12 minutes after opening -- 500 people online

[Sola]

so they aren't running VB3

Even if you're running VB10, if your servers have issues, you will have issues.

[soopa]

so they aren't running VB3

of course they are.


but theres plenty of VB3 forums sustaining the level of traffic they were getting when they began experiencing problems...... and on much lighter hardware to boot.


i would bet they have simply fumbled their server configuration... i bet you they have default apache compilations soaking up 20MB/ram per process...

[soopa]

Even if you're running VB10, if your servers have issues, you will have issues.

werd.

[Dean C]

But weren't they using some other software before hand?

[welo]

Well, the whole site's acting like sludge now. I think it's safe to assume this is because their wonderful server power-cluster is running IIS boxes . I also notice they have resorted to disabling board viewing unless you are registered. Someone go help those poor souls. At the very least they need to load balance two of those boxes and use them strictly as SQL servers.

[vBMechanic]

It's an easy explanation and everyone was right about it on the first page Too much web server power, not enough attention paid to the database. They are not used to hosting apps that run DB applications so seriously and did not anticipate (or really ask anyone) about how much DB load this is going to create. So they had all this power on the web boxes-- the thing FLIES when the database is actually functioning. They are working on putting together a real database box; will be back shortly.

Certainly this is not reflective on the scalability of vBulletin -- I too have had more users on with much less hardware.

Locking it out to guests is quite on purpose. This is not your normal forum where you have to attract traffic. Everyone who hits that page is signing up, it is not stopping anything.

[Wayne Luke]

You know, I told them they need to have a lot of power beyond MySQL because it (like all database engines) is a resource hog.

Make sure they turn on Query Caching in MySQL. Heck, if they have the memory tell them to use the Clusted Version of MySQL. It stores all Data in RAM.

[vBMechanic]

I believe you Wayne. I also told them before the launch that vBulletin likes to have a 50/50 distribution of web / database power. Next time I think you just need to define exactly what "a lot of power" is

[pank]

Nice job Alex. I'm still kicking myself in the ass because I told them I could not meet a Friday morning deadline

If I knew it was for Howard I would have dropped everything and gotten it done. Oh well, you lose some you win some. Nice job. Glad you got the gig.

[vBMechanic]

Thanks, Bob! You never know who's on the other end of the phone, I guess. I laughed when I heard a deadline of 36 hours but I called to see who it was anyway.

[vBMechanic]

BTW, the highest recorded users online before taking the site down was 4,719 According to the sysadmin it would've been thousands more if they were able to get through.

[pank]

Thanks, Bob! You never know who's on the other end of the phone, I guess. I laughed when I heard a deadline of 36 hours but I called to see who it was anyway.

Yeah, I should have known since I listen all the time Oh well, that's cool. I'm glad for you and like I said, nice work and congrats.

The real thing that bugs me is they didn't request an NDA. A lot of my higher profile clients request them so I can't "officially" take credit and add them to my portfolio.

Still kicks self in rear

[Wayne Luke]

From his site when you click the bulletin board link now:

7.2.2004
Hey Now everyone this is Howard and I'm writing to you because this bulletin board has been quite the experience. Like you, I have been unable to log on since this morning and post my crap. Let me explain what is going on and see if I get this right. I've been on the phone with the various computer experts, Dreamtank, Jeff Schick from IBM and just about everyone except Bill Gates and the basic opinion is that they have never seen anything on the internet like what happened today. Within minutes of opening the BB we had thousands log on and at one point this afternoon forty thousand people were on the board creating a community for all of us. The problem was that over one hundred thousand people were waiting to get in and that's when one server blew up (whatever that means.) The guys at Dreamtank told me we fried the server and that sounds serious. All of the servers that Dreamtank owns were put into action but they couldn't handle the demand and they were forced to shut down. They tried something called a lock down for awhile but that didn't do the trick. Here's what I'm thinking about when it comes to the next move. Since we need stacks of servers to accommodate the demand I will begin thinking about a few advertisers. The original thought was that three servers would handle all the traffic and apparently that doesn't even begin to put a dent in the amount of hardware we need. I have been approached by several sponsors and I'm thinking that this is the only way to create an operation that can pay for all the servers. I can imagine a bulletin board where all of us can communicate in the event that the FCC has their way with the show and I am forced to go off the air for awhile until we can all regroup somewhere. In order to create a bb that will allow hundreds of thousands of people it will take a few days to figure out a plan. So in the meantime the guys will try to create a BB that will allow ten thousand people in at a time. At least some people will be able to use the boards while we begin to build an environment that can accommodate everyone. Like an overcrowded club the BB will let one person in when someone leaves, or something like that. Hopefully Lizzie Grubman won't show up at the club and run people over in the parking lot. That's the scoop. Keep checking back and we will begin to get this thing up and running. Over the next couple of days we should be able to handle hundreds of thousands of people once we pull it all together. When that happens we will have the largest community of people gathered together under one roof on the internet...like Woodstock but without the music, the drugs and the mud. I have no ability to explain what is going on technically and I'm sure my rudimentary understanding of all this is laughable but that's all I know right now. I'll keep you posted.

[pank]

Damn. I was just going to post that

Now that is impressive!

[vBMechanic]

I think in their haste they forgot the NDA. Oh well!

Rumor has it they're planning over 2 dozen servers with the planned ability to handle 25,000+ concurrent. Some things like the forumhome will be flat HTML updated every few seconds.