"The Great Crash of 2013" a.k.a. The Future of ACL site hosting

[lithgowlights]

I think there are a core group of users that would provide the core costing and the other donations would be used to cover the rest

 

[SmartAlecLights]

its not realy the traffic or the size of ACL thats the issue, its the Load on the CPU it produces

 

[v8manic]

http://www.crazydomains.com.au/web-hosting/

Hope this helps with a costing, i'm not big into running websites so don't know enough about it but it seems like a good costing.

Cheers Wade

 

[Benslights]

for your Christmas light website v8 that would be fine but for the cpu usage as alex is saying is the major issue

 

[AlexB]

Wow, I wasn't expecting such an overwhelming response so quickly!!!


Let me make just a few points:

• I don't think we should make anything mandatory - If i'd had to pay to join last year, i'd have been turned off it while it was still just a curiosity, and I wouldn't be here now.
• I don't think making the vendors pay is fair either - when YL makes $2 on a P2 and $8 on a P12, asking him to pay anything is a bit much... the same with Ray - I don't think he'd care if we stopped promoting him on ACL - most people would still use him as he is reliable - and other boards who wouldn't charge would quickly pick up the slack.
• Voluntary is the only way to go - but you could include info in the 101 manual and say something like 'don't pay anything now - wait until you've got your display up and running, and then offer a donation for what you think it is worth'

I think given Dave has offered up $200 a year, and he hosts all of his stuff for $250 a year, i think we'd easily make it.


Alternatively, rather than site donations, set it up as a membership and offer something extra (like discounts) on certain things we have access to (like AAH boards or dongles or whatever).


I've already made the suggestion that the site be moved from Harrison's server to a Server's Australia server directly. I haven't dealt with them directly, but i'll ask the question of my host and see what comes back... but i guess the short answer is there is obviously enough interest here to pay to keep it running better.

 

[v8manic]

If you guys want I can ask the computer guys i know that set up our ute club forum originally. I do remember that we had to change the hosts due to volume of traffic as well.

Cheers Wade

 

[dale82]

What is the average cost of hosting a site like this? I would donate $200 per year towards it so would lith and I'm damn sure others would donate as well

 

[Steve22537]

Alex, thanks for raising the issue and I do hope this goes somewhere and not disappear into the ether. You have raised some valid points, but we shouldn't rely on a few members to support this community site. Its just to risky.

Steve Baker

 

[battle79]

Before we get too carried away, two things

1. Is the issue likely to be a bug in the chat sodtware that causes mem/cpu usage to increase and then chat client gets restarted. If it is, let see if update that Ryan has applied (may as well reinstall latest) has any effect.

2. The disk failure suffered sounds like a whole array going down. This is highly unusual and it's understandable that a raid 5 array is expected to be it's own backup. If more frequent backups to separate arrays are required then we need to look into funding and hosting above current level.

Big thanks to Ryan for his hard work getting us back online in any capacity. Hope getting us up and running didn't impact on getting your business sites back up in a timely manner.

Regards,
Rowan

 

[AlexB]

This is highly unusual and it's understandable that a raid 5 array is expected to be it's own backup.

Sorry Rowan I have one point to make there - yes - losing an entire array is highly unusual, but no - a Raid array is NEVER it's own backup.


Backups are done to prevent loss of data due to failure. Treating the same box as the backup means you're expecting a minor issue to go unnoticed.


But backups are like insurance - in case of fire, flood, power surge or any other unforseen event where the entire data centre could be wiped out. It's like having a spare key on the same keyring... as useless as an ice machine in alaska.

 

[harrisonk]

Guys. No offence but before you go posting what you suspect maybe you should ask. The server is OWNED BY ME. it's not reseller hosting. The server cost me in excess of $6000 per year to run and maintain. It sits inside a Data Centre that is owned By Servers Australia. ACL would require its own dedicated server.

Once again. Before starting a topic with incorrect information please ask me.

 

[924aussie]

Where's the like button for the last post

 

[multicast]

Looked at the stats, and we could move ACL to a service in the new Google Compute Engine pretty quickly for around $100 per month. Its *increadibly scalable* and hugely resilant. I've been using it in beta for 12 months and its solid, dependable and relaible.


The guys who designed it ( i know one of them ) are very smart, and its just not going to drop off. There simply is'nt goint to be excuses like drives dropped out of Raid Arrays, or Multicast from E1.31 is killing it. Thats because you pay for it. ACL's too big and too important to be housed for 'free' for a favor.


On the donations, i think its a great idea, but i'd also suggest that they be kept anonymous. Theres no need for everyone to know how much and who is keeping it alive. I know theres enough good will and people to easily pay for it. Then theres no ill feeling between 'paid' members and 'unpaid'. We know some have a bit more than others and are happy to help. and others can't. Thats ok.

 

[DeeJai]

Whilst I would be happy to provide some money for the hosting of the site, I think we all need to realise that, we have done the donate option before (hence the Generous Elf icon) I am uncertain where that money has gone considering Harrison has provided 'FREE' server space.

Sure there have been some issues a long the way, whilst some have been server side, others have been software side. Before we go all troppo and bash the easiest target (the server host) how about we take a step back and realise that things happen. If there is a time in which ACL needs to part ways with HarrisonKohn.net lets do it amicably and provide thanks and gratitude to the person hho has provided us with something that would have cost us as a community a small fortune over the past year or two.

From me. Thanks Harrison for what you have done and what you are doing behind the scenes to keep this site up.

 

[multicast]

Before we get too carried away, two things

1. Is the issue likely to be a bug in the chat sodtware that causes mem/cpu usage to increase and then chat client gets restarted. If it is, let see if update that Ryan has applied (may as well reinstall latest) has any effect.

Theres some great alternative software for chat feature called "comet chat". easy to setup and does some extras that this thing does. Its got a cost, but well worth it.