So ... I have spent all day doing everything imaginable to get more oomph out of the server. Turns out all that fuss was because we had links to threads shared on some other high traffic places. We effectively collapsed under our own popularity all day long.

The currently deployed server is maxed out in the area we need help the most: CPU power. There are no more sockets left for new CPUs. This means a new server. And unlike previous new server cycles where I buy something minimal and upgrade it over time ... I'm going for something maxed out (with the exception of RAM) from the get go for a few reasons:

1) This will allow me to deploy the new server in Atlanta, and then roll the new site over to it. So instead of a downtime of me driving from Dallas to Atlanta, the downtime is however long it takes to transfer the database remotely.

2) I can then retrieve the current server from Dallas and deploy it TOO in Atlanta. This means we'd have 4 high power servers with the original server (Waterboy) on standby. The effective combined upgrade oomph is about three times what we have now. This should carry us through football season and a few years to come.

So ... why am I saying all this? This SOAB is EXPENSIVE.




So, let's get some FAQ's out of the way:

Q: But hey GTS ... what about that Cloud stuff! Amazon AWS! Etc!
A: I priced that during the downtime today while waiting for stuff to compile. Just getting a database with enough oomph to hold us on Amazon AWS will be THREE TIMES the overhead. I shudder to think of the monthly cost once I've added Elastic Beanstalk instances for PHP. The entire reason I buy and colocate the hardware is that over the lifetime of the server it ends up paying for itself several times over.

Q: But hey GTS ... aren't you Big Daddy Warbucks all doing this gig full time?
A: Well yea, I do it full time, but Big Daddy Warbucks I aint. I'm under the US median household income (go Google it and be shocked how low it is), and not by a small margin. It's a labor of love, and nothing worth doing is ever easy.

THAT BEING SAID ... Yea, I do have the cash to pay for it, because I practice my Spin Room fiscal gospel. But it is quite the kick in the nuts, so like we did with the last server (which has carried us a pretty impressive FIVE YEARS now), I will open it up to donations if you wish to help. Just like last time ... denote which school you root for with your donation if you choose to donate. The two schools with the highest combined total will get to vote on and name the two nodes of the new server. Last time the winners were Rice (the Database server is named "Sammy" ... and if you're in Skunkworks you'll see all the internal monitoring lists and tracks it as "Sammy") and Memphis (the Apache server is named "Pierre" after Memphis ... and it is also named and tracked as such in Skunkworks.) However ... unlike previous times donors will not get added to the donor user group and get ad free for life. That group is closed and only for people who helped us when we absolutely depended upon it and we were much more of a fledgling site.

Q: But what if my team doesn't have an active team board?
A: We'll count it toward your conference BBS.

Here is the link to donate. There is no set amount. Anything from your Starbucks latte tomorrow ($3) to full on making it rain if you're Big Daddy Warbucks is heartily appreciated. Be sure to send me a PM telling me what email it will show up as and what school you root for (if you don't see a comment field on PayPal allowing you to enter who you root for.)

Donate: http://csnbbs.com/misc.php?page=newserver