On new server!

[dory36]

I've moved the forum to a dedicated server, meaning that there are no others competing for the resources of the server. It's shared only by FIRECalc.

FYI, most websites are on servers shared by many hundreds or even thousands of other websites, resulting in sluggish performance sometimes. (The cheaper the hosting, the more sites on the server... )

The forum seemed most often affected when users on the other server were sending or receiving lots of email, and the virus/spam scanner was processing hundreds of messages. The new server has no other users, and doesn't provide mail server functions for anyone, so these slowdowns should stop, at least from those causes.

Thanks for your contributions that make this possible...

dory36

PS: Updating the software was a necessary first step to this move. I'm done making big changes for a while!

[Sam]

Dory,

I wonder if you could share with all of us the annual cost of maintaining this great forum. It would help me greatly in determining the appropriate amount to contribute.

I did buy ESRBob's book and Billy's CD, but am not sure if they are related to this forum or not.

I respect everyone's privacy. So I would understand completely if you choose not to share that info.

Thanks for a great forum.

[Sam]

Never mind, Dory. I just clicked on the contribution link, and saw the default (suggested) contribution.

[dory36]

I don't mind -- costs are about $2500/year, most of which goes to pay for leasing a dedicated server and high speed internet connections, plus some software licensing and maintenance.

Until last week, we were using about 1/3 of a server, with the rest of the server being used by others who paid their share. Now we're on a separate dedicated server.

In the past couple of years, I have received about $250 - $300 a year in contributions that seemed to be from FIRECalc, as it came shortly after there was press coverage, such as the WSJ articles.

I get another $400 - $500 a year, spread pretty evenly throughout the year, and assume this is mixed between FIRECalc and forum support, since both use the same link. (Maybe I should split that up...)

I added the Google and Amazon links just a few months back, so I don't have long term information. But for last month, the Amazon link generated about $15.44, and the Google links at the bottom of the page produced $14.57.

[dory36]

Let me make the above a bit more accurate instead of doing guesswork-- you made me curious. I went in and revisiteded at the details. Forum contributions were about the same; FIRECalc was up almost double from the previous year, mostly because of six larger than typical donations during that period.

FIRECalc support for 10/1/05 - 10/1/06 was $790.62. Forum support for the same period was $514.32. There were 42 forum donations and 60 FIRECalc donations.

[Sam]

Originally Posted by dory36

-- you made me curious.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make to WORK!!!

Thanks for the info. I guess more contribution from members are needed. Seems like you've been the red for quite some time.

[dory36]

FYI, after about a week, the new server is seeing "loads" of about 25% of what we were seeing on the old server.

The graph below is a spliced-together graphic from the old server load monitoring software and another from the new server.

It shows the 15 minute running average load over the past 3+ weeks -- anything below the red line is good, and anything above the red line will result in noticable slowdowns.

The point at which we switched to the new server is indicated by the arrow on the right, and is pretty obvious. Less obvious is when we switched to the new software on the old server, indicated by the arrow on the left. (So Trombone Al was right -- there was an obvious increase in demand with the new software, although it was hard to measure at the time.)

The spikes are the 2am backups. These still occur, but are quick enough on the new server that they barely register on the 15 minute running average.