The CC data center has been in Houston for about 4 years, and we’ve had a couple of major hurricane scares there. Last year, the center operated on standby generators for an extended period when much of the city lost power.
Early Friday morning, we’ll be operating the forums from a totally new data center in San Jose. We’ll have more server power available, and we’ll be able to add new servers in minutes to handle high load conditions. No hurricanes, either, though I guess we can still worry about The Big One. 
The forums will be down for about an hour starting at 4AM EDT on Friday, August 21. The main [CC</a> site](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/]CC”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/) will remain up, as it was moved to an East Coast site previously. This move involves an IP address change, which means that some of you may see service disrupted even after the new location is fully functional. (Some internet service providers don’t update their “address book” as quickly as they should, and keep trying to send traffic to the old address.)
Sorry for the inconvenience, but we expect this to make the site better able to handle increased traffic without slow page loads. We’re continuing to improve our infrastructure to keep CC fast and reliable for you and the new members who will be joining us in the upcoming admissions season!
