# Server upgrade?



## Psionicist (Aug 4, 2003)

Hi there.

234 community supporters, times $25 USD per account (assuming some users registered before the raise to $35) is $5850 USD. This is community supporters only, not counting ads and such (I assume the ads pay the bandwidth).

Why don't you use this money and upgrade the server to something lean and mean? Say... Dual Xeon, Gigs of RAM and SCSI disks. Certainly you can afford it. Just for the heck of it I configured a kick ass server at Dell with all the bells and whistles for about $3900 including VAT.

This will certainly speed things up.


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## Piratecat (Aug 4, 2003)

To forestall the inevitable backlash - Psionicist, please don't tell Morrus that he can "certainly afford" something unless you happen to be his accountant. I think a much, much better approach is to recommend how you would change the server if you were doing so, and let Morrus manage EN World. You're often a tremendous help technically, but this is the sort of thing that is best handled by email.

"You may give me a ride to work every day, and I never give you gas money, but this car goes too slow.  You have enough money in your bank account; why don't you just blow it all on a sports car instead of budgeting and planning for things, or keeping a safety reserve? You should get one of those new BMW convertibles so that I can ride in it. You certainly can afford it."

Also note that some community supporters are given their titles for free as thanks for community work, that $10 or so of the $35 goes to rpgnow - that's why I still take Paypal from folks at the old $25 amount (actually $28, to cover fees) - and that much of the Community Supporter donations were spent buying the original server. Thus, your original estimation is significantly inflated.

I know you didn't mean to, but your message sounded more like a rude accusation than anything else. That approach isn't usually very helpful.  If you'd like to discuss this with me by email, please feel free, and you're welcome to drool over new server configurations either here or in the Computer forum.

Note that we _are_ upgrading to the new version of the BBS software fairly soon.


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## Psionicist (Aug 4, 2003)

Just trying to help. About 8 hours per day I cannot access EN World. When I can, the site is considerably slower than other web pages/forums the same size. EN World is larger than two years ago, and I can feel it. 

vBulletin is a very nice forum software - responds quickly with few users, but it is really demanding when some hundred users tries to access it simultaneously. This is mostly because of database queries, sessions and such. I won’t go into technical details here, but a vBulletin board with 12000 members needs a very powerful computer for smooth operation.

To prove my point. This is the uptime for enworld: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.enworld.org
Reboots once per week.

This is www.techreport.com, your average computer website, about 5000 forum members: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.techreport.com
Reboots twice per year or thereabout.

This one is pretty cool: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=wwwprod1.telia.com
Up and running after 4½ years of operation.

This is just an advice. Dual processors and SCSI disks would make a huge difference, promise.


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## kreynolds (Aug 4, 2003)

Psionicist said:
			
		

> *Just trying to help. *




And it's definately needed.


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## Morrus (Aug 4, 2003)

I don't understand that graph, but I have not witnessed 8 hours downtime every day.  What hours are you experiencing this?  It must be while I'm asleep, although I haven't heard any other mention of this seemingly massive problem which I managed to overlook completely!


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## kreynolds (Aug 4, 2003)

The boards just dropped (within the last two minutes) for the second time for me today (both from my office and from work, two different ISPs).


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## kreynolds (Aug 5, 2003)

Check it out. Boards dropped again (again, 2 different locations, 2 different ISPs). I don't know if this is happening to anyone/everyone else, but just in case, I think it's worth mentioning. Could be that nobody realizes how shoddy the uptime can be, so maybe pointing out the down times will help. *shrug*


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## Morrus (Aug 5, 2003)

Well, the server itself is coping just fine.  According to cyberstreet, we're exceeding our allotted bandwidth fairly regularly, which I imagine is the culprit. I'm talking to them about increasing it, but the monthly fees are getting ever more expensive.


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## kreynolds (Aug 5, 2003)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *Well, the server itself is coping just fine.  According to cyberstreet, we're exceeding our allotted bandwidth fairly regularly, which I imagine is the culprit. *




I figured that was the case. It's a rare event that I can't ping the server, but fairly often (on average once a day), that the site can't be reached.

Can anyone say *Hivemind*?


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## Psionicist (Aug 5, 2003)

Morrus: I have a couple of ideas how you can get unlimited bandwidth for your website for virtually nothing at all, if you are willing to physically move the server to another server park.

Before I e-mail you details (if you are interested at all), can you tell if the server is placed in US or UK?


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## Dinkeldog (Aug 5, 2003)

kreynolds said:
			
		

> *
> 
> I figured that was the case. It's a rare event that I can't ping the server, but fairly often (on average once a day), that the site can't be reached.
> 
> Can anyone say Hivemind?  *




There are far worse offenders than the Hivemind.


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## kreynolds (Aug 5, 2003)

Dinkeldog said:
			
		

> *There are far worse offenders than the Hivemind. *




Such as?


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## Morrus (Aug 5, 2003)

Psionicist said:
			
		

> *Morrus: I have a couple of ideas how you can get unlimited bandwidth for your website for virtually nothing at all, if you are willing to physically move the server to another server park.
> 
> Before I e-mail you details (if you are interested at all), can you tell if the server is placed in US or UK? *




It's in the US in Florida.  Cyberstreet are the same people who host Mortality.net (it was Adlon who set me up with them).

Unlimited bandwidth for almost nothing?  That sounds almost too good to be true.

Right now we have a T1, I'm told.


