Posts Tagged: service status

Network Expansion – Feb/Mar 2023

We’re upgrading and expanding our MIDAS network!

We’re adding additional new client nodes in Europe (in Amsterdam, Netherlands), and on the West Coast of the US (in Seattle, Washington).

We’ll also be upgrading existing client nodes in our East Coast US data center (in Atlanta, Georgia) too.

We're adding new data center locations on the West Coast USA and in Europe
We’re adding new data center locations on the West Coast USA and in Europe

Why are we doing this?

As part of our continued commitment to the service we provide, we’re investing in new additional hardware, upgrading older hardware, and expanding our network infrastructure.

What are the benefits?

Our network expansion is designed to further improve the speed and performance of existing cloud-hosted MIDAS systems.

By relocating cloud-hosted customer’s MIDAS systems to data centers which are geographically closer to them, faster communication speed between an end-user’s device and their MIDAS system can be achieved.

As a result, customers should notice that their MIDAS systems will load and respond quicker than before.

For new cloud-hosted customers, going forward our network expansion will also mean that we can offer a choice of data center for where their hosted MIDAS system will reside.

What’s happening and when?

Our network expansion and upgrades are scheduled to take place during February and March 2023. The work is being done in 5 phases, which are outlined below:

Phase 1: (Expected completion: End of February 2023)

The first phase of our network expansion involves provisioning new client nodes in Amsterdam, Netherlands and in Seattle, Washington.

Phase 2: (Expected completion: End of March 2023)

Once the new client nodes are up and running, the second phase involves migrating existing cloud-hosted customer’s MIDAS systems to the new Amsterdam or Seattle nodes where appropriate.

For example, if a customer is geographically closer to one of these new locations than they are to the current East Coast US node where their MIDAS system resides, we’ll move them to a closer node.

Phase 3: (Expected completion: End of March 2023)

Once applicable existing clients have been relocated onto the Amsterdam or Seattle nodes, phase 3 sees a reorganization of existing client nodes located in our East Coast US data center (in Atlanta, Georgia).

We’ll be retiring some older client nodes in this data center after we’ve moved customers to the new West Coast and EU nodes. The remaining East Coast US client nodes will be consolidated, which will mean that some customers may move nodes within the East Coast US data center.

Phase 4: (Expected completion: End of March 2023)

The forth phase of our expansion plan sees an upgrade to the server hardware which runs our main website, blog, and our public demo and private trial systems.

Phase 5: (Expected completion: End of April 2023)

The final phase of our network expansion sees the upgrading of remaining East Coast US client nodes to bring their hardware up to date and in line with the new nodes in the West Coast US and EU data centers.

Will there be any downtime?

We do not envisage any loss of access to our customer’s cloud hosted MIDAS systems during these network upgrades.

However, when we migrate a customer’s MIDAS system to a new node, we’ll temporarily place their system running on the old node into “Maintenance Mode” whilst the migration to the new node is performed.

“Maintenance Mode” essentially puts a MIDAS system into a special “read only” state. So you’ll retain full access to all your booking information, but won’t be able to make any changes.

Once the migration to the new node is complete, your MIDAS system will come out of “Maintenance Mode”, and you can continue using the software again as normal.

We anticipate that any “Maintenance Mode” period will last less than one hour.

We plan to carry out migrations at a time when a customer’s MIDAS system is typically least active (i.e. in the middle of the night)

We’ll also notify the “Primary Contact” we have on record in advance of any server migration and provide an estimated time when their migration will take place.

Can I choose which data center my MIDAS system will reside?

We’ll be contacting all existing cloud-hosted customers by email in advance if their MIDAS system is proposed to be migrated to a different data center. We’ll provide details of the data center we propose to move their MIDAS system to, and an estimate on when their migration will take place.

Customers will have a chance to respond to these emails to request a different data center, or that their cloud-hosted MIDAS system remains in their current data center.

Where can I get updates on the progress of these network upgrades?

We have a dedicated page over on our Service Status site, that we’ll continually update during these network expansion and upgrade works.

What if I have further questions?

If you have any questions or concerns in relation to our network expansion, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us, and we’ll be happy to help!


As part of our ongoing commitment to the services we provide to our “cloud hosted” customers, we’ll shortly be upgrading our client servers to support HTTP/2.

HTTP/2 is the first major new version of the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) for two decades. It will eventually replace the previous HTTP/1.1 protocol which was standardized way back in 1997.

The primary goal of HTTP/2 is to overcome many of the shortcomings of the twenty-year old HTTP/1.1 protocol, particularly in relation to how content is delivered over the internet.

HTTP/2 focuses on optimizing the communication and flow of content between web servers and web browsers. When a user connects to a web site, their browser negotiates an HTTP session with the server. The type of session created will vary depending on the features supported by the browser and the server. If both ends support the latest HTTP/2 protocol, the server uses the HTTP/2 protocol to shape and optimize traffic before it passes through the network back to the browser.

Once the browser and server agree to use HTTP/2, they can utilize additional features such as compression and multiplexing to optimize the connection. If either the web server or the user’s web browser doesn’t support HTTP/2, the connection will fall back to the HTTP/1.1 protocol.

Benefits of HTTP/2

One of the main improvements over HTTP/1.1 is that HTTP/2 uses simultaneous connections (or multiplexing). Previously only one resource can be fetched from the server at a time. However with HTTP/2 multiple resources can be fetched over a single connection concurrently.

