http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=240455

A while ago we realized that we needed more RAM in the DB server that PerlMonks uses (see Re: PM News: Vote fary missing, and other stories... (corrections), for example). Soon after that, pair (who generously hosts us for free) agreed to give us more. Then pair realized that our current mother board had as much RAM as it could have. Then pair's CEO approved us getting a new motherboard. Then we cheered.

Today that finally happened. Fortunately, the first replacement motherboard kept locking up which caused quite a bit of server errors, etc. I say "fortunately" because this meant that we got an even better motherboard. We now have a DB server with a P4-2000 CPU (about 4 times faster than our previous CPU) with 1gB RAM (twice as much as before as promised).

I think this will give us quite a bit more room for growth. The site may still be a bit slower than usual due to database checks being performed due to the graceless failures when the 2nd motherboard locked up. There is a good chance those will be done by the time you read this, however. Don't expect the site to be really fast, though; instead hope that the site will be less vulernarable to load fluxuations and more consistantly "just a little slow" like we're used to.

Thanks to pair for continuing to support us.

                          - tye

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: New DB server resources (today's outage)
by phydeauxarff (Priest) on Mar 05, 2003 at 00:37 UTC
    Clearly PAIR is a standup company with good customer service.
    Was just thinking of moving one of my sites to another hosting company.
    I just made my choice
Re: New DB server resources (today's outage)
by ehdonhon (Curate) on Mar 04, 2003 at 22:38 UTC
    The database table repairs have been completed.
Re: New DB server resources (today's outage)
by mrpilot (Curate) on Mar 05, 2003 at 15:17 UTC
    The site seems to be loading much faster now for me. Generally in the mornings (US, Central Time) it takes around ten to fifteen seconds or more for a page to load, now it's only taking about two or three seconds, even with forty plus monks currently active on the site. I'm very impressed. Thanks pair!

    MrPilot
Re: New DB server resources (today's outage)
by perrin (Chancellor) on Mar 05, 2003 at 16:47 UTC
    Since this change, my theme has reverted to the standard one and my account says I have done 2 writeups (instead of the 1100 or so it said before). Is anyone experiencing these problems? These are no big deal, since I can easilly set my theme again.

      I restored your user settings, perrin. Loss of user settings is a known problem when the database server gets overloaded. After I revamped the searches, this problem effectively "went away". With the new year, site popularity brought it back. Trying to surf PM during the database repairs made it more likely so I've restored user settings for several people. I tried to search for a complete list but such isn't easy. I think I've got most of them.

      perrin, please go to user settings and hit the submit/stumbit button so that your recent write-ups will be reflected in your write-up count. The write-up count is recorded in the user settings record rather than directly in the 'user' record (just to skip a database schema change). We could change that now, but I've come to like it as a way to tell when someone has lost their user settings.

      This problem will probably be properly fixed when I refactor the node cache.

                      - tye
        Thank you, all is well now.

      I haven't had that problem, but look at it from another angle, if you got 8700+ XP from only 3 writeups, you must be REALLY eloquent. :)

      I noticed that khayos is shown with no writeups, which seems unlikely for a bishop.

      Hugo

        Click the "none" link and you'll see that khayos actually does not have any write-ups.

                        - tye
Re: New DB server resources (today's outage)
by Vote Fairy (Sexton) on Mar 05, 2003 at 20:54 UTC

    I am missing no more, thanks to the wundervoll people at Pair Networks!

Re: New DB server resources (today's outage)
by crenz (Priest) on Mar 07, 2003 at 14:32 UTC

    pair's CEO

    Three cheers for Kevin!