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New Server Hardware (for the geeks)

Discussion in 'Support & Feedback' started by digitalpoint, May 1, 2013.

  1. #1
    Things should feel faster around here... Just got back from the data center and finished installing new servers and associated hardware...

    New stuff:
    • New gigabit switch (no big deal there... but it's better than the old one)
    • 56Gbit/sec InfiniBand switch
    • 8 new servers (each server has 32 CPU cores, 256GB RAM, really, really, really fast and reliable hard drives [6 of them]).
    The blade servers we used over the last many years are now retired (in fact they are sitting in the back of my truck in my garage right now).

    Things aren't totally configured how I want them yet, but at the very least, you should see immediate speed increase simply because the CPUs can natively encrypt AES (far less overhead for the SSL traffic) and it's all new hardware, which you know how that goes when you upgrade from 8 year old hardware. :) The servers can communicate amongst themselves at 56Gbit/sec (for example web servers talking to database or memcache servers).

    Disk I/O is crazy fast too... can copy filed from one server to another at a sustained rate of ~1.2GB/sec (with Infiniband, the bottleneck for copying files is simply how fast the drives and read/write).

    System memory is much higher as well (a total of 2TB of RAM on the new servers).

    Some comparisons of new vs old...
    graph (5).png graph (4).png graph (3).png graph (2).png
     
    digitalpoint, May 1, 2013 IP
  2. dcristo

    dcristo Illustrious Member

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    #2
    Epic upgrade. I guess you won't be thinking about another one for at least a decade.
     
    dcristo, May 1, 2013 IP
  3. digitalpoint

    digitalpoint Overlord of no one Staff

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    #3
    Hopefully not... the crazy part is that all 8 servers and all that processing power fit in 4U of rack space.

    All that processing power in far less space than we were using before. The 4U that have the blue lights contain the 8 new servers (each light is a 2.5" hard drive... 48 total across the front).

    12U worth of equipment came OUT with me and is in my truck still (the old servers, switches, load balancers and such).

    IMG_1004-1.jpg
     
    digitalpoint, May 1, 2013 IP
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  4. ryan_uk

    ryan_uk Illustrious Member

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    #4
    Are the old servers headed for a tech museum? :p
     
    ryan_uk, May 1, 2013 IP
  5. snakeair

    snakeair Notable Member

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    #5
    You should sell the old server's. Some tech guy may want to scrap the parts or use them. lol

    Nice spec's and now you don't have to worry about the hardware that's keeping DP going other then monitoring them if you do this yourself.

    Congrats on the new hardware.
     
    snakeair, May 1, 2013 IP
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  6. Devtard

    Devtard Notable Member

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    #6
    I really don't see any difference, the pop-up for inserting links/images/videos/code still takes 3 seconds to load. :D
     
    Devtard, May 1, 2013 IP
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  7. ryan_uk

    ryan_uk Illustrious Member

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    #7
    I'm noticing a bit faster page loading (from work where it's always a bit slower for me, due to the bad network set up they have). I guess changing the editor would speed those up.
     
    ryan_uk, May 1, 2013 IP
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  8. digitalpoint

    digitalpoint Overlord of no one Staff

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    #8
    Yeah... The annoying this is no clue how they would get them though... They are still great servers, but they physically weigh many hundred pounds.
     
    digitalpoint, May 1, 2013 IP
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  9. hakkimone

    hakkimone Notable Member

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    #9

    It's a second great movement from DP ... Another one is script migration from vBulletin to xenForo ... Nice works ... Keep it up ... All the best ...
     
    hakkimone, May 1, 2013 IP
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  10. petertdavis

    petertdavis Notable Member

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    #10
    List them on Ebay or Craigslist, you might find a buyer locally who'd pick them up.
     
    petertdavis, May 1, 2013 IP
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  11. jorgepson

    jorgepson Active Member

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    #11
    Nice upgrade. I guess that server is expensive. I wonder when will be the time that we can acquire that kind of server even just same with the old server. lol

    By the way, just checked out your signature' s link I am wondering if the link is correct since I was landed on a blank page.

    :)
     
    jorgepson, May 1, 2013 IP
  12. dotcompals

    dotcompals Prominent Member

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    #12
    wow . great upgrade. congratulations Shawn.
     
    dotcompals, May 1, 2013 IP
  13. deluxdon

    deluxdon Catch Me If You Can...!!!™ Staff

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    #13
    That's a good idea IMO :p

    DON.
     
    deluxdon, May 1, 2013 IP
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  14. madmikeyb

    madmikeyb Well-Known Member

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    #14
    Ooh, shiney. :)
     
    madmikeyb, May 3, 2013 IP
  15. echo_unlimited

    echo_unlimited Notable Member

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    #15
    I assume this is why there were moments where I could not access DP. To be honest, things were fast before, so I don't see too many people noticing the difference in speeds. Though, the forum was a little slower when it was running vBulletin.
     
    echo_unlimited, May 4, 2013 IP
  16. |-:Bharat:-|

    |-:Bharat:-| Active Member

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    #16
    Performance is better then before , awesome upgrades though ;)
     
    |-:Bharat:-|, May 4, 2013 IP
  17. rishidevdas

    rishidevdas Member

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    #17
    BTW .... Can you please share your thoughts on performance difference you found with Xenforo. I would also like to know which of these two performs better for large amount of traffic.
     
    rishidevdas, May 4, 2013 IP
  18. digitalpoint

    digitalpoint Overlord of no one Staff

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    #18
    XenForo uses less resources and is faster than vBulletin 4 on identical hardware.
     
    digitalpoint, May 4, 2013 IP
  19. rishidevdas

    rishidevdas Member

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    #19
    I am actually confused about starting up with a new forum project. I know my idea is good and I have the whole thing planned out. I have asked for opinions in the meanwhile about the type of forum base I should use and almost majority of the feed backs asked me to go on with vBulletin. But after I made some research and read through user experiences, most of them had some complaint about the performance issues and slow response during high load times as well.

    As for XenForo, I am completely new and have no idea about how things work with them. Hence I thought asking here would yield the best answer as you have practical experience with both the forum programs.

    So, I guess I will be starting with XenForo. Wish you luck and wish me too. Thanks for such a prompt response.
     
    rishidevdas, May 4, 2013 IP
  20. |-:Bharat:-|

    |-:Bharat:-| Active Member

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    #20

    What about the SEO plugin ? Did they use high memory and cpu then vb ?
     
    |-:Bharat:-|, May 4, 2013 IP