after the maintenance completes.  This may cause temporary error messages and delayed responses to emailed tickets and ticket replies.

This maintenance will not impact any customer services or customer email systems.

If you need assistance during the maintenance, or if you have any questions about this planned work, please contact us via our helpdesk or by calling (312) 602-2689 or (888) 281-9449.

We have scheduled an upgrade of our help desk software (https://support.steadfast.net).  This update addresses minor bugs.

Date: Sunday, February 12th, 2017
Start Time: 12:00 AM CST (GMT -6)
End Time: 1:00 AM CST (GMT -6)
Maintenance Scope: Help Desk at https://support.steadfast.net

Customer Impact:

The ability to submit tickets via email and the help desk, as well as the ability to view existing tickets and knowledgebase articles will be unavailable during parts of the maintenance.  Any requests submitted via email will be processed immediately after the maintenance is complete.

While the maintenance window has been set for 1 hour, we expect the upgrade process will take less than 15 minutes to complete.  We are allowing extra time for testing and to tend to any unexpected issues that may occur.

If you need urgent assistance during the upgrade, please call us at (312) 602-2689.

Note: This is rescheduled from an earlier maintenance attempt that could not be completed due to a hardware issue.  The planned changes have been adjusted to eliminate the hardware problem during the maintenance.

We are performing maintenance on our Linux shell-based backup server shell01.backup.steadfast.net to upgrade the operating system from CentOS 5 to CentOS 7.  This maintenance has been scheduled during the afternoon in order to reduce impact on regular backup traffic.

Date: Thursday, January 5th, 2016
Start Time: 2:00 PM CST
End Time: 5:00 PM CST
Maintenance Scope: Shell-based backup server "shell01.backup.steadfast.net"

Customer Impact:

The server and related data will be inaccessible during maintenance.  No other services will be impacted, including any other type of backup services.

During the maintenance, the server will be shut down, upgraded according to an existing tested plan, then restored to normal operation.  All existing user accounts and data will be preserved and procedures for use of the system should remain unchanged.

If you have any questions regarding this maintenance, or for assistance in upgrading the agent on your server(s), please feel free to contact us via our helpdesk or by email.