slow ass servers.......

[INEED$$$]

I am wondering if someone could explain whats wrong with the servers. Since i've been on the internet this website seems to have the slowest server and is down more than any other i have seen. I really like this site and use it often. I would just like to know what is wrong and is it goin to be fixed??

[Nate-VMC]

never slow for me

[LongShot]

Sometimes its slow ...other times its fast. Maybe its the amount of traffic at one time requesting info from the server too. BTW: I'm on DSL.

[-Eric-]

If you dont like it buy a bunch of xr50 raffle tickets, the proceeds go to upgrading this board, 'cause of its exponential (thats a big word) growth.

[LongShot]

I just found the Donate Button...so I hit it up. Shuggs may need quarters for the Dryer after his trip to Daytona.

[RedlineJimmy]

We are running a newer version of PHP (PHP4) which is not compatible with our version of vBulletin (2.2.8) and if you read teh announcement you will see that we are upgrading vBulletin toight to the latest version. This will stop those annoying ****in errors.

Thanks for your patience

Long version....
We upgraded when there were server problems to PHP4 and we are running Vbulletin 2.2.8 which requires PHP3... we need to upgrade to vBulletin 2.2.9 or 2.3.0 which works properly with PHP4. i do not know how to do this myself, and have been waiting IMPATIENTLY for the server guy to install it and he has been telling me for 2 weeks he will. That is reason #500 why free labor sucks...

I get them alot too... all you have to do is keep refreshing until it loads. just refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh and it will load soon enough.

Gay i know.. but my hands are tied

[INEED$$$]

Originally posted by LongShot
I just found the Donate Button...so I hit it up. Shuggs may need quarters for the Dryer after his trip to Daytona.

So if i donate money the servers are gonna be up to speed?? I know about the Donate Button. How much money is it gonna take to get the servers to handle the amount of members that are signed on at times. By just myself donating its not gonna be fix. If we could get some numbers of how much people need to donate maybe more people will donate to get the servers up to speed.

[shugga]

Greetings......

As of yesteday our server has been upgraded to 2.2.9 which should be compatible with our current version of Php4. There are still a few more bug and lots of data to read through so, please sit tight it will all come together sooner than you think!

Thank you all for being so patient.

[INEED$$$]

Originally posted by Shugga
Greetings......

As of yesteday our server has been upgraded to 2.2.9 which should be compatible with our current version of Php4. There are still a few more bug and lots of data to read through so, please sit tight it will all come together sooner than you think!

Thank you all for being so patient.

So its not really a money situation. Its just gonna take time to fix, is what i gather. That is what i wanted to know. Thanks

[shugga]

Originally posted by INEED$$$
So its not really a money situation. Its just gonna take time to fix, is what i gather. That is what i wanted to know. Thanks

Should help, but the bandwidth is capped now, so when there are alot of people on.... It wont allow anymore bandwidth and gets slower... Thats a money thing, but would take a consistant 100 or 200 per month to change it.

[underzen]

I see 2 problems here. And I have discussed this with shuggs before. The problem is the money issue for him. Servers and dedicated hosting is not cheap. I run my own hosting business and also own serveral servers. This isn't cheap.

First Problem:
The capped bandwidth. What is happening is this. Shuggs has a T-1 Line dedicated to his server. That is only 1.5Mbps per second upload and download. A typical DSL or Cable modem is able to download at this speed just not able to upload. 1.5Mbps is not that much bandwidth. It is only 487.266 Gigabytes per month that Stuntlife can send out to the internet. Which comes out to be around about 11.550 megabytes per minute at its maxium speed. There are alot of things going on a webserver. There are thousands of images, users avatars, database, email, and alot of other things. Now even though you have a T-1 that says you have 1.5Mbps per second, most telco companies cant match that full speed 24 hours a day. Even with a SLA (service level agreement which gaurentees the 1.5Mpbs) the telco companies often come up short. There are times at peak hours during the day that the T-1 line becomes saturated and cannot handle the amount of bandwidth required by us Stuntlife users. It basically gets clogged and you have to wait your turn for the forums to appear on your screen.

