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PC Server Move | Upgrade Announcement

Ooka

[font=Maven Pro][color=#A75EE2]Cosmic[/color][/fon
2,626
Posts
16
Years
Wouldn't that be called "feature loss"? If things go right, there would be less pressing need to remove these styles.

Besides, I'm pretty sure "very fancy forum styling that somewhat stresses the browser engines and GPUs" is probably PokéCommunity's trademark at this point. :P

Depending on how you look at it, sure. And it's not so much a problem with browsers or GPUs, any computer made from 2000+ can handle all the images fine. It's more of a matter of 300,000 people downloading the images from the server every single time they clear their cache or visit the site for the first time. Just a lot of overhead that's all.
 

Rukario

Banned
7,597
Posts
21
Years
SSD drives, no.. not yet (too much $$) same for SAS.

the old specs are:
Motherboard Dell Single socket 1067FSB - Quad Core Capable PowerEdge 840
Processor Intel 2.13 GHz 1066FSB - Kentsfield Xeon 3210 (Quad Core)
RAM slot 1 OEM Standard DDR2 667 ECC [2048MB]
RAM slot 2 OEM Standard DDR2 667 ECC [2048MB]
RAM slot 3 OEM Standard DDR2 667 ECC [2048MB]
RAM slot 4 OEM Standard DDR2 667 ECC [2048MB]

Drive Controller Generic \ Onboard \ SATA
Hard Drive 1 Generic 250GB:SATA:7200RPM 250GBSATA [250GB]
Hard Drive 2 Generic 250GB:SATA:7200RPM 250GBSATA [250GB]
 

quilzel

net start w3svc
223
Posts
12
Years
SSD drives, no.. not yet (too much $$) same for SAS.

the old specs are:
Motherboard Dell Single socket 1067FSB - Quad Core Capable PowerEdge 840
Processor Intel 2.13 GHz 1066FSB - Kentsfield Xeon 3210 (Quad Core)
RAM slot 1 OEM Standard DDR2 667 ECC [2048MB]
RAM slot 2 OEM Standard DDR2 667 ECC [2048MB]
RAM slot 3 OEM Standard DDR2 667 ECC [2048MB]
RAM slot 4 OEM Standard DDR2 667 ECC [2048MB]

Drive Controller Generic \ Onboard \ SATA
Hard Drive 1 Generic 250GB:SATA:7200RPM 250GBSATA [250GB]
Hard Drive 2 Generic 250GB:SATA:7200RPM 250GBSATA [250GB]

You aren't going to see a huge speed bump until get off of 7200RPM drives I moved our CRM database from 7200 RPM to 15K SAS drives, and the speed boost was insane. Depending on how big the database is, 2.5" 76GB 15K SAS drives are like $50USD on Amazon. Buy a few, stick them in a RAID, and be amazed at the speed. (Unless you don't have a perk card, those can be a bit pricey)
 

Rukario

Banned
7,597
Posts
21
Years
OK

The physical files / databases transfer is completed waiting on DNS.

While we wait for DNS to fully update, we will troubleshoot the move.....
SO if you find an error or something not quite right, let us know either in a reply or via PM.

Thanks everyone for your patience during this move and downtime.
 

Echidna

i don't care what's in your hair
2,077
Posts
13
Years
Would it be realistic enough for me to say that I can already feel a difference, or is this just me mirroring my delusions unto my perception of the site loading speed, I really can't tell.

BUT YAY FINALLY WOOHOO
That was hardly a day, thank you to all the staff for working hard and making this as swift a move as possible. <3

EDIT: OKAY this did technically take a few years to achieve so I suppose it really wasn't that quick. :p
</3
<3 jkjkjkjkjk

EDIT2: Sorry, I'm drunk.
 

Guy

just a guy
7,128
Posts
15
Years
I was promised 1 - 2 days off, but instead all I got was a downtime the length of an average night's worth of sleep. Please don't make promises you can't keep, PC.

kthxbai

Just kidding, of course. It's ironic that something we've wanted for a few years now only took mere hours to get done. We're finally moving up in the world and it makes me so happy. Looking forward to the forums running faster with more stability and efficiency and less down times.
 

Legendary Silke

[I][B]You like dragons?[/B][/I]
5,925
Posts
13
Years
  • Age 30
  • Seen Dec 23, 2021
Do we have concrete statistics on performance improvements of PokéCommunity after the server upgrades?

Hmm... By the way, are the memory modules running in dual or tri-channel mode? It's extremely likely to be at least dual-channel from what I've seen.

Multiple 7200 RPM hard disk drives are actually pretty OK these days as long as we're not too concerned with random access times of the disk - I think the large amount of memory goes a long way when it comes to caching frequently-accessed data on the RAM. Does PC do it?
 

Rukario

Banned
7,597
Posts
21
Years
Do we have concrete statistics on performance improvements of PokéCommunity after the server upgrades?

Hmm... By the way, are the memory modules running in dual or tri-channel mode? It's extremely likely to be at least dual-channel from what I've seen.

