We’re back, new PamFax3 fully working
We’ve made it, PamFax3 is alive and kicking!
This time it was much longer than we had even dreamt of, but this was caused by a few server settings which our hosting partner fixed.
Thanks for hanging in during the upgrade process. I know some of you had a hard time when PamFax was offline.
Let me explain a bit why this update was so important and complex.
It all started last week when our hoster updated our server park to a full load balanced cluster. This was needed to cope with the increase in traffic we have had the past year. PamFax3 is much more efficient when it comes to scaling up so we decided now is a good time to put new hardware in as we need to do the upgrade anyway.
Then after the upgrade there were settings to be checked, etc. This took time. Then on Monday late afternoon (European time), we took PamFax offline. The team started to convert the databases and migrate users data to the new system. This is a huge amount of data so it took time. We unfortunately had to take PamFax offline to do this.
We did the databse conversion with the help of Amazon EC2 cloud servers, we had up to 15 running at a time!
After this we upgraded the core systems. These being the various modules PamFax consists of. PamFax3 is a complete new development and not a mere upgrade as the version number might imply.
Based on our experience and close monitoring of the PamFax2 system, we started designing PamFax3 back in summer last year. We wanted to have a very modular and scalable system which is able to process a lot of data and grow with us. We designed the system from scratch with these and other requirements in mind.
So, after the usual birth pains we’re now up and running. Thank you for hanging in during the upgrade process, I know it was not easy for some of you. I still hope you will forgive us this time as we do not do updates regularly (last one was PamFax2 in April 2009). We designed PamFax3 in such a way that we do not anticipate having to take the system down anymore!
You may now ask, what does PamFax3 offer? Well, first of all blazing fast fax delivery. In addition we redid the PamFax Portal design to be easier to use. There is also a new login/sign up screen. You can now login with your OpenID, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and a bunch of other accounts. In addition many small improvements and features were added. The PamFax BCP was renamed to “My Company” to make the company group faxing capability a bit clearer.
Last but not least, in June/July we will also be adding a new client application of PamFax for Android.
For partners we now have the PamFax API, this allows you to fully embed the PamFax functionality easily and quickly into your application or device. We already have a few project going and plan to announce them soon. If you are interested to join, let us know. The same faxing cost model applies to the API as when using PamFax – however no additional charges are made when using the API.
We are very excited to have PamFax3 and hope you will enjoy our efforts. We’re back now with a very powerful platform and based on it we have many plans and ideas for new stuff. Stay tuned!
[...] the past week Scendix, producer of the cloud-based PamFax service launched PamFax 3.0 with a focus on improving delivery ...