And you thought we’d all disappeared...

Regular website visitors may have noticed that the tutor2u blogs have been quiet in the last week or so. Bet you thought we’d all jetted off to hob-nob with the celebs on their credit-crunch-busting winter holidays in the Caribbean? No chance. No we’ve been doing something much more exciting than that…

It has taken over a week, but we’ve finally completed the installation of tutor2u onto a new-fangled, turbo-charged web-server thingee-me-jib

For the technically minded amongst you, what we’ve invested in is a load-balanced server cluster, incorporating separate dedicated database and file servers with multiple load-balanced web nodes, powered by Dell Dual Core and Dual Xeon Processors. Impressed? We were, though we’re still not entirely sure what we’ve bought…

We tried to get one cheap from PC World, but just missed the last one in the sale. So we’ve teamed up with some new web host partners in the US, working alongside Bruce, our new web programmer. Now Bruce really does know his stuff, so we’ve given him the keys.

In case you don’t believe us, there is a picture of our new facility below.

What does it all mean?

In the very short-run, to quote Paul Daniels, “not a lot”! Hopefully the website content will load much faster (once we’ve worked out how to drive the machine!). But more importantly, this investment is the platform for a significant expansion of our resources and support for tutor2u customers. You may have noticed that the old servers just couldnt cope with the site traffic, which was no fun for anyone. Our new server platform takes us up a notch or two (or more) in terms of capacity and hopefully performance too.

We’re conscious that we need to catch up with some things over the next few weeks (Business Cafe being top of the list), and then it is full steam ahead with some great new blog-based resources for you all.

Now, where do we stick this loose cable?