As part of my process of improving the sustainability of the digital things I run, including this blog, I'm moving my servers from Digital Ocean's NYC1 datacenter to their Frankfurt datacenter. The Frankfurt datacenter is co-located at Interxion, and is powered by 100% renewable energy.

Below is a quick overview of the steps required to move your existing droplet to Frankfurt (or London, or Amsterdam) so it can be powered by 100% renewable energy. Including the time to take a snapshot, the process took me about 15 minutes.

For other tips related to improving the sustainability of your sites, read designing sustainable digital products.

1. Update your DNS TTL (Time To Live) Settings

Moving your droplet will mean getting a new ip address. Reducing your DNS' TTL settings prior to moving your droplet will help ensure minimal downtime as DNS servers update their record of your new home. I set mine to 2 minutes.

2. Make a Snapshot of your Server

While Digital Ocean allows you to make Live Snapshots, for anything stateful (like a blog, or application), it's best to shutdown your server before making the snapshot to ensure that no data is missed.

1. Select your droplet in admin console.


2. Select the power sub-menu and click the Turn off button. This takes a minute or two.


3. Once shut down, click the snapshots submenu.


4. Click the take snapshot button. This took about 8 minutes to complete the snapshot.

3. Move Your Snapshot to Frankfurt

By default Snapshots are only available in the region in which they were created. In order to start a new droplet in a different region you'll first need to transfer it.

1. Select the Images menu in the admin console.


2. Find your Snapshot in the list and click the More button.


3. Select Add to region and select "FRA1" for Frankfurt. It should only take a minute or two, depending on the size of your droplet.

4. Create a New Droplet

Create a new Droplet. In first step where you select an image, rather than selecting an operating system, click the snapshots tab and select your new snapshot. Other options should match your existing droplet. Select the region "Frankfurt 1" and finally click Create Droplet.

5. Update DNS

Once your server has been provisioned, you'll see the ip address. Update your DNS records to reflect the new ip. With the lowered TTL settings, it should be near instantaneous. My DNS updated before the server was even finished booting.

6. Confirm it's Working and Delete your Old Droplet

Once the server is online and DNS is updated, you should be able to access it just like nothing has changed. After you've confirmed it's working properly, delete your old droplet so you are no longer charged for it.

I've always enjoyed using Digital Oceanand being able to host with them using 100% renewable energy ensures that I'll be a customer for years to come.

Short run after work.

I’m not a New Yorker. I’ve only visited New York once for a week 4 years ago. But I think this oped by Jerry Seinfeld So You Think New York Is ‘Dead’: (It isn't) is spot on - New York isn't going anywhere.

Yes, Remote everything is becoming the norm, people are moving away from world class cities, but it won't be forever. The cities won't vanish, they'll do what they always do: change.

There is an energy in the big cities that you can't find anywhere else and can't replicate remotely. While I've been nearly 100% remote working for the last 7 or 8 years, I always felt recharged by my trips into the cities. And when this is all over, I look forward getting back in the mix of things.

• Saw this tweet about how the size of a highway interchange in in Houston is the same size as the city center of Siena, Italy (population 30k). Everything's bigger in Texas, but some things are jut ridiculous.


• I tried Yakisoba bread for the first time in all my years in Japan. I remembering seeing it for the first time in Nagoya in 2006 at the 7-11 near the language school I was studying at, but never thought to try it. It's pretty good - but since it's carbs on carbs, you still want some protein to fill you up.


• I wrote an article about how to build environmentally sustainable digital products. There's a lot more about this topic that I want to talk about and explore. It's also something that most software engineers probably don't think much about in their daily work, as energy efficiency is seen as a hardware issue.


• Thinking about sustainability, I love the efforts like these off-grid solar powered websites. That might be offline part of the time goes against our fast-food-fast-fashion-always-on culture is so refreshing (albeit disappointing if it's down when you want to access it). It's like the Slow movement for micro-computers.


• I saw this article about the results of Finland's experiment with Universal Basic Income and it's good to see that UBI doesn't effect the willingness to work, as many detractors say.


• Although it's due to extenuating circumstances, Covid-cash is not dissimilar to an UBI experiment. While we are fortunate enough to have not been effected by the economic blowback (yet, who knows what the future brings 🤞🏻), it did bring a sense of security much like UBI.