Friday evening I will be replacing the existing web server. The new server will utilize the same hardware infrastructure (i7-6700k at 4.2 Ghz) but will differ in software.
The operating system will change from CentOS 6.7 to Ubuntu 15.10.
MySQL and PHP will be native to the distribution instead of compiled separately which should eliminate some compatibility issues that are presently breaking redis which is used by ownCloud causing the loss of some ownCloud functionality.
The new mysql installation will utilize a native mysql driver which is more tightly integrated and this will improve response time for LAMP applications slightly. The current average response time is 100ms, this should shave a few off of that.
Initially display_errors and display_startup_errors will be turned on so I can check out and debug the new machine after it is turned up. Unfortunately, some debugging can not be done until it is online and serving traffic. In particular phpMyAdmin is not functioning yet but it may be because of the domain.
There will be some downtime involved because I have to dump the existing MySQL databases, copy them to the new server, and import them into the MySQL on that machine. Also I will need to change the IP address and the loading of virtual machine addresses because there can’t be more than one machine listening to a given IP address at a time.
I was able to resolve the problem with wu-ftpd so no ftp function will be lost in this upgrade.
This will make future upgrades less service interrupting because Ubuntu can be updated live where CentOS can not, at least not with applications or third party software installed.
It will make it easier to bring modern web applications online because the kernel and libraries will be current instead of 3-1/2 years old now as is the case with CentOS.
I will post to News (here) when the new machine is online so that if you notice any problems you can generate a ticket (Support->Tickets). If you generate a ticket please be sure to include the URL that is not being served correctly.