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Web Wiz Network Status and Announcements


Scheduled Maintenance - Critical Power Infrastructure Refresh

22 January 2026, in Data Centre, Domain Registration, Shared Web Hosting, Hyper-V Cloud Servers, Dedicated Servers, Colocation Services

To replace aging, end-of-life APC Power Distribution Units (PDU) and APC Automatic Transfer Switches (ATS) units within our data centre, we will be performing critical power migrations over the coming days. This hardware is vital to our rack stability, and proactive replacement is required to avoid unplanned outages.

Maintenance Window Details:
Dates: 26th of January through 28th of February 2026
Daily Time Window: 05:00 AM – 08:00 AM GMT
Expected Impact: ~5 minutes of power loss per rack.

What to Expect:
Dual-corded servers: We will migrate power paths one at a time; no downtime is expected for these units.
Single-corded equipment: These devices will lose power for approximately 5 minutes as we swap the hardware.

To ensure data integrity, all single-corded servers will undergo a graceful shutdown prior to the maintenance and will be restarted immediately once the new hardware is in place. This controlled procedure is being implemented to safeguard against data loss and file system corruption during the power transition.


Why is this happening?
Our current data centre APC Power Distribution Units (PDUs) and Automatic Transfer Switches (ATS) have reached their manufacturer's recommended service lifecycle. As critical infrastructure ages, the risk of "silent failure" increases significantly.

Specifically, this refresh is required to address:
  • Failure Prevention: Older ATS units can fail to "switch" during a power fluctuation, causing an entire rack to drop.
  • Fire & Electrical Safety: Replacing aging capacitors and internal circuitry reduces the risk of electrical faults or overheating.
  • Infrastructure Reliability: Proactively replacing these components during a controlled 5-minute window prevents an uncontrolled outage that would occur if the hardware failed unexpectedly.




Shared Hosting Retiring Legacy ASP.NET Core Versions (April 2026)

20 January 2026, in Shared Web Hosting

At Web Wiz, we are committed to providing a secure and high-performance hosting environment for your applications. To maintain these standards, we are announcing the formal removal of several "End of Life" (EOL) ASP.NET Core versions from our shared hosting servers.

What is Changing?
Effective April  2026, the following legacy .NET Core frameworks will be decommissioned and removed from our shared hosting service:

  • .NET Core: 2.1, 2.2, 3.0, 3.1
  • ASP.NET 5 (.Net Core 5)
  • ASP.NET 6 (.Net Core 6)
  • ASP.NET 7 (.Net Core 7)

After this date, applications targeting these versions will no longer run on our infrastructure.

Why is this happening? 
The primary driver for this removal is security. These versions have long passed their official support window from Microsoft, meaning they no longer receive critical security patches.

Specifically, we have seen an increase in vulnerabilities related to CSV, Remove Code Execution (RCE) and Data Injection. Older frameworks often lack the modern, built-in sanitisation libraries required to defend against leaving the website and web server vulnerable to attacks. 

By moving to supported versions (such as ASP.NET 8, ASP.NET 9 or ASP.NET 10), you benefit from updated security, better encryption standards, and native protection against modern injection flaws.


What You Need to Do
To avoid any service interruption, please take the following steps before the April 2026 deadline:
  1. Identify: Check your project's .csproj file or your hosting settings to see which framework version you are currently using.
  2. Upgrade: We strongly recommend upgrading to ASP.NET 10 (LTS) or higher. These versions offer long-term support and significantly improved performance.
  3. Test: Deploy your upgraded application to a staging environment to ensure compatibility with modern libraries.


What if you can't move to a newer ASP.NET version

Option 1. Self-Contained Deployment
A Self-Contained Deployment means that your website will include its own copy of the .NET runtime files inside its application folder, rather than relying on the shared versions installed on our server. This ensures your site continues to work exactly as it does now, even as we remove older, unsupported versions of .NET from the server for security reasons. For further information see; How to Publish Your Site as "Self-Contained"

Option 2. Move to Dedicated Web Hosting
If you are unable to update your application to a newer version of ASP.NET and are happy to accept the security risks, we can provide custom hosting plans that can support legacy applications and frameworks through our Dedicated Web Hosting, for more info see; Windows Dedicated Web Hosting 


Classic ASP and Classic ASP.NET is NOT Affected
We want to emphasise that Classic ASP and Classic ASP.NET is NOT being removed at this time. If your application relies on the following, your service will remain active:

  • Classic ASP: Microsoft has no end-of-support date currently set for Classic ASP.
  • ASP.NET 2.0 / 3.0 / 3.5: Microsoft has confirmed support for these versions until at least January 2029.
  • ASP.NET 4.0 / 4.5 / 4.6 / 4.7 / 4.8: Microsoft has no end-of-support date currently set for these versions.

