Server Move Soon

James

Chairman
Hello everyone!

This is an announcement to let you all know that we will soon be moving servers.

Soon, gone will be the delays waiting for a thread to load, and gone will be the slow download speeds from the videos section.

I will also take the opportunity of the move to upgrade to the latest version of the forum software.

I would imagine the downtime to be approximately 3 days, probably done over the weekend of the 28th June. It may, however, take longer than that, and should that happen, I will set up a temporary forum for you to ask Micra related questions, and possibly a chat room that the admins and moderators will use to keep you up to date on status.

Please be aware that moving a site like this is a mammoth task and we will not be cutting any corners, so, although we will attempt to keep downtime to a minimum, there may be unforseen circumstances.


Regards,
James (& Kev!)
 
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James

James

Chairman
No, its for the 2.6GB of web space we're using, the 600MB MySQL database and upgrading a modified version of vBulletin which requires manually recreating all the templates!

The forums have to be closed during this transfer as if I leave them open, some posts will go missing when we move.
 

Hugh

Moderator
Moderator
Wish you all the best with the move. Wish I'd heard of this sooner and I'd of offered a hand with the move.

Now remember, backup everything thing, then do it again.

So if it does go wrong and it probably will it will save a lot of suffering ha ha!!
 

JStone

Ex. Club Member
Is your new host British or European? I can't abide by the costs of British hosting, so I buy it from the U.S.. 150gb space, 20gb SQL DB and 2tb transfer a month. All for £35 a year.
 
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James

James

Chairman
Wish you all the best with the move. Wish I'd heard of this sooner and I'd of offered a hand with the move.

Now remember, backup everything thing, then do it again.

So if it does go wrong and it probably will it will save a lot of suffering ha ha!!
It all just came up today, lol. I will be making meticulous backups before anything is done, a while ago I moved all attachments from the database to the filesystem because it just made the SQL database way too big, seem to have more problems with really big SQL DBs than just lots of files so here's hoping that prevents that problem at least! :)

Is your new host British or European? I can't abide by the costs of British hosting, so I buy it from the U.S.. 150gb space, 20gb SQL DB and 2tb transfer a month. All for £35 a year.
It's actually US based but i'm assured it will run fast as it's on a Tier 1 network, and you're right, British hosting is way too expensive! lol
 

JStone

Ex. Club Member
It's actually US based but i'm assured it will run fast as it's on a Tier 1 network, and you're right, British hosting is way too expensive! lol
I find that my hosting with 1&1 is pretty fast considering it's U.S. If you ever want another SQL server or anything at all, give me a shout. 150gb for personal use is way OTT, realised that last year and started leasing. :)
 

richj

Deactivated Account
I can give you a hand if you like james. I've moved a site like this before. Its not that big a job really, but like you say, the forum update might cause some headaches if you have made alot of changes.
 
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James

James

Chairman
Thanks for the offer Rich, hopefully the new host will actually be handling the moving part (he's already offered to do it free of charge!) and I've heard a lot of positive reviews about the service he offers.

However the upgrading of vB etc is down to me so if I need an extra pair of hands I'll give people a shout! Hehe :)

IIRC there's 1and1 UK, US and EU. I've got friends in the states who let me use their address. Then pay with Paypal. :)
The UK ones are still based in Germany I think, we ordered a dedicated server with them at work and the IP shows up as a German IP and Google serves up google.de! hehe

They are still damn quick, I was downloading Outlook 2007 from them at 1.1MB/sec on our 11Mbit line at work!
 

richj

Deactivated Account
Your best bet with the upgrade is to install the new forum software as soon as possible and start hacking it. Get it running how you want with a temp db and test it out before the move. Run the db update script locally if there is one. Then all you need to do is move the sql file over and change the config to the new database. Do you need to make a lot of changes to the new software?
 

Arnold

www.alanarnold.co.uk
Moderator
Site Supporter
My other website is with 1&1 and the ping is as good as any in the UK! I just hope although the new MSC server is quicker, we still don't suffer from high latencies.

1&1 - Country (per IP registrar): DE [Germany]
 
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James

James

Chairman
It's more the templates need manually editing because this template isn't available for anything above 3.5, it was a nightmare to convert it to 3.6 compatible so I'm expecting the same for 3.7

As for ping times, the Almera Owners Club has a higher ping than we will get on the new server (168ms) and still loads pretty quickly, you can test that here:
http://www.almeraownersclub.net/search.php?do=getdaily

James.

Update: We've changed our minds and decided to go with a UK based host who will be offering us a great deal and only 15ms ping times! :D More information will be released when it's all confirmed :)
 
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James

James

Chairman
Didn't feel the need for it at the moment, I think the VPS should handle things fine :)

We're actually on a VPS at the moment, but it is very underpowered - only has 128MB RAM (256 burstable).

James.
 

Kev

Pro Cut Vinyl
Founding Member
Official MSC Trader
I have also saved the MSC £120 a year on it's hosting bill which will make things a little easier.

Kev
 

richj

Deactivated Account
Its a very good price for the spec. 2TB of bandwidth is mamoth. I would have guessed you use more like 70GB a month? Planning on adding more video? :)
 
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James

James

Chairman
We actually only use between 20-30GB at present, but I think that's partly down to slow download speeds with videos etc, we can probably promote the more now we have a faster service!
 

richj

Deactivated Account
Are you planning on adding extra services with the aditional capacity, like maybe a youtube style video upload service for paid members? Wouldn't be too hard to setup and would make use of your extra capacity. You could cue the videos for processing when the site is less busy, maybe 2-6am. Just an idea.
 

Ed

Fusion Motorsport
MSC Founder
Official MSC Trader
VPS are fine, and will host the MSC fine. Plus I cant think of anyone more capable than James to move the MSC to a new server, so its in good hands.
 
This can only be a good move, the lag on the site now is unbelievable, I hope all goes well Kev.

just a thought, will this affect costs on membership at all ?
 

Kev

Pro Cut Vinyl
Founding Member
Official MSC Trader
This can only be a good move, the lag on the site now is unbelievable, I hope all goes well Kev.

just a thought, will this affect costs on membership at all ?

No increase, the new server move is actually saving the MSC money and I managed to get about £11 knocked off the server bill per month when setting up with Ifuse.

Kev
 

Ed

Fusion Motorsport
MSC Founder
Official MSC Trader
Kev just to say, that I have cancelled the current hosting at the end of the month entirely. I am moving anything I have to a docklands based server instead, so just to make sure everything is done by then or it will be lost.
 
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