The solution to this of course is a bigger pipe for bandwidth. Most hosting companies who lease dedicated servers can provide you with a full OC-12 to OC-148's. What the company does is allow you to burst your bandwidth. Your server uses the bandwidth it needs, not the bandwidth that it is capped by. The nice thing about this is your site is able to handle bursts in activity and users on the site and the user never see's a performance loss like with a capped T-1 connection. This solution though is not the most financially efficent way of running a site like this. Your bandwidth can fluctuate all month long and if you go over your allocated amount of bandwidth per month, lets say 800 gigs a month, the hosting company will charge you. A Capped T-1 does not allow you to go over because the T-1 can only phyicall pump out 487.266 Gigabytes a month.



The Second problem is the server. I am a firm believer that if you run a database (which is the backbone of these forums) that it should be on a dedicated server itself and the html (php pages in our case) should be on there own server as well. If stuntlife continues to grow at the pace it is now, it will outgrow this single server setup, if it hasn't already. Your database (where the forum posts/threads/users/ect..) is stored on its own server and the website its self is stored on another server so your running dual servers. There can also be some tweaking done to mySQL (which is the database that runs these forums) to get it to perform faster. A good amount of RAM (a gig or more) and at least a old PIII processor or new P4 processor or even Xeon processors, any processor that has 512k of cache is great for these types of forums. A standard 1.6-2.4 P4 or P2 just wont cut it..you need Cache and RAM.



Just thought I would enlighten you all on the technical side of stuntlife a bit. This is just my opinion though and not fact.

[Jay Carnes]

Originally posted by underzen


First Problem........


The Second problem.........

Damn, i actually didn't realize how much F'n memory that takes - but it makes sense. Memory = more $

[Zerocool95]

wow Underzen! you sound like me trying to tell my friends all the techy jargon. good description. I work for a school district in Chicago Ridge, IL and can also vouch for the bandwidth issue. I have a dedicated T-1 line here with 3 schools all going out through it, (about a total of 150 workstations). Let me tell you it gets congested very very easily. I know Shugga is working very hard to get everything up to speed. I was on the phone with him once at 2:30 am talking server stuff. It's not an easy thing to do, working with this software. Another thing you people might not realize is the software running our beautiful little uptopia here is not just like working with Windows 98/XP. This software is more complicated and needs time and expertise. So, all in all I just gotta say be patient. We all want stunting and StuntLife to flourish and are doing everything we can to make it happen. Peace, Love, and keep one wheel up!

Lata,
Zero

[underzen]

Originally posted by zerocool95
wow Underzen! you sound like me trying to tell my friends all the techy jargon. good description. I work for a school district in Chicago Ridge, IL and can also vouch for the bandwidth issue. I have a dedicated T-1 line here with 3 schools all going out through it, (about a total of 150 workstations). Let me tell you it gets congested very very easily. I know Shugga is working very hard to get everything up to speed. I was on the phone with him once at 2:30 am talking server stuff. It's not an easy thing to do, working with this software. Another thing you people might not realize is the software running our beautiful little uptopia here is not just like working with Windows 98/XP. This software is more complicated and needs time and expertise. So, all in all I just gotta say be patient. We all want stunting and StuntLife to flourish and are doing everything we can to make it happen. Peace, Love, and keep one wheel up!

Lata,
Zero

He's just running Linux which is a pretty simple OS to setup and maintain if your good with the command prompt. I just feel that the capped connection is a waste. You might has well get 2 dedicated servers for about $475 a month that each can put out over 800 gig's each month of traffic. Thats a total of 1600 Gigs or 1.6 Terabytes of data. Thats a bit over kill but if you get nasty bursts of traffic it would be nice to have those OC-192's backing you up with the bandwidth that you need. A OC-192 is capable of downloading your uploading 1.2 GIGABYTES per second if need be. So for most of the day your requirement is only a t-1 but at peak you need a OC-192 then a uncapped solution is the best bet.

