Server upgrades! =)
October 24, 2011, 04:37:48 PM Posted by LiroyvH on October 24, 2011, 04:37:48 PM in Server upgrades! =) | 6 CommentsDear valuable users,
Simple Machines is very proud to announce the long awaited upgrades and expansion to our server setup and infrastructure.
As many of you have encountered over the past months, the site/community responded slowly and would often spit out errors such as the "High Stress" notice. Sometimes the server would go offline completely due to (hardware) failures and extreme stress due to low-level DoS attacks (combined). In order to maintain the possibility to expand with future projects, to regain complete stability and to keep our infrastructure secured, we have decided to upgrade our server stack where needed after a lot of brainstorming.
- File server
One of the top priorities during this upgrade is fixing and upgrading the primary file server. The old hard drives will be replaced with new, faster, one's and an additional new file server will be put in place. (Respectively in RAID10 and RAID5 setups) This is needed because our current file server is rather stressed under the load and it has been going through issues with it's RAID setup due to a hardware failure. In total our new hardware will expand to 10TB.
- Virtual machine hosts
Next comes our virtual machine hosts. We currently have two machines dedicated to hosting our virtual machines. Instead of purchasing all new machines to host all of our VM's, we have decided to purchase one extra 2x Quadcore XEON powered HP ProLiant server with 32GB memory, to run along with our current HP ProLiant systems. This setup is necessary in order to spread the load caused by VM's to different machines, to guarantee the possibility for future expansion and increase stability while keeping the setup and upgrades cost effective.
The current HP ProLiant servers for our virtual machines, which are doing a great job at the moment, are of course not being left behind and are getting a nice maintenance cleanup and a upgrade to 32GB memory per system to ensure that both have more resources available to support the current load on the machines as well as to support future projects that may be handled by Simple Machines.
- Other maintenance
Our MySQL server will also undergo maintenance and thorough checking.
Next to all these most important upgrades, all our other servers (and virtual machines) will get checkups and will undergo maintenance. This is not limited to hardware checks and hardware maintenance.
- Why are the upgrades required?
All of this is required to ensure that:
- We have a stable environment for end-users and websites running on our servers.
- We have a pleasant environment for our developers to work in.
- Our overall performance and speed will increase.
- Our server stack will be able to support future projects that join Simple Machines.
- We will be affected far less by low level attacks due to stress reduction on all aspects of our setup.
- Our security will increase.
- We are completely set to go for a couple of years again with this setup.
- Downtime
Please be advised that, due to the nature and large impact of the upgrades we have planned and the amount of work the server team has to do, the Simple Machines website will be brought down for maintenance several times over the course of next week. There will be both short and long interruptions depending on the different stages of upgrade. The largest downtime will be when we are rebuilding the file server. However, we are taking steps to limit the downtime and reduce it to a minimum by letting the file servers do each others jobs.
As always, we will keep you informed by Twitter, Facebook and our Backup Forum.
The first date our website will go down for maintenance is: Sunday, October 30 2011.
**Please bookmark our BACKUP FORUM URL.**
Please only ask your questions there if it is really urgent
- Thank you!
We would like to thank everyone that has donated to Simple Machines (either in money or in time) for making this possible, including our advertisers. We would also like to thank our users: Simple Machines and our forum software would not have grown so big and needy without your help!
Thank you everyone
We hope that you will enjoy it when we return bigger, faster and stronger than ever without server issues!
Kind regards,
- Server Team
- Site Team
- All other teams & Simple Machines
Simple Machines is very proud to announce the long awaited upgrades and expansion to our server setup and infrastructure.
As many of you have encountered over the past months, the site/community responded slowly and would often spit out errors such as the "High Stress" notice. Sometimes the server would go offline completely due to (hardware) failures and extreme stress due to low-level DoS attacks (combined). In order to maintain the possibility to expand with future projects, to regain complete stability and to keep our infrastructure secured, we have decided to upgrade our server stack where needed after a lot of brainstorming.
- File server
One of the top priorities during this upgrade is fixing and upgrading the primary file server. The old hard drives will be replaced with new, faster, one's and an additional new file server will be put in place. (Respectively in RAID10 and RAID5 setups) This is needed because our current file server is rather stressed under the load and it has been going through issues with it's RAID setup due to a hardware failure. In total our new hardware will expand to 10TB.
- Virtual machine hosts
Next comes our virtual machine hosts. We currently have two machines dedicated to hosting our virtual machines. Instead of purchasing all new machines to host all of our VM's, we have decided to purchase one extra 2x Quadcore XEON powered HP ProLiant server with 32GB memory, to run along with our current HP ProLiant systems. This setup is necessary in order to spread the load caused by VM's to different machines, to guarantee the possibility for future expansion and increase stability while keeping the setup and upgrades cost effective.
The current HP ProLiant servers for our virtual machines, which are doing a great job at the moment, are of course not being left behind and are getting a nice maintenance cleanup and a upgrade to 32GB memory per system to ensure that both have more resources available to support the current load on the machines as well as to support future projects that may be handled by Simple Machines.
- Other maintenance
Our MySQL server will also undergo maintenance and thorough checking.
Next to all these most important upgrades, all our other servers (and virtual machines) will get checkups and will undergo maintenance. This is not limited to hardware checks and hardware maintenance.
- Why are the upgrades required?
All of this is required to ensure that:
- We have a stable environment for end-users and websites running on our servers.
- We have a pleasant environment for our developers to work in.
- Our overall performance and speed will increase.
- Our server stack will be able to support future projects that join Simple Machines.
- We will be affected far less by low level attacks due to stress reduction on all aspects of our setup.
- Our security will increase.
- We are completely set to go for a couple of years again with this setup.
- Downtime
Please be advised that, due to the nature and large impact of the upgrades we have planned and the amount of work the server team has to do, the Simple Machines website will be brought down for maintenance several times over the course of next week. There will be both short and long interruptions depending on the different stages of upgrade. The largest downtime will be when we are rebuilding the file server. However, we are taking steps to limit the downtime and reduce it to a minimum by letting the file servers do each others jobs.
As always, we will keep you informed by Twitter, Facebook and our Backup Forum.
The first date our website will go down for maintenance is: Sunday, October 30 2011.
**Please bookmark our BACKUP FORUM URL.**
Please only ask your questions there if it is really urgent
- Thank you!
We would like to thank everyone that has donated to Simple Machines (either in money or in time) for making this possible, including our advertisers. We would also like to thank our users: Simple Machines and our forum software would not have grown so big and needy without your help!
Thank you everyone
We hope that you will enjoy it when we return bigger, faster and stronger than ever without server issues!
Kind regards,
- Server Team
- Site Team
- All other teams & Simple Machines
Comments
Good news
Good news to hear... Lets go upgrade 
The site is still slow in some cases but will expect good performance after the upgrade process
The site is still slow in some cases but will expect good performance after the upgrade process
Quote from: The Burglar! on October 25, 2011, 12:21:02 PM
Good news to hear... Lets go upgrade
The site is still slow in some cases but will expect good performance after the upgrade process
It should for sure!
I had not expected anything else