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It was (wisely) suggested to me that, with as poorly as things have performed around here lately, I should give an update on how things are progressing with the new server.
All hardware has been purchased and is in hand and operational. With the exception of a single remote management card that is out for repair/replacement, everything is in good order and running very well. The machine has been assembled and has its operating system installed and I even have some simple web stuff installed on it for benchmark testing.
If you've ever noticed that things tend to really slow down on here about every four hours (7:30am, 1:30am, 3:30pm, 7:30pm, etc.. - EST), then you know the effect that one of the regular data processing jobs has on the current server - it drags it down to a near halt for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes... Well, I'm quite please to report that the new server runs that same job consistently in under 90 seconds - and the machine never even hiccups, much less slows down as CPU usage never goes above 13% and the hard drives never even break a sweat.
I am currently focused on testing and configuring the server with the ultimate goal of having that completed within the next 10 to 12 days. If I am able to do that, the machine will ship to its new home in a Chicago datacenter the first week of April.
Come hell or high water, the server WILL ship no later than April 15th and we WILL be up and operational on it in all regards by April 24th - in time for the first round of the NFL Draft on April 25th. 
Please feel free to post any & all questions or concerns that you may have, I will happily answer everything as openly and honestly as I can.
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
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Sounds good also expensive.I hope you were able to cover your costs with donations? Inquiring minds and nosey old Moe wants to know if you had good participation with the paypal thing.  BTW Thanks for all your efforts.
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Last I heard Purp hasnt gotten a lot in donations thru Paypal, Ive been wanting to give but havnt been able to YET. Time I pay my child support and bills Im broke as a joke, however have a interview for a part time job this week so hopefully I will be able to soon.
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Good luck with the interview bud. It's tough times out there.
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I definitely didn't cover the costs, but the donations did offset them to quite a large degree. Without them, there is no way in hell we'd have what we have.
There were 30 donations for a total of $1,062.01.
The total cost of hardware & software thus far is $3,313.32.
Future costs pending are: approx. $60-$75 (as estimated on FedEx.com & UPS.com) for shipping to the new datacenter, a $199 initial setup fee (them getting the machine into their rack and hooking everything up) - then the first month's fee of $125.
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
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Just a suggestion:
On the front page, add a "goal"(be it weekly, monthly, yearly) and "current contributions" tabs so people know how far away from our goal we are and it might motivate them to donate if it's there for everyone to see.
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Quote:
There were 30 donations for a total of $1,062.01
$1062.01? .
.01? One penny? Seriously? I hope there were a couple numbers preceeding that pretty penny donation. 
Eh must have been a Steeler fan. 
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I think that the penny might have been me ........ When I signed up to do the paypal thing, I hit the submit button too early and my account ahowed a .01 charge .... Then I went back and donated a little more.  lol
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
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Quote:
I think that the penny might have been me ........
When I signed up to do the paypal thing, I hit the submit button too early and my account ahowed a .01 charge ....
Then I went back and donated a little more. lol
They charge .01-.03 cents when you first sign up for Paypal to ensure all the info and transfers happen smoothly, they usually refund that penny in a few days.
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
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Well good luck with the install and hope it comes quick.. I finally got around to helping out and got rid of that penny.. hopefully.. mmm... but anyways.. would have been more if you used Linux as an operating system.. I'm a bigger supporter of open source.. but well.. It's still a great cause. 
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](http://i.imgur.com/FUKyw.png) "Don't be burdened by regrets or make your failures an obsession or become embittered or possessed by ruined hopes"
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Thanks for the update!
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 Cause these boards are going to light up like a christmas tree come draft time.
I AM ALWAYS RIGHT... except when I am wrong.
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Continuing to keep y'all updated:
Good news & Bad news.
The Bad news is that the remote management card is still out for repair/replacement, but it should be back in my hands shortly. The manufacturer said that it shipped back to me yesterday... though I'm still trying to get a tracking number, so I have no idea where it is, currently.
The Good news is that this card is all I am waiting on now. Once it is in hand and I have it installed in the machine and run some basic functionality tests with it to confirm that things are working well, the server will be ready to ship as I will then be able to finalize everything else remotely.
From the date that I ship it, two days later it will be completely in place in its new home and I will be beginning final configuration and begin the task of migrating us over.
I haven't entirely decided how I'm going to handle the migration as far as keeping it as seamless to you as possible in terms of minimizing interruptions and downtime, but I will likely start it late at night on a weekday to keep the immediate impact to a minimum.
I'll post more as I know it, and as always, if anyone has any questions - fire away.
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
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I think this server is on its last toenail.
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
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nah, it's just under-powered for what I have it doing ... and it just keeps getting more and more under-powered for the task at hand as the amount of data on it increases.
It's still mostly just the 4 hour intervals of 7:30, 11:30, 3:30, repeat that has it bogging down the most... it just continues to bog it down more and more and for longer each time.
Soon.
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
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Quote:
nah, it's just under-powered for what I have it doing ... and it just keeps getting more and more under-powered for the task at hand as the amount of data on it increases.
It's still mostly just the 4 hour intervals of 7:30, 11:30, 3:30, repeat that has it bogging down the most... it just continues to bog it down more and more and for longer each time.
Soon.
Just curious...what data processing is being done on 4 hour intervals? I've never done bbs management before, but I can't think of any process that couldn't be reniced down to 19 in order to keep the bbs up while the process runs? I'm sure there's a reason, I just have zero experience in this area.... (edit: I guess that probably wouldn't help if it was a RAM issue?)