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## Dinkeldog (Aug 6, 2003)

kreynolds said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Such as? *




Anything with a lot of graphics.


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## kreynolds (Aug 6, 2003)

Dinkeldog said:
			
		

> *Anything with a lot of graphics. *




Right. There is always that. Big fat sig images and such. How heavy of a hit does the site take due to the art galleries? I don't know how often they're frequented.


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## AGGEMAM (Aug 6, 2003)

kreynolds said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Such as? *




Sig pic's (especially animated) and the art galleries is the main offenders.

Actually, the problem started to be severe just after the gallery "Gencon Babes" was put up, and have anyone seen to hit count on those, amazing.


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## Mathew_Freeman (Aug 6, 2003)

Without getting annoyed about the Hivemind thing (because I saw the smiley, and because I think everyone knows by now it's not us), I'd like to point out that most of the Hivemind now posts on randomlingshouse...so it's definitely not us.


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## AGGEMAM (Aug 6, 2003)

Tallarn said:
			
		

> * I'd like to point out that most of the Hivemind now posts on randomlingshouse...so it's definitely not us.  *




And I've _never_ experienced any problems with bandwidth there.


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## kreynolds (Aug 6, 2003)

AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> *Sig pic's (especially animated) and the art galleries is the main offenders. *




Yeah, some of the sigs around here are especially huge, and there's been a recent surge in animated comicbook characters in sigs, rather big ones too. I worked real hard to get my sig down really small in file size (about 10K).

I honestly think that a signature image dimension/file size limitation needs to be put in place, something that can be put in the boards FAQ.


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## JoeBlank (Aug 6, 2003)

AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> *
> Actually, the problem started to be severe just after the gallery "Gencon Babes" was put up, and have anyone seen to hit count on those, amazing. *




I think we have a winner here. This has got to be the explanation. 

Not that I have any problem with the GenCon galleries. Unless it gets to be an even greater probem, probably best to just let it die down. Once most folks have seen the galleries once or twice the traffic should decrease a good bit.

Of course, I know nothing about bandwidth and such, but this makes a lot of sense, and the timing seems just right.


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## Psionicist (Aug 6, 2003)

The biggest problem is the board "attach file" feature. I have noticed that atteched file are sometimes used on the front page. I have also seen attached pictures in signatures.

If I were the server administrator, I would NOT allow file attachments at all.


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## kreynolds (Aug 6, 2003)

Psionicist said:
			
		

> *If I were the server administrator, I would NOT allow file attachments at all. *




Personally, I hardly ever even use the feature, but I know that some people don't have access to web space, so...


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## Angcuru (Aug 6, 2003)

AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> *
> 
> And I've never experienced any problems with bandwidth there. *



Do I detect sarcasm?  

I try to access Randomling's House every so often, mostly because the pages take about 5 minutes to load, if at all.    Which is odd, since most pages load instantaneously for me.


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## Staffan (Aug 7, 2003)

AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> *Sig pic's (especially animated) and the art galleries is the main offenders.*



Wouldn't that only be a problem if those sig pictures are actually hosted on ENWorld's server? Sure, any big picture will slow down loading (on account of being more data to load), but it shouldn't slow down the *server* if it's stored off-site.


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## Dismas (Aug 7, 2003)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *I don't understand that graph, but I have not witnessed 8 hours downtime every day.  What hours are you experiencing this?  It must be while I'm asleep, although I haven't heard any other mention of this seemingly massive problem which I managed to overlook completely!  *




ENworld has been unavailable to me (from Home, Work, My Brother house) since Monday lunchtime (12:00 GMT) until this Morning (Thursday) 10:00 GMT.

I've tried all sorts of hours from 06:00 - 00:00 GMT


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## Psionicist (Aug 7, 2003)

Staffan said:
			
		

> *
> Wouldn't that only be a problem if those sig pictures are actually hosted on ENWorld's server? Sure, any big picture will slow down loading (on account of being more data to load), but it shouldn't slow down the server if it's stored off-site. *




True.


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## AGGEMAM (Aug 7, 2003)

Staffan said:
			
		

> *
> Wouldn't that only be a problem if those sig pictures are actually hosted on ENWorld's server? Sure, any big picture will slow down loading (on account of being more data to load), but it shouldn't slow down the server if it's stored off-site. *




Depends on how the board is set up. It seems EN World is set up so that external info is loaded by their server and then redirected to the viewer through the server.


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## kreynolds (Aug 7, 2003)

AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> *Depends on how the board is set up. It seems EN World is set up so that external info is loaded by their server and then redirected to the viewer through the server. *




That's odd. How's can you tell? From what I can see, using the  code just references the outside source, calling on the image from the other site, and linked images like that tend to be loaded last anyways, so even if the outside source is slow, the rest of the page has already loaded.

I don't know much about the inner workings of vBulletin though.


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## Psionicist (Aug 7, 2003)

AGGEMAM said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Depends on how the board is set up. It seems EN World is set up so that external info is loaded by their server and then redirected to the viewer through the server. *




Errh, nope. Only if you upload a file to the server then put it in your signature (or in the post).


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## Dagger75 (Aug 7, 2003)

The only time I ever have problems loading this site is from 12pm to about 2pm EST (USA).


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## reapersaurus (Aug 10, 2003)

people SHOULD (IMO) be storing their sig-pics _off_ the boards.
Especially larger, animated ones.


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## kreynolds (Aug 10, 2003)

A resounding "What reapersaurus said".


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