Technical Problems at RC?

Beverly · #1 12-11-2003, 06:28 PM

I keep getting mail from topics I've subscribed to over at RC, but I can't seem to access anything other than their main page. All I get is the "Page cannot be displayed" page where ever I try to navigate. Anybody else experiencing similar problems at RC?

Samw · #2 12-11-2003, 06:38 PM

Its slow and searches don't work but I am able to read messages there right now. I think they are saving up for a super duper server to handle everything when all they need to do is add another low cost machine for load balancing. But being an outsider looking in, I could be wrong. Their software might not support load balancing.

LostMind · #3 12-11-2003, 06:59 PM

that and they are hosting at rackspace... not exactly the best hosting choice avail.

Beverly · #4 12-11-2003, 07:10 PM

All was working well until yesterday afternoon. Still can't navigate the site

Samw · #5 12-11-2003, 07:30 PM

Well, the webhosting hasn't been an issue yet as far as I can tell. I can always hit the webserver without a problem. The Server Busy message comes from the Forum software and from the outside looking in, I would guess it to be a problem getting a database connection. If you load balance the database, you could get 2 or more times the connections I think (depending on the number of machines you used for load balancing). I haven't tested this myself (But other people where I work do this for our customers since this was more cost effective). I was thinking about playing with cluster servers this holiday and load balancing a mysql database if possible.

LostMind · #6 12-11-2003, 08:38 PM

well, besides the 5-10 second connection times, I'll leave the hosting alone (since its what I do, I am admittedly a bit biased)

As for load balancing...

We currently have a few clients running busy forum software. The easiest approach we found so far is to have multiple front ends running the software and bouncing users between each frontend machine with simple round robin dns setup.

Then, having a master mysql server handling some of the db reads and all of the writes, and then having several mysql slaves, handling only reads and synching to the master...

Very simple and effective. Actual clustering gets a bit tricky.

Doug · #7 12-11-2003, 09:03 PM

It working fine for me.

Samw · #8 12-11-2003, 09:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LostMind

As for load balancing...

We currently have a few clients running busy forum software. The easiest approach we found so far is to have multiple front ends running the software and bouncing users between each frontend machine with simple round robin dns setup.

Then, having a master mysql server handling some of the db reads and all of the writes, and then having several mysql slaves, handling only reads and synching to the master...

Very simple and effective. Actual clustering gets a bit tricky.

Yeah, that sounds good. Would this work for RC? I would think so.

When you say clustering is tricky, does that apply to Windows 2000 Advanced Server? (we deploy Windows 2000 clusters in some hospitals.)

LostMind · #9 12-11-2003, 09:41 PM

We don't have much experience with windows2000 adv. server. We have had a few windows machines on our network, but that was a long time ago.

So I don't know for sure.

Sounds like you have an interesting job. if you dont mind, what company do you work for? I last heard that the hospitals were purchasing HP machines now - is it HP you work for? Just curious

Samw · #10 12-11-2003, 10:04 PM

Yes, we use HPs. HP Proliants for servers and Compaq Evo XW6000 for workstations. No, I don't work for HP.

I work for a medical imaging/ picture archiving and communication system (PACS) software company.