This is being done because: a) Microsoft is retiring F-series servers on 15 November 2029; and b) extended support for Windows Server 2016 finishes on 12 January 2027. Therefore, rather than just updating the operating system now, it makes more sense to completely replace the servers because the data server is also experiencing storage and contention problems.

I'm expecting the site and forum to remain available throughout. When the DNS is switched over to the new servers, the transition should be almost instant. However, some charts and data services may be briefly unavailable.

There should be no impact for Premium members, although it may be necessary to log in again, though, and this could also apply to the forum.

With the above said, this is the biggest upgrade we've done since October 2018, so there is the potential for problems to occur.

Good luck with that and I hope that everything goes well. Upgrading hardware is something which we all have to do on an occasional basis, and that applies all the way up from a single individual home user such as myself to the largest enterprise businesses in the world. I'm sure though, that you will have a good system in place for either recycling your old hardware or selling it on so that it has some use elsewhere. You will no doubt also won't need me to say that anything is better than having to send anything to landfill unnecessarily, especially given that we are all trying to work together to reduce CO2 emissions and thus help to minimise the effects of ongoing climate change.

Changes to any system always brings new issues. As a programmer, I will always spend a lot of time fixing bugs. At the same time, we always want to improve things as much as we can. That will usually involve creating and introducing new features but that in itself, will always introduce new bugs which then also need to be fixed. This means that when when major changes are being made to any system, it always takes time for that to properly fall into place and work in the manner in which it is intended to work, so I hope that everyone on here will therefore make some allowances for that.

As for the forum, I know you have always said that it has always been quite low down in your list of business priorities. Nevertheless, it has had its recent bugs which as an example, can on the odd random occasion, result in a server error message when I'm trying to post something. As another example, I have heard others (even among your team of moderators) who have talked about duplicate posts or even threads being created in certain situations. Despite the forum being low in your list of priorities though, I'm still confident that this issues will be ironed out over time as this impending upgrade progresses.

1. The servers are fully virtualized and sitting in UK data centres, so I've not actually own any hardware since 2018.

2. I'm aware of this issue and have spent time trying to resolve, unsuccessfully so far. However, I have put measures in place to mitigate it, and will investigate further once everything has settled down on the new servers