Folks:
I simply wanted to bring what had happened over the last couple of days to a formal close.
I don't think I need to say that VPhot is back up and running. Anyone who uses it on any sort of regular basis should know that by now since you folks have been waiting. That VPhot is up and running now is very largely due to the magnificent work of Geir Klingenberg, and I cannot thank him enough.
We have been able to retrieve a good majority of the images that were in people's accounts. We have immediately instituted a backup of the mySQL database to an EBS drive in order to not lose sequences again. I am looking at also regularly backing up the computer Instance itself (apparently not as easy to do with Windows as it is with Linux...at least if the amount of documentation says anything).
The good news from what I've been hearing is that the decision to reconstitute the server on upgraded hardware (originally we were going to do a parallel node) was over and above the right thing to do. Not only is the processing being done faster, but I've been receiving reports that VPhot analysis itself, including the time-expensive operations like stacking, are FAR faster than they were on Tuesday.
Again, I'd like to thank Geir for his very hard work under far less than ideal conditions (the man had a cold, in fact!), and the patience of our members and observers as we worked through this difficulty.
Thank you, all!
--
Richard "Doc" Kinne, [KQR]
Astronomical Technologist
American Association of Variable Star Observers
1911-2011: A Steady Century Monitoring Variable Stars!