Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption
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jema
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Downsizer may be moving to the windy cityCurrently our server lives in the depths of Iowa, but in a few months time we may be moving 
Downsizer has moved a few times before, from shared hosting to a small rented server, to an upgraded rented server, and then onto a server owned by MarsJupiter (my little company) that server move was a little over two years ago and since then more memory has been added as load levels for downsizer and other sites have continued to increase.
As of now, we are still soaking up the load to a reasonable degree, but that won't last forever and hence there is a plot to buy a new larger server and install that in Chicago, with the plan of slowly moving the three MarsJupiter servers from Iowa to Chicago as well.
Technically there will also be major changes, at the moment the servers are simply three powerful web servers handling lots of sites and web forums, this really is not that efficient but was the practical way to go 2-3 years ago.
Nowadays it is a lot more feasible to turn a single server into a number of virtual servers. This should have major benefits.
1) Downsizer can be more isolated from any problems on other sites.
2) The database server mysql will be running multiple instances, each dealing with a fraction of the number of sites/forums. This should be a lot more efficient as mysql is well known for how badly it scales.
3) Each virtual server no longer has to be all things to all sites. So can be tuned to better suit what is actually on that particular server.
In terms of raw processing power the new server will be about as powerful as two of the existing servers, but with the new way of running things I hope we will have not 60% or so more power at our disposal, but well over 100% more
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Nick
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As an ignorant user, does this matter to me? I don't mean this ... bluntly, I mean, will I notice any difference on the site (downtime for the move? faster? More stable?)
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jema
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Faster and more stable. Inevitably a little downtime, but probably only minutes if my plot works correctly.
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Nick
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Excellent!
And are the plans to make DS subscription only forging ahead?
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