Another benefit is header optimization. Every request over HTTP contains header information. With HTTP/1.1, many of these headers are repeated over a single session. HTTP/2 removes redundant headers while compressing the remaining headers, leading to performance improvements.

Benefits to cloud-hosted MIDAS users

In terms of MIDAS, the benefit of our client servers supporting HTTP/2 is that users will see notable improvements in page load speed and responsiveness when using MIDAS.

In our pre-testing, we saw page load times via HTTP/2 improve by some 20% over the same pages loaded via HTTP/1.1

When will the upgrade happen?

We’ll be upgrading our client servers to support HTTP/2 over the coming weekend (15/16th July 2017). Other than a quick server restart, no additional downtime is expected. For more information, check our dedicated Service Status site (which already supports HTTP/2!), and follow us on Twitter for updates.

Will I need to do anything?

No action is required on your part!

If you’re running a modern operating system and web browser, you won’t need to do anything. Your browser will already support HTTP/2, and you’ll still access MIDAS in exactly the same way. Once our servers are HTTP/2 enabled over the weekend, your browser will adjust accordingly.

If you’re not running an HTTP/2 compliant browser/operating system don’t worry, you’ll still be able to connect to your hosted MIDAS system over HTTP/1.1 as before. For an improved MIDAS experience though, you may like to consider upgrading your operating system & browser to one that supports HTTP/2.

  • Edge Chrome Firefox Current versions of Edge, Chrome, and Firefox browsers fully support HTTP/2.
  • Safari Current versions of Safari support HTTP/2 on OSX 10.11+
  • Internet Explorer Internet Explorer 11+ supports HTTP/2 on Windows 10 only

UPDATE: Our network is now fully HTTP/2 enabled, and we’re seeing some great performance improvements too!


Improving our dedicated Service Status site

We know that keeping our customers informed and updated with timely information which may affect their service is paramount.

That’s why we have a separate, dedicated Service Status site providing an instant overview of the current status of the global MIDAS network at any given time, as well as details of any upcoming scheduled maintenance.

You’ll find our dedicated service status site at http://midas.network – and it’s worth bookmarking if you’re a “cloud hosted” customer.

Our Service Status site is continually updated – both automatically by our own internal monitoring systems, and manually by our staff.

Today we’re launching a couple of improvements to our Service Status site, where you’ll now find new status information on the performance of our Priority Support service and Live Sales Chat.

MIDAS Service Status

Our dedicated Service Status site now provides information on the current status of the following services:

  • Main Site – Indicates the current status of our main website, https://mid.as
  • Client Servers – Indicates the current status of the servers for our “cloud hosted” customers
  • Client Backup Servers – Indicates the current status of the backup servers for our “cloud hosted” customers with the optional Emergency Access Addon
  • Mail Servers – Indicates the current status of our email servers
  • Priority Support – Monitors the current responsiveness of our Priority Support service for customers with ongoing Annual Support Subscriptions
  • Live Sales Chat – Monitors the current status and responsiveness of the Live Sales Chat feature on our main website.

The Traffic Light System

We use a simple “traffic light” system on our Service Status site to make it easy to see at a glance the current status of our various services.

Green A green light indicates a service is performing normally and there are presently no issues.
Amber An amber light indicates that a service is currently working, but isn’t performing optimally.
Red A red light indicates a service is currently experiencing a temporary fault/outage.

We post Service Status updates on Twitter too!

MIDAS on Twitter In addition to our dedicated Service Status site, we also post service status updates and upcoming scheduled maintenance notifications on our Twitter feed.
You’ll find us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mid_as


We’re Improving Our “Hosted” Service

As part of our ongoing commitment to the “cloud hosted” MIDAS service we provide to nearly 60% of our customers, we’re shortly going to be performing some exciting upgrades. These upgrades will further enhance the speed and performance of our systems, and therefore also of our customer’s “cloud hosted” booking systems!

What we’re doing…

This coming weekend (21-22 September 2013), we’ll be upgrading our server hardware and network infrastructure, specifically in the following areas:
  • Traditional mechanical hard drives are being replaced with state-of-the-art, super-fast SSD’s (solid state drives)
  • Our network connection is being migrated from Tier 3 to Tier 1, and the uplink speed is being upgraded from 100Mb to 1Gb
  • We’re increasing server memory by a factor of FIVE!
  • We’re upgrading our powerful Intel® Xeon® CPU’s from 8 to 10-core
Five times more memory
10-Core Intel Xeon Processors

What impact will these upgrades have?

We do not envisage any loss of access to “remotely hosted” editions of MIDAS during this upgrade period, however, for a short period over the coming weekend, these editions of MIDAS will be temporarily put into “Maintenance Mode”.

“Maintenance Mode” essentially puts MIDAS into a “read-only” state – but users will still be able to login and view bookings during this period!

You’ll know when your MIDAS is running in “Maintenance Mode”, as this will be indicated on your MIDAS login screen.

Once the upgrades are complete, “Maintenance Mode” will be switched off, and full access to MIDAS will again be available.

We apologize for any inconvenience this upgrade process may cause, but thank you for your understanding as we work to improve the service we provide to you!

Get Service Status Updates MIDAS on Twitter@mid_as

If you’re a “cloud hosted” customer, we’d encourage you and your users to follow us on Twitter.

If there’s ever any upcoming maintenance planned, or service status updates, that may affect your “hosted” MIDAS service access, we’ll post details to our Twitter feed.

We also now have a dedicated Service Status page, where you can find details of any current issues or upcoming maintenance.

UPDATE: 21st September 12:45 UTC – Network & Server Upgrades Now Fully Complete!