New Server (downtime)

JeevesBond's picture

He has: 3,956 posts

Joined: Jun 2002

We've just moved to a shiny new server, it's a little quicker and will allow us to add more modules to the forums.

The plan is to make the place much more interesting and to give people more stuff to do. This server move was a very important part of that. Smiling

So sorry for the downtime, hope it didn't inconvenience anyone (although I timed it to be the middle of the night in many places!)

For anyone who's interested: it's a VPS from http://www.vpsville.ca built--from scratch by yours truly--on Debian. Believe it or not, this VPS is faster than our old dedicated server, which was getting badly out of date (PHP4, MySQL4, etc.)

We dumped NamesCo because they were going to charge us ~£120 (can't remember exact figure) for re-building the server with the latest packages. Considering we already pay them ~£100 per month for managing the server for us, this sounded like a scam.

Anyway, that's the whole story, any questions: raise them here. Laughing out loud

a Padded Cell our articles site!

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

It's so much faster now! What a great improvement.

I hope everyone will join me in thanking JeevesBond for his excellent work in moving this server. He had to learn the entire process of setting up the server, including getting email to work and everything. It was a challenge but he managed to do it in a very short time!

If I could, I'd buy a round for everyone to celebrate Cheers!

pr0gr4mm3r's picture

He has: 1,502 posts

Joined: Sep 2006

Awesome, I do notice a speed improvement.

What are the specs on the new and old server? Do you know what else is hosted on this new server?

JeevesBond's picture

He has: 3,956 posts

Joined: Jun 2002

The old server:

cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 4
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
stepping : 1
cpu MHz : 3000.204
cache size : 1024 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
runqueue : 0
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 5
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm nx
bogomips : 5989.99

processor : 1
*same information as above*

New server:

cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 15
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           X3220  @ 2.40GHz
stepping : 11
cpu MHz : 2394.167
cache size : 4096 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 4
core id : 0
cpu cores : 4
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips : 4790.00

processor : 1
*same information as above*
processor : 2
*same information as above*
processor : 3
*same information as above*

So the old is a dual-core 3GHz and the second a quad-core 2.4GHz. The old server had 512MiB RAM with 1GB Swap, whilst the new VPS gives us 512MiB of RAM with 2GB burst (although in testing I managed to get MySQL to use up 4GB, so this seems flexible). Am not sure what other sites are being run on these servers, would it be impolite to ask?

Two other important things:

  1. if this server isn't fast enough, we could rent four VPS and it would still be cheaper than that one dedicated server;
  2. doing everything by hand (none of that Plesk crap) means we're using ~130MiB less RAM than on the old server;

Plus I get to play with Debian. I like Debian. Laughing out loud

a Padded Cell our articles site!

greg's picture

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

Cool!

Back from holidays straight into a server change. Lovely Laughing out loud

Hopefully this will be a worthwhile move. By what you say the previous host and setup was getting to be out of date. And allowing the forum to improve can only be a good thing.

pr0gr4mm3r wrote: Do you know what else is hosted on this new server?

Interesting question with it being a VPS, as the IP only lists TWf and Liam and Megan's business site!

dk01's picture

He has: 516 posts

Joined: Mar 2002

Tim "the tool man" Taylor would go "Aih Ohh Ohh Ohh" right about now. That's right, I just whipped out the Home Improvement reference.

pr0gr4mm3r's picture

He has: 1,502 posts

Joined: Sep 2006

Quote: Interesting question with it being a VPS, as the IP only lists TWf and Liam and Megan's business site!

Never thought of doing a reverse-IP lookup. Each VPS probably has their own, though.

Definitely is an improvement. I prefer Debian or Debian-based distros as well, but cPanel requires CentOS, Red Hat, or Fedora Core. Honestly, I would prefer doing everything by hand since I am getting pretty good at it, but I think my hosting clients would say otherwise. Smiling

I would say that it never hurts to ask about other sites hosted on the server, but they might not be able to answer it.

teammatt3's picture

He has: 2,102 posts

Joined: Sep 2003

Quote: Tim "the tool man" Taylor would go "Aih Ohh Ohh Ohh" right about now. That's right, I just whipped out the Home Improvement reference.

I can't say I've ever heard someone reference Tim "the tool man" Taylor. Is that show still on?

Anyway, I noticed a speed up on the forums too. It's a little smoother browsing around now. Nice work 007!

Want to join the discussion? Create an account or log in if you already have one. Joining is fast, free and painless! We’ll even whisk you back here when you’ve finished.