Upgrades, Updates, etc...

[TomFulp]

Heya! As usual, we are working on more system upgrades. For the first time we have been forking out money for SOFTWARE UPGRADES - namely, PHP ZEND to help the database run smoother.

Not to mention we are shopping for a whole new database server. This is a toughie. While we use a TON of servers for both serving out SWF files and building dynamic PHP pages, we can only have one reliable database server - so it needs to be the biggest, meanest, toughest machine we can find.

We'll also be getting a few more webservers since the load on the current servers has been getting maxed out.

This leads to our last bottleneck - the bandwidth. Yup, we just made an expensive upgrade in April, but it is already well maxed out. So, we might be adding another line... And that will require a whole new batch of servers... And a whole new batch of software licenses per CPU. This stuff sure get's DAMN EXPENSIVE! :)

[Miles]

i will give you my money tom!

[X8X]

TomFulp, thanks for doing so much updates at the site.

But now something esle, did you make the bot profile pictures? I have now a bot profile pic but it isn't a good one. If possible, can you make one for me? Please.

[poxpower]

Already maxed out!!!! Holy shitnickles. Did it actually pay off, as in " are you now back in the top 500 sites on the net" or did it turn out to be just more expensive ( stupid keyboard won't let me make question marks anymore).

lean mean fighting machine :)

[legatto]

Who really fucking cares anymore? Everyone had cable or DSL now anyway, so I wouldn't waste my money upgrading the server, because it won't make any damn bit of difference to the majority. You should've done it three years ago when it would've matetred.

[ZenGaijin]

Man i imagine this site could get extremly costly with the upgrades upon upgrades. I'm glad i don't have to work about this stuff.

[XkwiziTOnE]

Damn.......''maxxed out'' wow i dont know what to say, i am sure hope that something can come good out of all this, good luck and i hope you can find one soon and at a cheaper price.......we have faith in you and newgrounds...........

[WadeFulp]

At 7/2/03 10:25 AM, poxpower wrote: Already maxed out!!!! Holy shitnickles. Did it actually pay off, as in " are you now back in the top 500 sites on the net" or did it turn out to be just more expensive ( stupid keyboard won't let me make question marks anymore).

We're not back into the Top 500 yet, but if we do another massive upgrade we might get close! :)

[WadeFulp]

At 7/2/03 10:27 AM, legatto wrote: Who really fucking cares anymore? Everyone had cable or DSL now anyway, so I wouldn't waste my money upgrading the server, because it won't make any damn bit of difference to the majority. You should've done it three years ago when it would've matetred.

That's about the dumbest thing I've seen someone say in awhile! The reason we have to upgrade is because more people have DSL and cable modems and hit our servers harder than those on 56k dial up connections! NG slows down for everyone when we max out our resources, people on cable modems and DSL would notice it the most since things would start going really slow when they are used to high speed performance. People on 56k may not notice as much as everything is slow all the time.

[poxpower]

At 7/2/03 10:41 AM, CaptainOblivious wrote: Hey, Wade. Broke yo neck... I passed you in experience points. :)

ouch. Bend power Bend power

[TheShrike]

Damn! Damn you for seeing legatto's post first, Wade!

Oh well...

I'd like to say that NG is actually running much much slower for me since the upgrades. It took me about three minutes to get from seeing this topic to hitting the post button.

[BootlegJones]

I bow my head to you tom.

[TomFulp]

At 7/2/03 10:25 AM, poxpower wrote: Already maxed out!!!! Holy shitnickles. Did it actually pay off, as in " are you now back in the top 500 sites on the net" or did it turn out to be just more expensive ( stupid keyboard won't let me make question marks anymore).

That's the shitty part... It got us back in the top 1000... But not by a lot. It is gonna be hard to get back in the top 500. We get more traffic than we used to, but the web in general has grown.

The upgrades we've done have helped the site grow, but I think they mainly just help cable users download stuff faster. As more and more people switch to broadband, our servers get hit harder and harder. It's like bandwidth demands have skyrocketted over the past few years, but bandwidth prices haven't changed.