Just my .02

Ohh by the way if you want to buy a OC-192 that is dedicated to your server its average cost is only about $3,133,440.00 per month. Thats just for the bandwidth. That not including the $55,000 Cisco 12000 Series Router that you purchased on eBay either and the full team to support it. heheheh

I'm a geek...sorry

[INEED$$$]

Originally posted by underzen
I see 2 problems here. And I have discussed this with shuggs before. The problem is the money issue for him. Servers and dedicated hosting is not cheap. I run my own hosting business and also own serveral servers. This isn't cheap.

First Problem:
The capped bandwidth. What is happening is this. Shuggs has a T-1 Line dedicated to his server. That is only 1.5Mbps per second upload and download. A typical DSL or Cable modem is able to download at this speed just not able to upload. 1.5Mbps is not that much bandwidth. It is only 487.266 Gigabytes per month that Stuntlife can send out to the internet. Which comes out to be around about 11.550 megabytes per minute at its maxium speed. There are alot of things going on a webserver. There are thousands of images, users avatars, database, email, and alot of other things. Now even though you have a T-1 that says you have 1.5Mbps per second, most telco companies cant match that full speed 24 hours a day. Even with a SLA (service level agreement which gaurentees the 1.5Mpbs) the telco companies often come up short. There are times at peak hours during the day that the T-1 line becomes saturated and cannot handle the amount of bandwidth required by us Stuntlife users. It basically gets clogged and you have to wait your turn for the forums to appear on your screen.

The solution to this of course is a bigger pipe for bandwidth. Most hosting companies who lease dedicated servers can provide you with a full OC-12 to OC-148's. What the company does is allow you to burst your bandwidth. Your server uses the bandwidth it needs, not the bandwidth that it is capped by. The nice thing about this is your site is able to handle bursts in activity and users on the site and the user never see's a performance loss like with a capped T-1 connection. This solution though is not the most financially efficent way of running a site like this. Your bandwidth can fluctuate all month long and if you go over your allocated amount of bandwidth per month, lets say 800 gigs a month, the hosting company will charge you. A Capped T-1 does not allow you to go over because the T-1 can only phyicall pump out 487.266 Gigabytes a month.



The Second problem is the server. I am a firm believer that if you run a database (which is the backbone of these forums) that it should be on a dedicated server itself and the html (php pages in our case) should be on there own server as well. If stuntlife continues to grow at the pace it is now, it will outgrow this single server setup, if it hasn't already. Your database (where the forum posts/threads/users/ect..) is stored on its own server and the website its self is stored on another server so your running dual servers. There can also be some tweaking done to mySQL (which is the database that runs these forums) to get it to perform faster. A good amount of RAM (a gig or more) and at least a old PIII processor or new P4 processor or even Xeon processors, any processor that has 512k of cache is great for these types of forums. A standard 1.6-2.4 P4 or P2 just wont cut it..you need Cache and RAM.



Just thought I would enlighten you all on the technical side of stuntlife a bit. This is just my opinion though and not fact.

Too much info for me i just wanted to know if he needed more money... I just turn on my computer and use it. Thats bout all i know for computers.haha

[Zerocool95]

Originally posted by underzen
I'm a geek...sorry

and I thought I was the only one on here

[underzen]

Originally posted by INEED$$$
Too much info for me i just wanted to know if he needed more money... I just turn on my computer and use it. Thats bout all i know for computers.haha

In a nutshell your looking at about $225.00 - $500.00 a month right now for a dual server setup with the about 1500 gigs or so of high quality bandwidth (Tier 1 providers). This site would blaze so fast. I have consulted on serveral forums and worked with the owners on setting up dual and quad server farms for vBulletin (the forum software). The last project I consulted on was a website that runs this same forums software. That website has 31,000 registered users and supports on a daily average 600 users online at any given time using the forums. There record is 800 at one time. There on a quad server setup, BUT they were up till a week ago on a dual server setup and it ran fast as shit. They just got some venture capital and now are expanding.


Lata