The Migration

[danz]

Quick run down.

The older server was a 2 ghz celeron with 1 gig of ram and could barly keep up with the demand that was required to serve SF. The decision was made to migrate to a new server in 6 days. Real Pro Hosting came though with an awesome deal and we worked to move all 15 gigs of data to the new server trying not to effect the load. As the clock ticked down we had to move it off and fast. The older server almost burst into flames due to the transfer but in the end the data was off safe an sound.

New Server.

The new server is a 3800+ with 2 gigs of ram and enough bandwith to make any geek smile but now it was time to reassemble the site and take it for a test drive. It was instentanious diffrence being on the new server while it was still pulling data off the old server. One the umbilical cord was cut and we were on our own a few problems crept up that were pretty serious.

Forums.

The old forums ran on PHPbb which is a free forum that has been always been in the line fo fire for hackers. The forum was a decent option but upgrading and adding additional features became more and more difficult. The decision to move to vbulletin which is a commercial application with professional support. It has proven to be powerful under large amounts of data as well offer many features that could be added. After the migration the phpbb registration was broken as well a couple of other random issues. Rather then devote the time to fix the decision was made to bite the bullet and move to the new forums early. The conversion took almost 2 hours and I scrambled to fix all the small issues that came up. I ended up calling to work sick (hope my boss wont read this!) to devote my day to bring this site back up. There is another 18 hours or so of indexing and linking that needs to be done on the server so changes are going to be minimal till the indexing is compleate.

Whats next?

Over the next couple of days I will be devoting every spare moment to addressing your concerns about the forum. I understand this is a new layout, look and you may find it hard to navigate but I can guarentee it will grow on you and with the new server and vbulletin there should be no diffrence is speeds despite load. You can expect the rest of the site to transform into new platorms that are capable of keeping up with the demand ad well keeping a single login for every aspect of this site. A new video torrent system is also in the work and with our new bandwith and server you all will have the oppertunity to share your videos.

BTW who the heck are you?

Oh yea I am Danz (dan zenner) your silverfish nerd. I do not skate or do anything physcial for that matter due to physical ailments but I admire what you do. My passion beyond computers is tattoos and currently have 1/3 of my body covered in tattos. I am dedciated to art and design and I hope you like whats created for you.

-danz