I just wanted to post a heads up to everyone. As some have noted, the site becomes temporarily unavailable or seems very slow.
The problem is that we're experiencing a spike in visitors. We do every year at this time. It generally tapers off after January. However, I was noticing that we have been pushing the load limits back in September and October as well. As such, I plan to upgrade the site to a newer and bigger server so we can accommodate the increase in visitors. We've been steadily increasing in visitors over time, and seem to have now gotten to a point that we need to upgrade again.
In the last 10+ years, we've probably gone through 5-6 upgrades. Originally, the site was run from a spare computer out of my house (probably the first 4 years) and had at least one hardware upgrade during that time. Then we upgraded to a hosted service as my DSL connection just wasn't fast enough to keep up. Then, after complaints from the hosting company that we were consuming too much resources for a shared hosting account, we upgraded to a virtual server account. And when that wasn't enough, we upgraded to this dedicated server (about 2+ years ago, I think). Well... now it's time to upgrade again! It will still be a dedicated servre, but one with a bit more CPU and a bunch more memory (the real limit to the server currently).
It will likely be 1-2 months before the upgrade is ready. First, I need to make sure I will have the time to do the setup of the new server (installing all the software, etc.), and then get it all done. The final step will be a final data migration to get the latest copy of the database, in which time the website will be offline for a few hours (at least). This will get done during a low peak time (generally Saturday evenings).
Anyway... please bear with us during these times of growing pains. As some long-time members can attest, whenerver we upgrade things seem nice and snappy again.
Thanks for the heads up.
Its good to be part of a site where admin keep the members notified of things, many other sites just don't bother, so thanks again.
Changi
thank you for the heads up! it really is great getting to come here and you are ALWAYS keeping us informed with new things that are going on with well everything beardie related!! thank you so very much! will keep looking for more information as the time for hte upgrade nears so i know not to bug you lol!
Everything will continue as it was just prior to migrating. I am not planning on any data removal/cleanup as part of the migration/upgrade. For the most part, it will seem exactly the same, except faster.
I sooo feel for ya! I own a gaming website and go through the same thing and it can be a pain at times.. however, also shows your dedication to your members. Thanks for the heads up, not sure what i'd do if I couldn't come in here and check in.