We appreciate your cooperation in keeping our platform—and your data—secure.




Windows Server Updates - January 2026

15 January 2026, in Shared Web Hosting, Hyper-V Cloud Servers, Dedicated Servers

We will be carrying out Windows Updates to our Windows Shared Hosting Servers, Hyper-V Servers and Managed Dedicated Servers during the times below.

Start of work - At-risk period:
Start Date: 15th January 2026

End of work - At-risk period:
Risk End Date: 16th January 2026

Times work will be carried out:
Start Time: 05:00 UTC
End Time: 8:30 UTC

Service Impact:
After updates are applied, servers will need to be rebooted twice, causing a short service interruption lasting between 1 and 4 minutes for each server for each reboot.

Reason:
Microsoft releases Windows updates and patches on the second Tuesday of each month. These updates fix security vulnerabilities, performance and other issues. After testing the latest updates, we roll out Windows updates to all Web Wiz Managed Windows Servers.



Scheduled Maintenance February 2026: Upgrading to MySQL 8.4 LTS

12 January 2026, in Shared Web Hosting

To ensure the continued security and stability of our infrastructure, we will be upgrading all MySQL 8.0 databases to the MySQL 8.4 Long-Term Support (LTS) release.

Maintenance Window
We have established a 10-day "at-risk" window to perform these updates. While the upgrades are automated, your database may experience brief periods of instability during this time.

Start Date: February 10th, 2026
End Date: February 20th, 2026

Service Impact
  • Downtime: Individual database servers may become unavailable for up to 5 minutes during the upgrade process.
  • Authentication: We are retaining support for mysql_native_password to ensure backward compatibility with older applications.
    Action Required: Because mysql_native_password is now deprecated in newer versions of MySQL, we strongly recommend migrating your applications to caching_sha2_password to improve security and ensure future compatibility. New MySQL users added in the control panel will use the more secure caching_sha2_password.

Why are we doing this?
MySQL 8.0 reaches its End of Life (EOL) in April 2026. By transitioning to MySQL 8.4 LTS now, we provide our users with:
  1. Extended Stability: An 8-year support window from Oracle.
  2. Smooth Transition: Better backward compatibility compared to non-LTS releases.
  3. Security: Continued access to critical security patches and performance improvements.



Secigo PositiveSSL Certificates: Upcoming Changes from March 2026

08 January 2026, in Shared Web Hosting, Hyper-V Cloud Servers, Dedicated Servers

As global standards from Google and Apple push for shorter SSL certificate lifespans starting from March 2026 (moving toward 30-day cycles), we are modernising our SSL infrastructure to ensure your sites stay secure without the risk of manual expiry.

Because certificates will soon expire every few weeks rather than once a year, manual renewals are no longer a safe or viable option. To protect your uptime, we are moving to fully automated systems.

1. Shared Web Hosting Customers
The Plan: Transitioning to Let’s Encrypt Automation Starting in March 2026, we will begin migrating all shared hosting accounts to Let’s Encrypt certificates.
  • The Transition: This change will take place at your next scheduled renewal.
  • Final Payment: You will receive one final invoice for your current SSL certificate. This covers the final manual migration and the setup of the automation engine.
  • The Billing Change: After this final migration is complete, all future SSL renewal charges will be removed from your billing system. Moving forward, this security will be a standard, automated feature of your hosting at no extra cost.

2. Dedicated Web Hosting, Hyper-V Cloud Servers, Dedicated Server Customers
The Plan: Professional ACME Management & Monitoring Dedicated environments require specialised handling to meet the new 30-day industry requirements. We are implementing an ACME (Automated Certificate Management Environment) Client on your server.
  • Automated Protection: The ACME client handles the high-frequency renewals required by modern browsers.
  • Dashboard Monitoring: We will monitor your certificate status from our central dashboard to prevent any outages.
  • Service Charge: To cover the ACME software licensing and our managed monitoring service, a monthly charge of £9.95 will be applied. This replaces the old annual certificate fees and ensures your server remains compliant with Google and Apple’s strict new standards.

Why is this happening now?
Manual renewals are becoming a thing of the past. With certificates expiring every few weeks rather than once a year, automation is the only way to prevent your website from showing "Insecure" warnings to your customers. We are making these changes now to keep your business ahead of the curve.




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