Dan needs a new server?

[StarGateSG-1]

Ok dan I think you need a new server, please do I will help anyway I can and I hope everyone else will to, for the sake of compsci. Please help dan get a new server ( his own if possible)

[Notoroge]

Wasn't the original CompSci.ca his own server, but was later-on outsourced due to maintenance nightmares?
Anyways, I think CompSci.ca is doing pretty well for the amount of traffic it gets, and has good uptime. It's only been down once since I got here, and that's been about a month. And I doubt it crashes this hard often.

[Tony]

not this hard and not this often, but this did happen before.

Originally compsci was hosted, but on Dan's personal computer, under Windows I belive. Something about that not supporting over 10 connections at a time.

Now a dedicated *nix machine in Dan's climate controlled (and by that I mean removed window frame with half a dozen fans) clothet is a better choice. Though a) that costs, and b) there's still an issue of connectivity. Could somebody let me know how broadband will stand up to compsci's demand?

[Amailer]

Ah, no way compsci can be hosted off someones personal comp it wouldn't last for 2 hours
For some odd reason, only 15-20 people are allowed to connect to the server/site at a time, the rest of the 'extra' users get an error message asif the server isn't working... at least thats how it was for me and Dan used to use the same ISP as me (darn sympatico -.-).

Buying a new and slightly more expensive server is the only way out, or make daily backups which is a real pain -.-

[Martin]

I could look into hosting it off of the university servers, but I think we get too much traffic for that.

This sounds like it was a hardware failure though...

[[Gandalf]]

Can't you just have some macro or script or something that automatically backs up the database? I'm not sure about these forums, but that's what I did when I hosted a game server.

[StarGateSG-1]

I can't help host but I could donate money, am I hope other people could to

[Notoroge]

Everyone here probably has an old box their not using. What about setting up a server-farm of old boxes? Might take a lot of room, but it's the cheapest and most efficient way. Didn't Google run with a similar setup for a very good portion of its existance?

[[Gandalf]]

Hmm, ya, I have a overclocked P100 (used to be 75) stored here, but I can't say I would rely on it's dependance . Still, its an idea. There are quite a few possibilities, we just need Dan to come in here and tell us what he wants (if any change is needed at all ).

*EDIT* No, I don't think this would be the best solution.

[Mazer]

But then it's still an issue of bandwidth...

[Cervantes]

Notoroge wrote:

Everyone here probably has an old box their not using. What about setting up a server-farm of old boxes? Might take a lot of room, but it's the cheapest and most efficient way.

In terms of energy consumption, definately not.

[Drakain Zeil]

There's some good deals here, the service is good too...

http://www.futurepoint.com/hosting.php

But, while you're at it, why not just upgrade the forums to vB? vB is better, and about 160 to buy forever, or like 80 bucks a year.

If I had a job, I'd be more than happy to donate some money... but no one wants to hire me, lol.

[Notoroge]

Well, if you want bandwidth friendly forums, then you should get miniBB or punBB

Although I'm more than certain the latter gives better performance. Because I think there's one thing most of us could agree with here, PhpBB2 isn't exactly resource friendly.

[Amailer]

It depends on the ISP your using also, maybe some of them don't want people to start hosting and I don't think changing the forum would help with the bandwidth especailly since compsci gets around 700 hits a week... well now 192 but still...

[Notoroge]

Amailer wrote:

It depends on the ISP your using also, maybe some of them don't want people to start hosting and I don't think changing the forum would help with the bandwidth especailly since compsci gets around 700 hits a week... well now 192 but still...

On the contrary. You'd probably see an even bigger increase in perfermance when having tons of users on the site because it really stress-tests the forum's capabilities. Whereas almost all forums would perform equally when only recieving 10 - 20 hits.