The Pacific Northwest is known for naturally temperate and cool weather. It rarely gets very cold, or very hot, with weather moderated by our proximity to the North Pacific Ocean. This environment makes for an ideal location for operating a datacenter as it allows the use of "free cooling", that is using filtered outside air for facility cooling. This keeps power usage low, conserving energy.

This week however the region has been hit with a very unusual heat wave. Right now the temperature has reached an all-time record high of 101˚F (38˚C) and it could get hotter. This is very tough on the residents as air conditioning is a rare thing in most houses and many office buildings. Here at digital.forest we've invested in cooling infrastructure to be specifically prepared for days like this. Our datacenter cooling systems are designed to use outside air when it is cool enough, but can switch to mechanical cooling when required. Today while it is 101˚F outside, it remains in the mid-60s in the digital.forest datacenters.

The photo above was taken just a few minutes ago in datacenter three.

As always, we're here, keeping a close eye on things, monitoring conditions and staying cool.

Butternut's upgrades are complete and the system is running. Our standard tests have been successful, but if you discover anything on your site that is no longer working properly, please contact support and we will address your issue as quickly as possible.

Note that PHP was upgraded to 5.2.10, not the brand-new 5.3.0. As 5.3.0 is a more significant upgrade, we will announce several weeks in advance before performing that upgrade, so that you will have time to examine the release notes and determine whether you need to make any code changes.

Thank you for your patience during this upgrade.

As announced on July 6, butternut.forest.net is now going down for scheduled maintenance. Please expect intermittent downtime for the next several hours. We will post again when the upgrades are complete.

Fifteen years ago today on July 12th, 1994 digital.forest was "born." It has been a privilege to serve our amazing and fantastic clients over those years. We look forward to a prosperous future for everyone associated with digital.forest; staff and clients. We would not be here without you.

****** SERVICE IMPACTING UPDATE ******

On Monday, July 13th beginning at 22:00 hrs PST we will perform several software updates on butternut.forest.net. We anticipate this outage to last approximately four to six hours.

The updates include the base operating system and several core components. These are minor code revisions and should not cause any significant impact beyond the maintenance window.

The Sales, Billing, and Customer Service departments of digital.forest will be closed from 5:00 PM today, through the weekend, opening at 8:00 AM Monday, July 6th.

Technical Support will remain on-site throughout the holiday.

Our building and campus will be closed from 5 PM today through 8 am, Monday July 6th. During that time clients wishing access to the datacenter will need to contact digital.forest Technical Support for building access.

All of us here at digital.forest wish you and yours a very happy Independence Day!