Good luck with the server upgrade, I'm in the early stages of building a similar workhorse server currently, and know how stressful the part acquisition and building process can be (especially when no company apparently understands how the new Xeon Nehalems work, or what they are compatible with...ugh)
~Lyuokdea
Last edited by Lyuokdea; 04/03/09 02:02 AM.
"When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." Leviticus 19:33-34
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Quote:
Just curious...what data processing is being done on 4 hour intervals?
In short, it is some statistics crunching, but it is a few million records of data. It used to get crunched every 5 minutes, but this weak machine couldn't keep up with that pace as the amount of active data grew... so I had to cut it back to only every 4 hours. That interval lets me still get somewhat relevent data without impacting the machine too heavily.
The data crunching isn't really as much the issue however as the low memory of the current machine (it only has 1GB total to start with). If the machine had more RAM, even just one more gigabyte, things would be a LOT smoother. The server regularly runs with less than 100MB of free ram - for anyone knowledgeable of Windows Server OS's, that is a very bad thing when it comes to doing much of anything, not to mention memory intensive tasks. It causes lots and lots of heavy disk thrashing. It is this disk thrashing that is the actual culprit. The problem is that the company I lease this machine from wanted a huge amount of extra cash per month to move to a more robust machine that would have even just 2GB RAM.
I'm jealous on the new Nehalems - if I could have afforded them, I'd have been all over that. To basically have the current setup but to have each of the eight cores hyperthreaded - man, that'd have been nice... but what we've got is plenty nice
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
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I know that it's sometimes kind of frustrating when the board doesn't work, but in the grand scheme of things, that really doesn't happen all that often. I really appreciate all the stuff you've done, PPE. Thanks again!
I am unfamiliar with this feeling of optimism
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makes sense...thanks for the info.
The new nehalems should be nice, though I don't know how huge the difference would be for databasing servers. With the equipment you have, I assume that processing power won't be the bottleneck. The reason I've been waiting for them is that the big performance boosts come for heavy computational tasks.
~Lyuokdea
"When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." Leviticus 19:33-34
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Just an update:
I just placed the order for the Colo. about 15 minutes ago. Provided that they get me my IP Addresses in time, the server will ship to them tomorrow and should be operational in their datacenter by Monday - Tuesday at the latest. Either way, I will have the IPs in time to ship on Monday for it to be in their datacenter by Wednesday.
From there, I have to replicate a lot of data and get DNS switched over (which will result in brief periods of unavailability).... but the end result is that we should be up and running on the new machine by next weekend.
I anticipate using the same migration strategy that I used last time, which will be to get dawgtalkers.com up and running on the new machine, then redirect dawgtalkers.net to it while the switchover happens... then just set it back. To you, the end-user, the whole thing should be seamless and won't require you to change anything to get here... I just want you to be aware as to why the URL may be different at times next week.
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
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Quote:
From there, I have to replicate a lot of data and get DNS switched over (which will result in brief periods of unavailability)..
Couldn't you give us the ip address so we can connect by http://ip so none of us suffer any severe withdraw symptoms? 
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Thanks for the update, Purp! I'm excited!
#gmstrong #gmlapdance
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Quote:
Couldn't you give us the ip address so we can connect by http://ip so none of us suffer any severe withdraw symptoms?
Yes and No.
Technically, yes, that would work - provided that there is only a single site being served on that IP address and HTTP Host Headers aren't being used.
However, the plan is to serve all sites (this and a couple of small private ones for gaming) from a single IP and use Host Headers, so it wouldn't work.
Depending on how many IPs I get, however, I may be able to do it as a one-off setup.
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
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Quote:
Quote:
Couldn't you give us the ip address so we can connect by http://ip so none of us suffer any severe withdraw symptoms?
Yes and No.
Technically, yes, that would work - provided that there is only a single site being served on that IP address and HTTP Host Headers aren't being used.
However, the plan is to serve all sites (this and a couple of small private ones for gaming) from a single IP and use Host Headers, so it wouldn't work.
Depending on how many IPs I get, however, I may be able to do it as a one-off setup.
Gaming sites? oh grow up already. 
Thanks for all yoru time and efforts Ppl.
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
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Completely agree....thank you Purp.
Also, the site is responding quicker today than I have ever remembered. Is this just a product of people taking Good Friday off or has there been an upgrade already?
#gmstrong
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Although it is responding quickly this morning, you've just jinxed it.  
#gmstrong #gmlapdance
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Quote:
Also, the site is responding quicker today than I have ever remembered.
Luck of the draw.....earlier it was skimming across the water with it's anchor buried in the silt......
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#gmstrong
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You can leave now.
Just go.
Tail between your legs.
Outside! Now! Bad dog.....
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Rough crowd this morning....you would think typed something (anything) about a QB
well, it's too early in the morning to drink my troubles away, so I'll just have to cautiously wade through the depths of cyberspace in hopes of avoiding a jellyfish.
#gmstrong
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Quote:
Wonder what Peta wants to name that? sea mushroom? 
RIP GM
Live, Love, Laugh
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mmmmmmmmmm..........sea mushroom pizza.
wonder how jellies taste on pizza.
#gmstrong
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Fried, braised, or boiled?
There are no sacred cows.
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The Beagle has Landed.
REPEAT: The Beagle has Landed
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
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We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
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Mmmmmmm........beagle.............
"People who drink light 'beer' don't like the taste of beer; they just like to pee a lot."
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Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum The New Server - a Status Update
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