World's Fastest Database Server Move

[digitalpoint]

I just moved the forum databases to a different server (one a little more beefier).

Total down time of the forum? 14 seconds. :)

I'm also thinking of moving the machine the forum itself is on to a better machine, but that will be cake with no downtime necessary (since both the old and new can use the same database server while DNS filters down). I think moving the forum to a new server should make everything a little snappier (I think the bottleneck is the CPU power of the hosting server [since it uses mod_gzip for compressing everything that goes out] rather than the db server... but I wanted to move the database server anyway).

- Shawn

[digitalpoint]

I went ahead and moved the front-end server too and changed the DNS, and it seems noticeably faster. So if forums.digitalpoint.com is resolving to 216.9.35.57 for you, then you are on the new server, if it's still 216.9.35.54, then you are on the old.

TTL on the DNS was 24 hours, so everyone should be resolving to the new before the end of the weekend.

- Shawn

[john_loch]

Seems Murphy got stiffed again :)

[expat]

Shaw,
throwing new faster hardware is not always the most cost effective solution.
Have you soncidered using content delivery?
For larger clients I tend to use www.speedera.com (http://www.speedera.com) graphic elements and cached dynamic pages with a ttl of 60 min.

I've never tried to run a BB though but should be easy.

Just a thought
M@rtin

[digitalpoint]

It's not an issue of bandwidth (we have lots of that). It's that every page of the forums is non-cached dynamic content (you can't really cache content on a forum other than maybe the images).

It's fine though... I didn't buy a new machine for it, I just moved it from a machine I already own to another one I already own. If it ever gets big enough to outgrow this server, I'll probably just throw a loaded up dual G5 Xserve (http://www.apple.com/xserve/) at it (with 8GB RAM, hardware RAID 5 [which gives 165MB/sec hard drive throughput]), which it should never outgrow.

- Shawn

[john_loch]

Now you're talkin.
Of course, that's just my desktop box..

**YEAH - I WISH** .. well, I DO use a dual G5, but I didn't pay for it :)

(Actually, I'm lookin at a demo RAID right now.. (almost pulled the handle off one of the drives before I realized the damn thing was locked - not to mention the joys of a pre-con demo, such as no one bothering to reset/flash the admin pwd.) :)

The cute push-click action almost reminded me of HAL :)

[expat]

well if you have the hardware and bandwidth than this is no issue fo a while.

There is always a nice secondhand sun server which is still unbeaten in is multi threat stability.

Out of curiosity as I've never had the fun to look at BB software is it running on multiple DB's for easy manitenanc and resilliance?

M

[john_loch]

Oh the joys of IT policy..

They've gone and deployed the damn thing off a DELL :(

Universities..

[digitalpoint]

well if you have the hardware and bandwidth than this is no issue fo a while.

There is always a nice secondhand sun server which is still unbeaten in is multi threat stability.

Out of curiosity as I've never had the fun to look at BB software is it running on multiple DB's for easy manitenanc and resilliance?

M

This one is setup on a single DB server right now...

- Shawn

[expat]

This one is setup on a single DB server right now...

- ShawnCheers Shawn sorry didn't want to pry on your set up it's rather a question on potentials if a software can be scaled up easily.
M

[digitalpoint]

It can be easily scaled to multiple database servers and/or front-end servers. Right now it's running on two front-end servers since I left it on the old server (for DNS TTL reasons), with both feeding off the new database server.

- Shawn