New HTG dedicated server operational!

[Lex]

Please offer a big round of applause for Kevin's efforts to get us up and running on a new server. We had "a bad experience" trying to find a shared hosting solution for our forum. We thought it could work, Kevin and I tried it, and it was so horrible as a test, we came running back to our long time service provider and cut a deal to cut over to a new server. As one of their oldest customers, they were glad to see us stay.

We may have gained some real performance gains from the change. Our server was pretty old in today's terms, so moving to new hardware can be a big positive.

Let Kevin know what a bang up job he's doing on this process! I really appreciate it!

Thanks Kevin!

[Kevin P]

Yep, the new server should at least feel faster than the old one. Its CPU isn't much faster (it's an Intel Atom while the old had dual Pentium 4s), but it does have an SSD instead of platter hard drives, and it's also on a 100 megabit network connection instead of 10. Bear in mind we were barely scratching the surface of our old server's capacity.

But most importantly, it's running an updated Linux OS and server software that is supported with updates and patches, so the security issues we had with the old server (such as hackers putting phishing sites up) should be a thing of the past now.

The old server is about 8 years old, geriatric by computer standards. I think a couple years ago they replaced everything except the hard drives due to a spontaneous rebooting issue, so really only the hard drives were that old. I didn't want to have one crap out on us. But the updated software is the biggest benefit to us, especially from a security standpoint.

One nice benefit to the SSD is I can do a "hot backup" of the database in less than a minute! No more timeouts on early Sunday mornings while the backup was running. Hot backups will run nightly and weekly dumps and offline backups will be taken from the hot backup, so there should be next to zero downtime during backup times.

Our DNS is still being resolved by the old server, until we have the provider move our remaining IPs to the new server. I'm thinking of Friday to do this. Once that happens, we can be off the old one completely.

[cuda65]

Kevin: Thanks so much for all you do.

[Lex]

It was a judgement call, we did have a good server. But the security issues, and recent "hack" we experienced, along with concerns about the aging drives, aging OS, and all, were a good reason to update. I saved a nominal amount of money, not a big thing, but a little with the economy server. If we maintain the performance we had, and gain security advantages, then it's a positive move I think.

I think Kevin will concur, that the SSD drive and the increased bandwidth port, will probably mean improved performance regardless of any processor differences. That's because more of what we do is really not CPU intensive anyway. It's really about the throughput path.

doug

[impala454]

Good job Kevin!
arty:

[wkhanna]

Good news!
Hopefully, it will ease Kevin's workload tracking down and 'whacking' all those nimrod spammers!

[Kevin P]

Good news!
Hopefully, it will ease Kevin's workload tracking down and 'whacking' all those nimrod spammers!

:lol: I wish. I already have the forum anti-spam working pretty much at its peak already.

The security enhancements are more on the server itself. Some nummnuts managed to get in and use our server for their nefarious deeds. I locked things down but having something more up to date that I can keep patched as holes are found will help keep them out now.

[aud19]

Does this mean more spare time for our resident "Spaminator"? Well done Kevin :T

[Stoney]

The site seems significantly quicker to me. :T

[aud19]

It does seem quite "zippy".

Like.. "click" and "bang" you're there :T

[Kevin P]

It's probably the 100Mbps link + the SSD storage you're seeing. It does make the site snappier, not that it was slow before.

[Chris D]

Wait... I thought this was a dial-up modem Bulletin Board? This "server" concept that you speak of... very interesting. Perhaps we can careate some sort of global "interweb" thing, where computers talk to each other over datalink. Perhaps I'll talk to Al Gore about that idea.

Really great job, Kev. Maybe it's just me, but it does in fact seem to be faster to me, to jump around the sub-forums, and particularly when opening threads with pictures in them. :T :T :T

[wkhanna]

Oh come on, Chris......

Next thing you know, you will be saying cables make a difference. :W

[Kevin P]

Well, with some poking and prodding of the service provider, we got the remaining IPs (and thus DNS) up on the new server. There may have been an outage (DNS resolution) for a little while since it took a while. But it's all done now, and we are now "off" the old server completely!