There is going to be some down-time on all Nexus sites and the forums this week as we work to move our databases over to our new cluster setup. Each site needs to be taken offline while a “dump” of the database can be created, transferred to the cluster and then imported in to the cluster database setup. The sites obviously have to go offline during this process so no new content is lost between the time when we make the dump and the time until the import process is fully completed.

The total down time will depend entirely on the site being transferred at the time. The forums, Skyrim, both Fallout sites and Oblivion are going to take longer than the other sites as they have a lot more content to transfer over. The forums and Skyrim should take 4 hours each while the other sites might take less time. Either way you’ll know when the transfer is happening as the site will be taken offline, with a message to that effect, during the process.

It’s my utmost hope (and no doubt yours too) that, through this transfer to our cluster, the reliability issues with the servers is going to be a thing of the past. For good. If all goes to plan this weekend should be the last weekend of stability issues for the Nexus and we can move on to doing what we actually want to do; making the service better for everyone and expanding our reach to all games so anyone can use the Nexus for modding if they so wish. We’ll also be far more DDoS proof due to the distributed nature of our own server setup that will mean we can shift load between many different servers ensuring any attack will have to split the botnet being used considerably in order to cause any down time.

I’ll hold off on thanking you for your patience during this trying time until we can confirm that this is going to be the solution to all our problems but our initial testing has been very positive, so now it’s time to take the plunge and hope for the best.

Down time starts tomorrow (Monday) morning, starting with the forums.