Kristen said,
if we are truly using "200 concurrent mysql connections at the same time" on a Friday morning in August, I don't think there's a shared hosting environment in all the world that's going to be able to host us for very long come the fall. I really am starting to believe that this board needs a dedicated server to exist peacefully on the net.
How much does a dedicated server cost? Would it require a dedicated techie person to take care of it?
Probably $150-$200 a month if you use a hosting service to maintain your server.
I have no idea how much a server would cost to build and maintain yourself but I'm not sure that would be the wisest option anyway.
ETA: And that cost is probably be a lowball estimate.
Are we still LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) over here? What are the version/build numbers we're using of everything?
I'm a mod on another board that went through similar issues a few months back. We are now on a dedicated server.
If it would be helpful, I can talk to that Admin to find out who's hosting us now, and what kind of package we started with.
That board has a smaller user pop, but a very prolific one.
So, if it comes down to it, we're looking at $2,400 to keep us running for a year, yes? I just wanted to make sure we have a solid number if we're looking at possible fundraising. (also wanted to get a feel for how much I could contribute to said number, should it become necessary)
Well. That's a big number, when you look at it.
The question is, have the quick and dirty code fixes done anything to lower the number of connections? And from my understanding, the answer is "we don't know yet." So I'd kind of like to wait till all the facts are in before we make these decisions.
It is a big number. But not as big as I was worried a number like that could be.
On the other hand, if 100 regular posters (our rough guess as to how many regular posters we have) contribute $24 each, we have our $2,400.
It's actually not all that bad.
[x-post with Jess, great minds, great minds...]
Looking at it another way, it's only about $2 per member per year. (Not that I'm suggesting we start charging for membership, of course.)
[x-post with Sean]