Downtime and Move to Virtual Private Server

[Administrator]

Hi All,

As you may have noticed, APS was down for about 10 hours last night - apologies for this.

Basically the problem is APS is a pretty CPU intensive site, of a night we can have 50 or 60 people online at once all querying and updating the database at the same time. Currently we are on a shared host and they don't take too kindly to having some mad herpetologists taking all their processor up - go figure!

What I've decided to do is move the site over to a VPS - Virtual Private Server. This means that we will have a minimum amount of CPU allocated to us alone, and if there's more available we get that too. This may slow down the site a little at peak times, but at least the site will be up and we won't have to hear from our friends at the web host.

I'll be working on this move over the next few days. The hosting company has agreed to assist me with the upgrade, but there may be some downtime. If I expect any downtime I will update this post.

 

[herptrader]

Keep up the good work. The site may be CPU intensive but I know that maintaining and improving it will be very time intensive - particularly for you!

 

[Administrator]

Not time intensive enough! I only found out the site was down this morning

 

[africancichlidau]

Buy yaself a snake buddy then you'll spend more time here Keep up the good work Adam

 

[GetCoiled]

What a terrific hours mates!
...also ATR is down almost since 2 days...Maybe for a totally different problem I guess...
Cheers
Stefano

 

[Retic]

If only you could do something about how slow it is, I have broadband and it is still painfully slow sometimes. If it is a money thing wouldn't it be possible to use some of the sponsorship money to improve that aspect of it ?

 

[Administrator]

I work hard on getting the speed as good as possible. Once we are on the VPS we can "adjust'" our speed based on our budget. I'll need to review the money we have coming in from sponsorship and donations in order to see what we can afford.

 

[peterescue]

If only you could do something about how slow it is, I have broadband and it is still painfully slow sometimes. If it is a money thing wouldn't it be possible to use some of the sponsorship money to improve that aspect of it ?

not if it means losing the penthouse Boa, no way.

 

[Administrator]

What penthouse? And what the hell am I doing working 6 days a week if I have a penthouse for?? God, the things you miss when you're not paying attention...

 

[chameleon]

the site went down at 900pm brissy time last night...
i just finished a post on that mad stripy bash thread and then seen
"account suspended"..
once looking into it i thought you guys were behind on you're payments..
after having a good ol laugh i spent the rest of the night at second-rate
herp joints.
welcome back to my computer.

 

[Administrator]

after having a good ol laugh i spent the rest of the night at second-rate
herp joints.

Hell, they're probably wondering what the traffic spike was all about..

 

[peterjohnson64]

I actually joined another new site and then came back to APS to the "account suspended" message. I thought the new site had hacked me and I was goooone. So I went incognito to another frequented site and PM'd a regular who gave me the the good oil. The rumours were flying on th eother sites. And a lot of Yahoo!'s as well. As you could imagine. Stuff 'em I say if they dont like us!!

 

[SLACkra]

lol ya i was on one of the herp chats and i have to say that the rumors were being made and some other rubish. glad aps is back!

andrew

 

[chameleon]

yeah i got a lad named "frilly" aswell as a bunch of yank herperz to have a look aswell.
after the "good news" i promised ill be back(yeah right!)
i must admit this site does have a reputation..
..i found out last night..

 

[lutzd]

A good reputation or a bad one!

Don't worry about it - we don't! Anyone can say what they like, but the fact remains that I really love this site and so do a heck of a lot of others, so whatever anyone else says about it is water off a ducks back and wasted air, as far as I'm concerned!

Unfortunately, when a site has been operating as long as ours has, and with as many active members as ours has there are bound to be a few individuals who don't follow the rules. The fact that they are eventually banned from here (usually after several warnings and suspensions) seems to surprise them for some reason! It's usually these users who are the most vocal in their criticism of our community.

We have rules that were developed over a long period of time as a result of trouble caused by a few individuals, and these rules seem to be working for us now. As long as any member follows the rules, they are welcome.

Anyone who doesn't want to follow the rules is welcome to go elsewhere - we don't want them here! Everyone else is welcome to contribute.

 

[leighroyaus]

indeed, good to see its back up.
i recently just started a herp site also...
this is the first herp site i ever used and i must say alot better then ***.

[Admin note:] Sorry mate, for censoring your post. We would rather not say anything detrimental about other sites. We do appreciate your sentiments though - thanks!

slateman_junior if u need help finding a faster hoster let me know... i do do some hosting. whats your current bandwith alloowance a month and how much space are you given?

 

[chameleon]

chill boy.
the rep seemed that of bitchyness, but it came from a bunch of seppos...
if any self respecting herper on this site is a yank then i apologise...
they just simply view this site as unlogged...(so they say).
it dont mean turds to me.
this site displays as soon as i open my browser...
i have other computer interests aswell like programming
so that must mean something.
(dont bash me for not using caps)..
this is my first and last stop for online herping..
(in all honesty i care not for lizards)
trust me lutzd, you're on a good wicket.
as for those people you threw off the site?... well.....
you get an @$$h&le in every crowd.

 

[newtosnakes]

And for a while there I thought I was booted..... spent all night trying to figure out what the heck I had done to have my account suspended.... :lol:

Glad to see it is back up and running.

And btw lutzy, this was the first site i came across when i was looking for an online herp community and I stopped once i found it. Don't see what all the fuss is about elsewhere??? maybe i should visit other sites incognito (i could pretend to be wonderwoman or something) and see what all the goss is about APS...

 

[leighroyaus]

i use both APS & others no problems really in who uses what forums i mean hey we are all here for the same reason so why should it matter.

 

[Slateman]

slateman_junior if u need help finding a faster hoster let me know... i do do some hosting. whats your current bandwith alloowance a month and how much space are you given?

Thanks for the offer, but I'll be sticking with our current host. They've been good to us and very reliable, I just need to migrate the site onto a VPS to avoid any further outages.