Brief MySQL scheduled maintenance May 3-6, 2017, for some servers (completed)

We’re continuing the process of upgrading our MySQL database servers from the 5.5 series to the MySQL 5.6 series (specifically, from version 5.5.54 to 5.6.36).

The upgrade requires that each Web server be taken offline for approximately 60 seconds, causing brief scheduled “downtime”.

Over the next few days, we’ll be updating these web servers:

• Wednesday May 3, 10:00-11:59 PM Pacific: servers ending in digit “5” (completed)
• Thursday May 4, 10:00-11:59 PM Pacific: servers ending in digit “4” (completed)
• Friday May 5, 10:00-11:59 PM Pacific: servers ending in digits “2” and “3” (completed)
• Saturday May 6, 10:00-11:59 PM Pacific: servers ending in digits “0” and “1” (completed)

(Servers ending in digits 6-9 have already been updated.)

So, for example, the “web14” server will be updated on May 4, and the “web01” server will be updated on May 6. This page explains how to find which server a site is on.

Although each server’s upgrade will happen at some point between 10 PM and 11:59 PM Pacific time, the Web server will only be unavailable for about a minute at some point during that period, not the whole time.

We’ll post a banner on all the pages of our site while the maintenance is happening. E-mail service will not be interrupted in any way.

We apologize for the inconvenience this causes. We try to avoid any interruption in service, but the MySQL upgrade cannot be done without brief downtime.

After the upgrade, customers should notice no difference in how their site works. Any software that worked properly with MySQL 5.5.54 should work the same with MySQL 5.6.36.