Update: The maintenance went as planned.
tl;dr; Planned service interruption that will impact Stack Exchange Data Explorer (SEDE). The site will be inaccessible for up to 12 hours on February 5, 2020 starting at 2:00pm UTC.
Short Version:
There will be an extended service outage for up to 12 hours starting at 2pm UTC (9am US/Eastern) on February 5, 2020. During this time only the Stack Exchange Data Explorer will be inaccessible. This maintenance will not impact Stack Overflow, the Stack Exchange sites, Jobs, Chat, Teams, or any Enterprise cloud hosted instances.
Longer Version
What we'll be doing
Currently, the SQL Server for the Data Explorer is running Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2017. I am slowly upgrading our servers to SQL Server 2019, and in order to upgrade the server for SEDE, I need to upgrade the operating system. During this maintenance window, I will be doing the following:
- Upgrading the operating system to Windows Server 2016
- Installing SQL Server 2019
- Setting up the databases for querying which might involve having to refresh the databases (a lengthy process)
Yes, the outage window is long. This is because I’m baking in some buffer time for issues that might come up, including the need to refresh the databases. Typically the databases are refreshed every Sunday and it takes about 7 hours to complete. I’m hoping we won’t have to refresh the databases after steps 1 and 2, but I won’t know until after I get SQL Server 2019 installed and can confirm that the databases survived the maintenance without issue.
Questions or concerns?
Please post a comment or answer below; I’ll do my best to address any concerns between now and the maintenance window.