MHLS Hosting Update:
Sierra & Encore Moving to Amazon Web Services (AWS)
WHAT IS AWS AND WHY ARE WE MOVING?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform and a market leader in the field of Infrastructure as a service. Innovative, our ILS vendor, currently hosts our Sierra server in their Syracuse Data center. Over the last year they have been transitioning their hosted customers from their regional datacenters to AWS. The advantage to customers is raised security and improved infrastructure and redundancy.
WHEN WILL THIS MOVE OCCUR?
The scheduled date for our move is September 25th. It will begin shortly after midnight and is expected to be completed by 6:30 AM.
WHAT WILL MHLS BE DOING?
Staff at MHLS will be working to ensure a smooth transition to AWS in the following ways:
- Our move to AWS will require an IP address change. We will be reaching out to every vendor who authenticates through our IP or uses the Patron API. We will provide them with the new address 30 days in advance of the move, work through any processes with them early on and confirm an “day of the move” edits that need to happen.
- Our Domain name will not change. The server domain will still be midhudsonlibraries.org for sierra and search.midhudsonlibraries.com for Encore. MHLS will change the Domain address as soon as the current service is shut down. This will give ample time for the Domain name to be established at the new address before libraries open.
- MHLS will monitor the move and begin testing early to provide assurances that move was successful and the Sierra system is ready for business.
During the day of the move, MHLS will perform comprehensive testing of Sierra functions to confirm continued normal services.
IS THERE ANYTHING THE LIBRARY NEEDS TO DO?
At this time there is nothing that the libraries must do. A final edit after the move is complete must be done for the libraries using Envisionware and Comprise. Each of those vendors has agreed to make the changes early that morning, so it is in place when the libraries open. On the day of the move you should test access to resources that require authentication, particularly those available to only your library or county.
Please review the list of vendors below. If you don’t see a vendor that authenticates through Sierra that should be added, please let us know. Each has been made aware of our move and a plan is in place to ensure that there is no disruption of service.
Comprise, Envisionware, Ebsco, Gale, Grolier, OCLC, Wilson, Brainpop, Proquest, Learning Express, Tumble books, Mergent, A2Z, JobNow, Credo, Mango, Newsbank, Valueline, Cypress resume, CQ Researcher, Reference USA (RBDigital uses barcode prefix).
Innovative has had a great deal of experience in this process and we have a solid plan with each third-party vendor for the move. We still need your participation in reporting anything out of order after the move by emailing techsupport@midhudson.org.all