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  1. #1

    Looking for managed solution for site with large VBulletin - 5 million+ posts..

    I have a considerably large site, with a very active VBulletin. It has over 5 million posts, and 95,000 registered members. Typically about 1,000 people online. We currently have 3.5 servers - All are dual CPU Xeons with 4GB of RAM, all with SCSI drives and RAID. I am not a UNIX/DB guy... I know enough to get me into some serious trouble. My resident nerd has a real job, and family life. He really doesn't have the time to keep everything running the way it needs to, and our server performance is greatly suffering. I have tried to work with a few other "gurus" and have not had much luck. I am seriously considering moving to a fully managed host.

    My question is, what companies out there are willing to work with me to ensure that my VBulletin is running smoothly, and our search is working, and not killing the servers. I don't mind paying for quality, if I am getting quality. I don't want to move more than once if I do this, so I want to make sure I do the right thing.

    Will Rackspace work with you and VBulletin?

    Thanks in advance!

    Lance

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    California USA
    Posts
    13,681
    In all honesty that is not 'that' big. I work with many boards bigger. However with a board that big its best to off load searches into their own server using a mysql replication slave, easy to mod vb to use it.

    Side note do NOT use rackspace
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
    Software Auditing - 400+ Vulnerabilities Found - Quote @ https://www.RACK911Labs.com
    Fully Managed Dedicated Servers (Las Vegas, New York City, & Amsterdam) (AS62710)
    FreeBSD & Linux Server Management, Security Auditing, Server Optimization, PCI Compliance

  3. #3
    I'd recomend serversupportguys for this, I have a friend that uses them and they he loves them.

  4. #4
    if money is not an issue, i will look over datapipe or rackspace for something like this. good luck.
    Mike
    Netsphare Technologies Ltd. Co

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven View Post
    In all honesty that is not 'that' big. I work with many boards bigger. However with a board that big its best to off load searches into their own server using a mysql replication slave, easy to mod vb to use it.

    Side note do NOT use rackspace
    Agree, it's not that huge, there are 165 Bulletin Boards that are bigger (according to big-boards.com).

    So what do you suggest? I'm all ears. Again, I'm not a server/db expert, so I need to work with people who are.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    California USA
    Posts
    13,681
    Off my head how I would do it:

    DB:
    Dual Opteron 280
    4gb ram
    4xscsi raid 10

    web:
    dual opteron 280
    4gb ram
    2xsata raid 1

    slave-search server for fulltext searching
    amd athlon 64 3800
    1gb ram
    2xscsi raid 1


    No control panels on any of the servers. all software (apache/php/mysql) compiled. You would have room to grow.
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
    Software Auditing - 400+ Vulnerabilities Found - Quote @ https://www.RACK911Labs.com
    Fully Managed Dedicated Servers (Las Vegas, New York City, & Amsterdam) (AS62710)
    FreeBSD & Linux Server Management, Security Auditing, Server Optimization, PCI Compliance

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven View Post
    Off my head how I would do it:

    DB:
    Dual Opteron 280
    4gb ram
    4xscsi raid 10

    web:
    dual opteron 280
    4gb ram
    2xsata raid 1

    slave-search server for fulltext searching
    amd athlon 64 3800
    1gb ram
    2xscsi raid 1


    No control panels on any of the servers. all software (apache/php/mysql) compiled. You would have room to grow.
    Also do a private gige link between the servers. Also possibly maybe get a two slightly smaller web servers and load balance them for increased reliability and uptime. And possibly double up the db's instead of a small slave do an equal slave with auto-master conversion in case of a main db failure.
    Jay

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    California USA
    Posts
    13,681
    Quote Originally Posted by jayglate View Post
    Also do a private gige link between the servers. Also possibly maybe get a two slightly smaller web servers and load balance them for increased reliability and uptime. And possibly double up the db's instead of a small slave do an equal slave with auto-master conversion in case of a main db failure.

    the whole point of the slave is to bring the load of searching off the main db. very easy to run into table locking issues with fulltext searching on.
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
    Software Auditing - 400+ Vulnerabilities Found - Quote @ https://www.RACK911Labs.com
    Fully Managed Dedicated Servers (Las Vegas, New York City, & Amsterdam) (AS62710)
    FreeBSD & Linux Server Management, Security Auditing, Server Optimization, PCI Compliance

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven View Post
    the whole point of the slave is to bring the load of searching off the main db. very easy to run into table locking issues with fulltext searching on.
    Yes of course, but also make it have the ability to become the master in case of a master failure.
    Jay

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    North Yorkshire, UK
    Posts
    4,164
    I think throwing specifications around at the minute without actually seeing how the site is performing on the current equipment, and the configuration, is getting ahead of yourselves...

    As has been said the forum isn't *that big* and could probably survive on a smallish amount of high end hardware providing it was configured properly, with the correct configuration you can sometimes see up to a 100% increase in performance simply by getting the configuration tweaked. I'd suggest contacting some managed solutions companies for quotations and proposals. Beware of anyone who throws a proposal at you without thoroughly evaluating your current setup.

    One thing to bear in mind is your budget, we've had a number of clients who have come to us in the past with huge vBulletin boards and complained daily that the sites run slowly. This of course was because the board had grown and was too big for the hardware, however they didn't have the budget available to upgrade the hardware to the required level. Managed hosting will only do so much for you...

    Dan
    █ Dan Kitchen | Technical Director | Razorblue
    █ ddi: (+44) (0)1748 900 680 | e: dkitchen@razorblue.com
    █ UK Intensive Managed Hosting, Clusters and Colocation.
    █ HP Servers, Cisco/Juniper Powered BGP Network (AS15692).

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    California USA
    Posts
    13,681
    Quote Originally Posted by RazorBlue - Dan View Post
    I think throwing specifications around at the minute without actually seeing how the site is performing on the current equipment, and the configuration, is getting ahead of yourselves...

    As has been said the forum isn't *that big* and could probably survive on a smallish amount of high end hardware providing it was configured properly, with the correct configuration you can sometimes see up to a 100% increase in performance simply by getting the configuration tweaked. I'd suggest contacting some managed solutions companies for quotations and proposals. Beware of anyone who throws a proposal at you without thoroughly evaluating your current setup.

    One thing to bear in mind is your budget, we've had a number of clients who have come to us in the past with huge vBulletin boards and complained daily that the sites run slowly. This of course was because the board had grown and was too big for the hardware, however they didn't have the budget available to upgrade the hardware to the required level. Managed hosting will only do so much for you...

    Dan

    The suggestion I gave is conservative. I am a firm believer in more hardware then is needed. I see enough vb setups its best to overdo then have to redo.
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
    Software Auditing - 400+ Vulnerabilities Found - Quote @ https://www.RACK911Labs.com
    Fully Managed Dedicated Servers (Las Vegas, New York City, & Amsterdam) (AS62710)
    FreeBSD & Linux Server Management, Security Auditing, Server Optimization, PCI Compliance

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    367
    You might also try the "Requests for Paid Services" board on vBulletin.org.


    Quote Originally Posted by pirate4x4lance View Post
    We currently have 3.5 servers ...
    How does that work?

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