BFC Server situation, outages, lags, and you.

This is a far more reliable forum than other places I can think of....I've not experienced problems at all. Best wishes to the owner and fellow members.
 
Spark, don't beat yourself up over this, you have done a great job running BF. With the complexity of the evolving technology, one has to expect problems big and small.

I remember when we switched over to the new controls on the boilers at work, we were being over optimistic about the resulting efficiency and reliability. At first they were not, and gave us great grief. We wished we had the old pneumatic controls back. Once we got the bugs out everything was fine.

Keep up the good work Spark!
 
I echo all the sentiments about this place. This IS the best damn forum online. 10+ years going strong. I am amazed by the fellowship here. I was recently out a MT Scarab Exec by the Saudi Scammer and a member here who shall remain unnamed has contacted me to my surprise having a shipment from NGK for me. What other place has that kind of community. The people I have dealt with here have a much greater degree of community than people I know in the physical world.

:thumbup: @ Spark for keeping this place going strong.
 
I hope that it gets solved soon, because I've had times where three times in an hour, I'm trying to post something, but it keeps stopping. I really do appreciate that you took time to post this and let us know what's happening. I'm glad to be a paying member :)
 
Keep up the good work, Spark. This is the only forum I visit, because I can find everything I need here... from solid cutlery science to utter nonsense/silliness-type fun.
I spend most of my leisure time here, instead of staring at the TV. We got your back, and you have our support. It's worth a bit of bullshit to keep this thing rolling; you've shown that you care about our concerns and we understand that stuff happens.

Spark, I appreciate you making the announcement in various sub-forums so we all know what's up. If you keep banging away at it, I'll keep coming here. Sound fair? :) :thumbup:

For the rest of you (you know who you are), PONY UP THE TEN BUCKS, YOU CHEAP FU**ERS!!! If you or your mommy can afford a 'puter and internet access, you can squeeze $10 out for a year of almost unlimited information. We're talkin' the price of lunch with a friend, two magazines, or a 12-pack of beer, for cripe's sakes. Mow a damn lawn if you have to. Chip in, we all win!

Charlie Mike said:
The people I have dealt with here have a much greater degree of community than people I know in the physical world.
Click to expand...

Darn tootin'. Not only have I made good pals here, this forum is helping me start my own business. In a few short months, I've gotten enough work from people here to more than pay for my membership. Plus, great deals on materials that I simply wouldn't have found anywhere else. Did I mention I've also made some friends? Can't put a price on that.

(I apologize if my language is inappropriate for this sub-forum.)
 
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James, your language may be inappropriate, but the sentiment certainly isn't. It just kills me when people mention in threads that they're doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers and what-not and then I look and see "registered user" under their names.

Come on, folks, you can afford $10. You probably blow that on stupid stuff every day of your life.
 
This forum has been extremely good for me and my knifemaking endeavors. Not only have I learned so many new things over the past few years, I have been able to sell many of my knives here.

Many of the "virtual" people here have turned into "face-to-face" meetings and new life long friends have been made.

I truly appreciate this wonderful place, and if there is anything I can do to help, you just let me know.

Thanks Spark,

Robert
 
Spark said:
Supposedly (again) there is a plan: we are being moved to our own dedicated box instead of the virtualized machine. If this fails, my plan be is to yank the site, and move us back to dedicated servers again. If that doesn't work, who knows.
Click to expand...

I really hope what is being tried works, because that "If that doesn't work, who knows." part is a little scary.

Thanks for all you're doing Spark. I can only imagine how nuts this must be making you.
 
This is the only forum I stick with on a regular day to day basis. Love it.

now, virtual machines running independent OS instances will have IO problems. generally (in my specific experience, involving database and streaming media serving) you will lose about 30% of your disk throughput rate for each simultaneously disk-interacting OS up to about 5 or so at which point you cascade to a 1950's drum speed crawl. Since most OSen default to journaling filesystems at this point it can get VERY bad. (Of course, this mostly goes away if each OS instance is using an independent disk controller. There is still overhead but it's not a huge deal.)

Pretty much once you pass the hobbyist level of DB capability, you need dedicated iron- and any DBA who knows anything about system administration will just flat out tell you so. In this specific case I'd also recomment multiple disks on different controllers for cachefs/swap, OS, and DB data.

Now, I am going to go gibbering back to my shop and swear one more time that I am no longer havink anytink do do vith computears! I am done, they stole a decade of my life already.
 
Spark....

Appreciate the post with info and update for all of us read as to whats going on. :thumbup:
Its up to us to be patient and supportive at the same time because it has to be 100 times more frustrating for you than us. Its all good!
 
Spark,
Thank you for keeping us informed. If I were in your shoes, I'd probably be all annoyed and making those around me (and me) nutz. Hopefully someone would tell me to take it easy and just do what can be done. So that's what I'm sayin'...; well that and are you sure that parrot is not involved somehow?
all da best,
rats...
 
Greetings Sir!!
I wanted to "second" what a Forumite said above , that so far, I have not noticed any problems, and I am Glad to be a Gold Member and Do Enjoy the Forum.
It is Nice to know what is going on and Please know We are here to not only Enjoy using the Board but also to support and Back You up.

Thanks Again,
Ed
 
Spark - thanks for the explanation; it helps to know what's happening out there. This'll all get straightened out one way or 'nother.

That being said, this is the only place online that I'm an active member of. I'm more than happy to donate some funds if new equipment is needed.

thx - cpr
 
koyote said:
now, virtual machines running independent OS instances will have IO problems. generally (in my specific experience, involving database and streaming media serving) you will lose about 30% of your disk throughput rate for each simultaneously disk-interacting OS up to about 5 or so at which point you cascade to a 1950's drum speed crawl. Since most OSen default to journaling filesystems at this point it can get VERY bad. (Of course, this mostly goes away if each OS instance is using an independent disk controller. There is still overhead but it's not a huge deal.)

Pretty much once you pass the hobbyist level of DB capability, you need dedicated iron- and any DBA who knows anything about system administration will just flat out tell you so. In this specific case I'd also recomment multiple disks on different controllers for cachefs/swap, OS, and DB data.
Click to expand...

Hey Christof, today's hypervisor systems are not your father's Oldsmobile (remember those ads?). Amazon (EC2), Google (App Engine), Slicehost, Linode, etc. provide a variety of "service levels" with different bandwidth, disk I/O, and CPU profiles. Believe it or not, block-level storage is available from some of these vendors. It's an entirely different experience than managing VMs even say 3 years ago, whether the data center is in-house or hosted.

Ok, sorry to make you think about that world again. Your regularly scheduled content will now resume.


Cheers,
Robert
 
Don't know about anyone else, but I was unable to get on the last 5 minutes.
But, it did come back, just before I am done for the night. Early to bed, early to rise. :yawn:
 
Thanks for the update.

I greatly appreciate the chance to decompress from the day by hanging out here.

And I greatly appreciate your efforts to make the experience even better.

No worries. It'll be fixed when it is fixed.

Thanks,
Frank
 
Just offering my appreciation for all your efforts in trying to better our forums experience Spark!
 
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