Multiple 7200 RPM hard disk drives are actually pretty OK these days as long as we're not too concerned with random access times of the disk - I think the large amount of memory goes a long way when it comes to caching frequently-accessed data on the RAM. Does PC do it?

Load Averages: 0.92 0.78 0.70
(MUCH lower then our previous average of 2.5 - 4.5, 'course its not yet busy as it may take a day or 2 for DNS to fully updated)

They are dual-channel RAMs..

we also run memcache to put more processes into RAM and speed up many MySQL actions.

The RAM will help a lot and allows use to open up another 200 to 300 connections to both the webserver and the database server.
 

Legendary Silke

[I][B]You like dragons?[/B][/I]
5,925
Posts
13
Years
  • Age 30
  • Seen Dec 23, 2021
Load Averages: 0.92 0.78 0.70
(MUCH lower then our previous average of 2.5 - 4.5, 'course its not yet busy as it may take a day or 2 for DNS to fully updated)

They are dual-channel RAMs..

we also run memcache to put more processes into RAM and speed up many MySQL actions.

The RAM will help a lot and allows use to open up another 200 to 300 connections to both the webserver and the database server.

It's reassuring to hear that the load averages are now significantly lower, the memory is configured properly, and that the server is caching data in the memory.

I see two unused drive bays. Thinking of going with more hard disk drives in there for extra redundancy or speed in the future?
 
27,733
Posts
14
Years
This has got to be the smoothest server move I have ever seen with a website. Back in 2010 a forum I visited that was smaller than PC and didn't have the same downtime problems had a longer downtime in the moving process. Great to see everything is back up and running though!
 
17,600
Posts
19
Years
  • Age 31
  • Seen Jan 1, 2024
i came here not expecting it to be up, but omg!! its so much faster! it takes less than a second to load a page now and my internet is slow as molasses!!!

but i don't understand. isn't the dns what allows people to connect to a website in the first place? i know i can't access my website when something is up with my dns. how come we can access the forum?
 
37,467
Posts
16
Years
  • Age 34
  • Seen Jan 2, 2024
Aw poop, I haven't even started my LoA yet and we're back up xD Well, it's better this way than having it take even longer time. So I'm happy, thanks for the effort! Everything works really smoothly.
 

Synerjee

[font=Itim]Atra du evarinya ono varda.[/font]
2,901
Posts
11
Years
Wow. This took less than a day..! So much for 3 days approximation eh? Haha anyways, glad this place is back up and running! A huge truckoad of THANKS all those involved in the move for helping to make PC a better place!! n_n
 
22,952
Posts
19
Years
This went way faster than I was expecting it to.

i came here not expecting it to be up, but omg!! its so much faster! it takes less than a second to load a page now and my internet is slow as molasses!!!

but i don't understand. isn't the dns what allows people to connect to a website in the first place? i know i can't access my website when something is up with my dns. how come we can access the forum?

I think Steve is referring to how all the major DNS servers (and probably some minor ones) on the web need to change the IP address each server has associated with the URL www.pokecommunity.com, which probably means PC has a new IP address. There are probably some people somewhere in the world who can't get to the new server yet due to the DNS server they use or the one their ISP uses not having updated with the new IP address to associate with www.pokecommunity.com. The reason you can access the site is that the DNS that you or your ISP uses has updated this information already. Of course, this is all just educated guessing on my part given that I don't know what actually was changed to necessitate DNS records on DNS servers needing to be updated. Could just be DNS records on the hosting company's DNS servers that need to be updated (probably not the case since we can access the site).
 

icelovebunnies9

Ghastly Dragon
116
Posts
10
Years
That was fast. O.O I was expecting an entire day before we could go back on again. But that doesn't seem to be true. XD

I don't really notice much like the speed of loading pages and what not. But I think PC has improved. :D
 

Loki

x
6,829
Posts
18
Years
  • Seen Mar 23, 2022
Dang it wasn't just the move that was fast-- now everything on PC is loading crazy fast! I'm trippin' out over here, so used to those 5+ minute wait times from a few years ago hahaha

Nice job you guys, super excited about this! (((@V@)))
 
17,600
Posts
19
Years
  • Age 31
  • Seen Jan 1, 2024
Even on my slow as poop phone the site loads dramatically faster! Now instead of going downstairs and making some tea and maybe completing a load of laundry before a page loads I can just look away for a split second and the page is already there waiting for me! This baby is satisfied! ??????
 

Meganium

[i]memento mori[/i]
17,226
Posts
13
Years
Really glad that it took a lot faster than expected to have PC back after a rigorous server move. The site was loading slowly at first but now I can jump from page to page in just less than a second...and my internet is too fast. xD Good job, PC. Major kudos. <3
 

Starry Windy

Everything will be Daijoubu.
9,307
Posts
11
Years
I can't believe that the server move is finished faster than I expected, and PC is now faster. Kudos to you guys for making it smooth and safely!
 
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