............server Is Too Busy At The Moment.................

Everybody, it's not that we hate basic members and want to get rid of them -- far from it. But this is a recurrent crisis. If we can configure the software to disable some of the non-essential features for basic members, the luxuries, that might help encourage more members to pay their share -- and if it's a resource-consuming feature like avatars that would save expensive resources too.

I think the current vBulletin software doesn't provide for that, but they're promising more configurability in a future version.

I hate the idea of disabling searches for basic members because that's an important feature ... but a search consumes a lot of resources. The server has to read through the entire database of posts every time it does a search, and the more posts there are ... and the more members there are doing searches ... that adds up fast.

If it becomes possible in a future version of vBulletin I'd much rather disable avatars for basic members, because they can do without that. Features like avatars and sigs are luxuries.
 
Here's the deal -

Avatars are an All or Nothing deal - either everyone can have them, or no one can.

Same thing with Signatures.

Same thing with board access. We cannot limit access just to paying members during busy times - the software doesn't work that way.

vBulletin 3 is supposed to give us a lot more flexibility on what features go with which membership level. Until that happens though, we're looking at what we can do.

For the near future, I've disabled searching for Basic Members and those who are not logged in. That should take care of a lot of the server load.

Past that, I'm exploring other options for getting another server that is more powerful. That will help a bit as well. I am not going to make earth shattering decisions in a short period of time.

Look for some downtime this weekend as I prune back some of the archives & misc forums (For Sale, Community, etc.) That should help a bit as well.

Kevin
 
Well, I just upgraded to Premium Member today, so I guess I can chime in now.
I find it unfortunate that Basic members are being "punished" for using freely using a service that was offered for free. It's not like they are cheating or stealing, it was offered for free. The fact that paying members, of which I am one now, *may* not be getting their money's worth is a "back-end" problem and not one to blame on the Basic members. Paying members *could* be redirected to another server that, being paid for out of the subscriptions, would not allow Basic members. Of course, the software may not allow a configuration such as this. Yes, I know that it's more complicated than I described, I'm in the I.T. field...
Another idea would be for the manufacturers to help Spark out with new hardware. Servers are not that expensive, relatively speaking, (again I know, I order them)and the benefit to them is immense. I know I have purchased many more knives based on manufacturers presence on this forum.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Please don't take this a flame, it's not. This is a great forum and I know a lot of work goes into it. If found more worth in this forum than in most mags, that's why I finally ponied up the bucks!
-SB
 
Spark,

Looks like I was editing while you were posting...
So the software limits you to all or nothing decsions. That makes thing much harder...
Are you running on a multiprocessor server? If so, can you set the affinity for the search thread to run on one cpu while the front-end runs on the other? This *might* allow searches to run (sloowly) on one cpu while the front-end runs normally on the other? Just WAGing here...

-SB
 
The manufacturers have been approaced to help with the costs of the site as well.

As far as server multitasking and such - unfortunately there's only so much we can do with regards to the software. We've repeatedly optimized the server for traffic, and we're looking at some accellerator software, but again, we have hardware, software & monetary limitations.

With regards to server costs, unfortunately, we do not have a server farm where we can divide the db, split processes, etc. We're not buying them in bulk. Prices for dual P4 processor, 1gB+ RAM, RAID5 servers are not cheap. The site is not raking in cash hand over fist.

We've got bandwitdh, hardware, software, etc costs each month. Memberships barely cover the bandwidth charges alone. They don't cover additional hardware & software expenses. Hence our looking for other avenues of support.

Kevin
 
I just ponied up for the gold again. I let it lapse but now im back. Thanks again for the great site.

Mike
 
Spark, could you PLEASE open up the BALISONG archives to being able to search through, that shouldnt take up any lag in the performance of the forums, I want to gather/save as much possible info as possible before it sadly disappears into cyberwaste.:(

Thankyou very much,
Tanner.
 
It's an all or nothing deal - not a pick and choose per forum
 
The server is much more stressed with searching functions than avatars and signatures. Those are just simple information that sit in a database that can be pulled out in a relatively short time. For the computer, it's a matter of finding the user in the database and pulling the relevant information. In comparison, the search function would have to run through all threads specified, and then look for the matching words, which is very time consuming and resource intensive for the server.
Part of it is pruning the old threads so that the search function of the DB does not have to run through so much dead threads that no one is interested and barely makes it to the first 5 pages the search engine would return. Most people search for threads and the system returns the latest threads, so the older threads can be moved off the DB.
I might not like the disabling the search function but I appreciate the fact that this is making the experience a bit more bearable (except for searching).
Spark: Are you running SCSI RAID 5 or IDE RAID 5? IDE RAID 5 should help lower the cost a bit when it comes to the inevitable.
Also because this system is running on a *nix based system, have you considered running software RAID? It will tax the CPU a bit but it wouldn't cost as much as a full SCSI RAID. Those SCSI RAID systems really costs a lot of money, and buying small amounts at a time doesn't help because it really don't lower the cost. Is Apache compiled to really take advantage of the CPUs? Is the kernel compile to take advantage the CPU and have useless drivers pruned away? It may not be much but they could help a bit.
And what exactly is the nature of the slow down? is it that the CPU just can't process the information fast enough, or is there not enough memory for Apache to serve to the amount of user that BFC supports at a time? Would a newer version of Apache help? It's runnning 1.3.19, but Apache is out to with version 2.
I just ran out of money again (doh) but I will be getting a membership next time I get more money, either from Christmas or student loans or something....
 
I've got a guru looking at updating the server and tweaking, but really it's the large size of the site that's slowing everything down more than anything else.

Kevin
 
Heh, without a doubt... with the amount of new users and posts flying around ;)
Good luck then. I'll try to get some money for the membership them ;)
 
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