-Tom

[HeRetiK]

GO NEWGROUNDS, GO!!! GO NEWGROUNDS, GO!!!

[poxpower]

At 7/2/03 12:26 PM, HeRetiK wrote: GO NEWGROUNDS, GO!!! GO NEWGROUNDS, GO!!!

Nifty!

Tom, is the paying account thing next on Liljim's "to-do" list... that would seem like the quickest way to get more dough for hardware. I hear it will still take a few months and I'm wondering if it's by choice or by necessity.

on a side not... I saw Ortiz is back... the greatest animator ever on NG, and now he can get work on Pico2... cool... Just in case someone was about to "Tom make Pico2" this thread.

At 7/2/03 10:27 AM, legatto wrote: Who really fucking cares anymore? Everyone had cable or DSL now anyway, so I wouldn't waste my money upgrading the server, because it won't make any damn bit of difference to the majority. You should've done it three years ago when it would've matetred.

Legatto, seriously, what the fuck are you talking about?

The only analogy that I can think of to explain "bandwidth for dummies" would be:

There's a 1.5L container of OJ. OJ is newgrounds bandwidth. Vitamins and other nummy shit are NG's content (Flash, Dynamic Php pages etc). All this stuff is delivered in 1 glass of metaphorical OJ. But now you bastards have drank more than half the jug :(, And like OJ, NG's Bandwidth will eventually run out, until someone decides to buy some more.

(There is a monthly supply of bandwidth that gets restored at the beginning of each month, But I dont really know the backbone of NG =p so I can only assume more people are downloading even more flash movies, getting close to maxing out a months supply. Or by "maxing out resources", they mean Swfs are filling servers to full capacity? Or BOTH?! )

It has NOTHING TO DO with the rate you download at (DSL CABLE, T1, T3 etc).

[WTF-Kurdt]

if i had some i wud give you money but im a poor old git

[biteme2514]

You know those porn ads that say "Support Newgrounds.com for free!" and tell you to sign up for free porn? Although I don't agree with it, I think I'm going to start signing up everyone I know for the stuff except me. I know all their e-mail addresses and while they might get pissed at me, I'll still be supporting the site I love. God bless you, Tom, and your little cat too...

[Mr-Chuckles]

More upgrades? I wonder how much more it will cost.

If you can't afford it, you can have a garage sale. I'll chip in my Power Rangers toys and a few rubber bands.

[vandalxero]

a smoother running newgrounds will kick ass

even with cable i still have some problems with loading
, but thanx for providing this site it relieves me of my everyday stress

[Ravens-Grin]

Hey Tom, i have an idea what you can do with NG to help alliviate some of the bandwith problems. What you should do, but this will take a lot of programming resources, is to make a client like Kazaa or another P2P connection for NG.This would help a whole lot on the bandwith problem. Also, you could have some clients volunteer to have some extra SWF's besides the one's they downloaded, especially new ones that just came out. Also, people should get points for the upload bandwith they give.

[Mazza]

i've only got one thing to say: i'm glad i don't have to pay for all those stuff!

[BFU-Gunslinger]

At 7/2/03 10:24 AM, BBS-bot wrote: TomFulp, thanks for doing so much updates at the site.

But now something esle, did you make the bot profile pictures? I have now a bot profile pic but it isn't a good one. If possible, can you make one for me? Please.

God you're such a fuckin suck up.

[lightning]

lol all that exitement in april and the bandwidth is maxed out all ready??

[dakota43]

well good luck

[mr-waffles]

not even in the top 500? if anything you should be in the top 20. Newgrounds has been running great for my part (i guess) this site loads faster than most other sites. the only problems are some pictures dont load and it took me abomut three hours to get this sig pic up! but its really no problem... good luck you wily bastard you!

[Kamasutra]

an upgrade will be real good cause i have dsl and this site has been going real slow

[RKO420]

Sounds like your workin your ass off

[Little-NayNay-27]

At 7/2/03 10:23 AM, _miles_ wrote: i will give you my money tom!

if i had money i would...

damn, a new line already? shit we use up a lot of space...

[E-Rayz]

Thanks TOm for what you do. I'd give money if I could.