SDMB Server Migration/Upgrade Plan

We plan on moving the SDMB to a new server and upgrading it’s version of vBulletin over the Labor Day weekend.

Please expect the following timeline:

UPDATE: Due to the size of the SDMB database the copy is going to be taken earlier in the day than Friday afternoon. It needs to be on the new server by 3 PM MDT and takes at least 6 hours to create, compress, and transmit. I’ll be taking the boards down at 8:45 AM CDT on Friday to start the process.

1. Friday morning: The SDMB will be turned off and a copy of the database will be made. That copy will be the starting point for the newly upgraded SDMB to come meaning after the upgrade is complete we’ll be starting with only the content we had on the SDMB at the time of the Friday afternoon copy.

2. Friday afternoon: After a copy is made of the SDMB the board will be turned back on with the understanding that anything done on the board from that point forward will eventually disappear when we bring the upgraded SDMB live. You can still read and post as usual. Anything to do with paid subscriptions will be disabled however since we don’t want financial transactions occurring that would be lost once we bring the upgraded SDMB live.

3. Friday evening through the remainder of the weekend: We’ll be upgrading the copy of the SDMB we made on Friday afternoon. The upgrade will be occuring on a new server we’ll be moving to. The vBulletin version will be updated to the most recent version of vBulletin, 3.7.2 Patch Level 2. This will entail updating the message board software itself as well as making changes to the database structure. This will take a few hours. A larger issue will be that the upgrade will break numerous modifications we’ve made to the stock version of vBulletin. We’ll be reinstalling those modifications on the new version of vBulletin during the remainder of the weekend.

4. Sometime before Tuesday morning: We hope to have the upgraded SDMB available for usage as the live board. It will only contain the content we had as of Friday afternoon. So any posts made on the SDMB from Friday afternoon after the copy was made until we bring the upgraded SDMB live will now no longer exist. That being the case please do not post something over the weekend believing it will be there come Tuesday morning. It will not be and we don’t want you to be unaware of that fact. All current subscriptions will be extended for the number of days it takes to upgrade the SDMB.

5. A number of days after the upgraded SDMB has been live: We will run the upgraded SDMB for a few days on the new server to make sure it’s functioning as expected. Once we’re satisfied that’s the case we’ll implement the free to post changes we’ve envisioned. That will entail the following:

A) Current Guest users will have their membership level renamed to Member and we will remove the restriction of only being able to post for 30 days. Search capability will be enabled. Users at this level will be shown banner ads, Google Adwords, etc. Users at this level are asked not to thwart our attempts to display advertising to you. In return for viewing that advertising capabilities that were restricted to paid subscribers in the past will now be available.

B) Current Member users will have their membership level renamed to Subscriber. Yearly subscriptions will continue for those that don’t want to see advertising or want to support the message board financially. We’ll also be turning off the Google Adwords ads that currently are being displayed to all users.

C) Current Charter Member users will not have their membership level renamed. Yearly subscriptions will also continue at half the current subscription price. We’ll also be turning off the Google Adwords ads for Charter Members.

D) The complete contents of the SDMB will be opened up to all Web search engine spiders.

6. A future upgrade to the SDMB internal search function: We’ll eventually be moving to an improved third party solution for the internal SDMB search function. This is to improve performance of the SDMB in general and also to handle the additional searching capability of non-subscribers. Tentative plans for this are sometime in the fall of 2008.

Finally, all details have not been worked out about the future functioning/policies of the upgraded SDMB with it’s change to a free-to-post model. They’ll be addressed when we have answers but please don’t expect we’ll have immediate answers to questions. Please also be lenient with the Administrators and Moderators of the message board because they will not have answers to many questions you might have. Ed Zotti is the person that can give official answers to policy questions. While the other Administrators and Moderators might know an answer to a question that doesn’t mean they will know and may only be able to forward your questions on to Ed for further clarification. Our focus at the moment is to successfully upgrade the message board and move it to a new business model. While future policy matters are a concern to all that is not our immediate focus so please expect there to be some amount of time until they can be fully addressed.

Thanks,

Jerry

Great news, very welcome and much appreciated. Thank you!

Thank you for the update jdavis.

I’ve stickied this thread, and I heartily encourage everyone to read the good news.

Thank you very much for the information. Would you tell us about the server itself (CPU, memory, etc.)?

Thank you for the information, no only on the migration, but also the details on the membership plan post-migration.

Thanks for the update. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that it all goes smoothly.

Thanks for the update! So, if the hamsters are going away, what will we be getting? Ferrets?

Congrats, and thanks so much for working over the Labor Day weekend!

And last weekend. Thanks, Jerry. I should’ve said so myself.

This is good news! I hope everything goes well. Thanks for the update!

Thanks for the information. However, I’ve got one question – will there be regular moderation during amnesia weekend, or will this whole thing become a no-holds-barred free-for-all anarchy?
After all, once all’s said and done, it just disappears into the virtual nether…

What’s going to happen to the current server after the migration? Has there been any discussion about having multiple machines serve the SDMB?

cheers and whistles

Great news!

Sooo…will warnings and/or Bannings count during the down time?

I look forward to seeing you find out.

And professions of love and/or lust? :dubious:

Jerry gave the Staff an update a short time ago. I need to speak very carefully such that I don’t act like I’m in the know on the fine details, nor am I promising anything because I have no way to do such. In general, the way Jerry put it to us was that the new SDMB has certain performance goals from the host, rather than specific solutions, and if those goals are met by using 2, 3 or more servers then they may do it that way. As a result, it is also doubtful at this time that anyone can give a good estimate of the CPU/RAM/disk size needed.

Let me emphasize what Jerry just told you: The administrators and moderators of this message board have very few technical details and will not be able to answer a lot of your questions. We’ll be referring you back to this thread and what Jerry and Ed tell you and that’s really all we can do.

We expect to moderate as we always have regardless of what might happen to the content. That also means all rules will be enforced and people should behave accordingly. If misbehavior ends up in banning or suspension, we keep notes on that and those notes will survive migration.

As for the hamsters – I’m hoping for hedgehogs myself. Big ol’ hard working hedgehogs.

All rules still apply to “Amnesia Weekend”-the Board may be having an attack of amnesia, but the memories of the Mods and Admins will still be functioning.
'Nuff said?

Fair enough. Just wanted to verify it was being considered as an option.