New T2W Server

Sharky

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On Sat morning (5th Feb) at 1:30am GMT (Fri, 8:30pm EST) the T2W website will be moving from it's current shared server in telehouse, London (hosted by gradwell dot com) to a new dedicated server in Dallas, Texas (hosted by The Planet).

We estimate that the process will take approx 1hr 30mins. During which time members will be unable to access the site.

Once we've moved to the new server, everything should appear just the same as it does now - you probably won't even notice we've moved.

The decision to move to a dedicated server was taken because we wanted to continue to offer fast and uninterrupted access to the website. The success of the site has meant that our server hosting requirements have increased substantially. As a consequence recent stability and speed on the site has been an issue and we're grateful for your patience during this time. We're confident our new home will not only be able to meet our current requirements but will also give us plenty of room to grow in the future.

Although we've taken lots of time to prepare for the move, there's always a possibility we may have some wrinkles to iron out in the days following the move - so please bear with us, just in case! :D
 
That's a relief - I thought it was moving yesterday, and performance has been awful since. Looking forward to a zippier site...
 
Me too zzaxx99, and just a quick reminder to everyone that the move is tonight at 1:30am (late evening, if you're in the States). Should take no more than about 1hr 30mins.. hopefully less.
 
Sharky

Out of interest why are you hosting from Texas and not the UK?
I know that geographical distance isn't really a factor on the internet but even so...
Are they just offering a better deal than elsewhere?
 
jimvt said:
Sharky

Out of interest why are you hosting from Texas and not the UK?
You obviously haven't seen Sharky's t2w photo.

He has some MAJOR connections over there...
 
jimvt, good question.. I was waiting for someone to ask that. The reason for moving to the States is because its a lot cheaper to host in the US than in Europe. Although it may be fractionally slower for us in the UK, the website attracts an international audience (with about 6000 US traders, and members from about 160 countries), others around the world will find it fractionally faster. But, we're just talking milliseconds really. When you consider a dedicated server is a lot more powerful, it easily compensates for this - and hopefully we'll all consider our new home signifcantly faster.

TB, not sure if that was a serious question :) but the speed of transfer from one server to another is incredibley fast (we're not bottlenecked by adsl for example). So even those the databases collectively are fairly large, most of the time will be sent configuring and testing the new server before going live, and giving the DNS a chance to catch up so that we don't have half the users on the old server, and half on the new (we don't want to lose any posts!).
 
Sharky said:
TB, not sure if that was a serious question :) but the speed of transfer from one server to another is incredibley fast
Yes it was a serious question Sharky. I just wondered how much data comprises t2w content at this precise moment in time.

I do appreciate the pipeline is a fat little b*ugger...
 
Well, let's put it this way - you could probably fit the whole site and all the databases on to a single DVD and carry it round in your pocket... and no, I don't! - before you ask :D
 
Now there's an idea for Xmas 2005 - "t2w - The Edited Highlights".

Or even better...

"The Out-Takes!!!"

Come on guys - you know it makes sense....
 
Well, I'm off to bed.

See you all on the grassy knoll in the morning...

...and we'll all have a shot at t2w.
 
nice and fast but where's the thumbnails gone - see jonnyy40 post
 
Spell Checker

Sharky, any reason why the move would lead the spell checker let a post with the word 'seruous' go as OK?
 
Well spotted.. it doesn't seem to pick up any of my misspelt words. Will get this fixed.

Hopefully now that the new server IP address seems to have propogated across the net, no one else is having any more issues with logging in or thumbnails. But, if you do spot anything unusual, then do let us know.

The server move went really well - everything appears to be running normally, and we'll be monitoring the server closely next week to see how it handles the busiest periods. But the site already feels a lot more responsive and shouldn't be prone to any of the outages, or slowdowns we've been plagued with in recent months.
 
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