[Onkel Neal]

For those who weren't aware of the near disaster in Oct 2020, I have updated the SUBSIM History with a summary, starting October 2020.

TLR It was really stressful!

Oct. 12, 2020 - Neal and other users get a Malwarebytes warning of a possible issue when accessing the site. Neal shuts down the site and contacts Steven Ciaburri, System administrator and owner of Rack911, the service used for the SUBSIM servers since May 2012. Although Steven was a server ninja and always managed to fix any hairy problems in the past, over the last few years Steven had become less and less responsive when contacted for support. In this case, 48 hours pass without action and Neal engages another server security firm to do a full scan of the server. The third party security team spends 6 hours checking and gets Malwarebytes Security involved. It turns out to be a common false alarm, there was never any kind of hazard or risk for users of the site. Both the security team and Malwarebytes gives the server a 100% secure rating.

Oct 24-30, 2020 - Neal decides that Steven Ciaburri has mentally checked out and is obviously no longer professionally involved with his company and customers. Neal decides it’s time to move the site to a more active and reliable host before something happens that cannot be recovered. After a lengthy evaluation, he chooses Liquid Web and a complete migration is performed. The forum is upgraded to the latest 3.8.11 version by Dave at technidev.com and all functionality restored.

Since the legacy Content Management System is no longer supported or updated and will not function with the newest php, Neal converts the main page to the standard WordPress system and moves the news and forum archive to a satellite site, subsim.site.

Oct 31, 2020 - After a week of intensive work the migration and upgrades are complete.

Nov 3, 2020 – After two weeks out of communication, Rack911 replies to the support ticket entered in mid-October:

Sorry for the issues. Where do we stand here?
Regards,
Steven Ciaburri
Sr. System administrator

Neal replies that it is no longer an issue since Subsim is now hosted on Liquid Web and wishes Steven well....


Nov 18, 2020 – Two weeks later, Neal receives this email from Rack911:

Rack911 Customers,

I regret to inform you there has been a fatal accident involving Steve, some of you are already aware and some of you may not be. My name is Jon Juliano I have been a friend of Steve’s for many years so I’m taking this task to reach out to all of you to ensure your transition is as smooth as possible whether you have hosted servers or strictly server management. Steve was a very talented individual and well respected in the hosting industry so it would be a tough task to find his replacement, that being said I have chosen an individual with equal respect and talent in the hosting industry that would be able to provide you assistance if you choose. I will leave my contact info below as well as Scott Mcintyre with admingeekz.com. Please don’t hesitate to reach out for any concerns or questions. As for servers hosted with Rack911 this is a very time sensitive issue we do not have control over the Inter connects so all migrations need to be done ASAP.

Best Regards,
Jon Juliano

Scott Mcintyre
www.admingeekz.com

It appears the disaster and lack of support from Rack911 was a blessing in disguise since it prompted Neal to migrated SUBSIM from Rack911 a few weeks before Rack911 went under. Can you believe it?

Steven was a tremendous individual whose server skills were unmatched. He had apparently lost interest in Internet management and had become a serious diesel truck performance enthusiast. On Nov. 11, 2020 he was killed in a vehicle accident. He was 33. No other details can be found. While his lack of support at the end was regrettable, Steven had managed several crucial assists to the SUBSIM Team early on. He will be missed. RIP Steven.

Two years later and the Rack911 website is still up although it is no longer a business.