Weather-Watch.com - Performance & Plans

Announcements
1

As you may have noticed, the Forum and other parts of Weather-Watch.com are getting slower. That’s related to the size that all parts of the service have grown to and (possibly) a decline in performance of the main server (I suspect the hard disk is starting to return some errors). So, we’re on the move! Here’s the plan…

  1. I’ve provisioned a new server that should be big enough to provide the whole service…Core i7 Extreme Edition-980X (6 cores/12 threads running at 3.33GHz) with 24GB of RAM and 1.5TB of RAID0 disk. I’m in the process of building the server from the ground up with all the required bits of software that make things tick.

  2. When the server is configured correctly, I’ll start to move systems across from the main weather-watch.com server (Forum, Bug Tracker, Gallery and Wiki). This will require some down-time, but I’ll try to keep that to a minimum.

  3. I’m then going to provision a smaller server (but more powerful than the current servers) to act as a backup. I’ll need to configure that from the ground up too.

  4. When the second server is ready, I’ll move the WML system to the new big server (all services will initially be accessible on the big server).

  5. I’m then going to investigate how I can modify the WML scripts to allow some or all of it to run on both servers for additional resilience/fail-over.

At the end of the process, you should find things much faster again :slight_smile:

I’m also hoping to get the new servers running IPv6 for those who use it. I’ve started to set the server up for it, but I’m struggling to get it to work properly. If anyone is an expert in IPv6 and can offer some advice/help that would be great. I’d also like to find a couple of people to act as IPv6 testers, but obviously I need to get it up and running before I need testers!

I’ll post more news as I have it.

TTFN,
Chris

2

thanks for your tireless support for keeping things ticking along nicely on the forum and WML Chris!! :slight_smile:

3

This hasn’t been going as quickly as I wanted :frowning:

Firstly, the new server was running slow on the network. Got that sorted eventually.

Then having a new server means means new versions of operating system, Apache, PHP, MySQL. Those in turn mean I need new versions of various addons I use in the WML system (sub system, form handler, map generator, etc). These aren’t all playing together nicely yet. I’m getting there for WML…got the main scripts working, but the map generator still isn’t working and the subs system and/or form handler are broken in some way.

I’m hopeful that once I get WML across, the rest of the stuff should be a lot easier, but one step at a time is the best way to go.

4

Always :slight_smile:

-Bob

5

After considerable additional hair greying and loss (not appreciated when you have very little hair to start with and it’s almost all grey) I’ve worked out that SELinux is being helpful :frowning: Sensible errors in sensible places? Nope. Any errors in anywhere obvious. Nope. I’ve had run-ins with SELinux before so I should have known better.

I’m now able to make some progress towards getting the kinks ironed out of my code and the other third party code.

6

at least it keeps you off the streets eh?

7

I’m making quicker progress now. Here’s the state of play of what has moved to the new server as of 15:30 (BST) 25/04/11.

  • WML - Management Centre and data provider
  • GFS data service
  • Wiki
  • FAQ Images
  • Various small domains/sub-domains

That just leaves the main weather-watch.com/Forum/Gallery/Bug Tracker to move. I’ve got copies of those installed on the new server, but I need to check them out properly before making the move.

8

Great progress :thumbright: