Cool! I donated a little bit a couple of days ago,it's not much but every little bit helps

New database server has now replaced the old one.

There may be an issue syncing data from the new server to the web server but I can resolve that quickly. Just give me a sign when something is missing.

I will keep the old server intact for a couple of days (just in case), then I will cannibalize it for useful parts for the next web server.

Possibly one happening for you.

The incremental totals used to appear inside each Project List, and the "total so far since Daily" inside Projects added up to the "Total so far since Daily" on the Main Account page. Example at time of this post .....

All up total since Daily for me on my Main Account (Detailed Stats) Summary Page: + 1,036,696.96

All up total since Daily for me on Collatz: + 98,506.07
All up total since Daily for me on Moo!Wrapper: + 1,366,549.00

Am aware that not all totals are updated on Interim collections for clear reasons. In the past though, the individual Project Interims "since Daily", have always added up to the "Total since Daily" on Main Account Page. Its not a huge deal in of itself - all comes out in the wash as they say ... just mentioned in case its the tip of the iceberg of another more serious hidden issue.

Regards
Zy

@Zydor: let's wait one daily update before I start fixing this. Yesterday after the daily update the new server did not sync with the web server so I fixed the sync problem and started a manual update. It's possible some tables were not synced at that time.

Willy - just putting down the stats as at now before they change too much and situation as at now gets lost, so there is a point of reference to revolve around. Something is not quite right, and it may also be to do with when Moo!Wrapper submitts its update ie there maybe two faults lurking, one not of BOINCStats doing.

Daily Update just now Moo!Wrapper Total: 6,338,557.56
Total on The Moo!Wrapper Site at time of this post: 7,431,881

By contrast Collatz was pretty well spot on:
Daily Update Total: 91,434,037.28
All up total right now at Collatz: 91,437,048

Willy - Looks like its back in sync, stats were fine this daily round, and the amount left over this time is in line with activity since the daily stats. Dont know what changed ....

- if it was your efforts with the suspected sync of tables, many thanks it worked

- if was Moo!Wrapper's change in xml update timing, my thanks to Moo!Wrapper

If it was both, thanks to you both

Regards
Zy

Another HD is broken in the new webserver, I'm now driving to the datacenter to replace the webserver with the other Intel server. I tested this one a coople of days, not long enough to my taste, but today is the only day this week I have time to do this.

There will be some downtime to move all the data to the new server.

Fingers crossed that this one will keep up.

Just replaced the server, I'm still in the DC. I think everything is up, except for a few automated jobs which I will restart when I get home. I will then also finetune Apache, it's still at default settings which might be a bit slow.

Stats data on this server is from yesterday!! This will be updated a.s.a.p. All the other data (forum, BAM! etc) is up-to-date.

The "new new" servers seems to be doing really good. The site loads quick, stats are quick and server load is (very) low. That makes me

The new servers are very quick to load. This is a very successful upgrade. Good job!

Now if you could make that last upgrade where I get more credit than anyone else...

I am now busy re-installing the other Intel server. I made a change in the hard disk configuration. I took the SAS drives from the old database server and used them in place of the SATA drives. These drives hold the operating system and the scripts for BOINCstats. The database remains on the SSD drives.

Re-enabled the challenges.

Thanks to a generous donation from vm1990, the new BOINCstats server fund drive is over.

. . . thanks to all who contributed!

Yesterday I added the second Intel server in the datacenter (without breaking anything!). I am now working on using both Intel servers to host the website. Starting with database replication (both servers need the same data) and changing the update script so it updates both webservers (my guess is that this will cause the daily to be five minutes later than usual!).

Next up is actually serving the site from both servers in a fail-over/load balancing set-up. I have no experience in setting that up. Fingers crossed!

Nice one Willy, good luck with the next steps.

Setting up Load Balancing/failover in that manner is not a trivial task, and I will be amazed if it goes through in the two or three months its going to take, with no hickups. So when the latter inevitably occur, dont have an excessive concern about it. IMHO this Site is one of only a few popularist Sites that are not infested by rediculous hate posters, and the support of Users is absolute. The latter speaks volumes in my book.

You are doing a great job ..... keeping trucking Willy

Regards
Zy

With the current (old) server code I have settled for using the database on both servers but the webcode is server from one server only. The new webcode will take full advantage of two servers and will be served from both servers.

So, what do we have now:
- During normal operation both servers are used for database access. A random generator selects which server to use.
- When one of the servers' database is overloaded its database is not used until the load is normal again
- When stats are updated to one server the other one is used for database access. Most of the times you are waiting longer for the site to load is because the database is waiting for the update script to release the lock, that should not happen that often anymore.
- Updates to the database are synchronized in real time between the servers, so if (for example) you post in the forum, both servers will have your post instantly.
- Since the code is served from one server (www4), if this servers' CPU is overloaded, you'll still get the "waiting for load to lower" page This will be solved with the new webcode.

BOINCstats is now served from both the new web-servers by using Round-robin DNS.

Want to know on which server you are? At the bottom right of the screen you can see two values:

The first value is the web-server which you are connecting to. The second value is the server used for database access.

You may have noticed that the daily update is quite a bit later the last days. The reason is that one of the new Intel servers (the one which came with a four channel SAS RAID controller) started acting weird last Monday. Out of nothing IO to the hard-disks became very slow.

As an example: any new connection to the hard-disks gets a five second penalty. So, copy a file to the hard-disk, it starts copying after a five second delay. Change a file name? Five second delay. Copying the daily update to this web-server: 120 projects times 12 files which are copied and renamed. That's 14400 seconds, 240 minutes, 4 hours.

I tried just about anything to find the cause of the delay and unfortunately I came to the conclusion that it's most probably the RAID controller. The other Inter server has exactly the same hardware, except for the RAID controller and it's working fine. I pulled this web-server before because it couldn't handle the load. I made some changes in the disk configuration and it appeared to have worked.

I will order a new RAID controller, that might take a week or so before it arrives. But then I'll be on vacation for two weeks. After my vacation I will remove the faulty web-server and replace the RAID controller and re-install it.

In the meantime I will keep things as they are now. Although it's slow, it's also stable now. Changing anything might make things worse.... And that may ruin my vacation. So for the next 3~4 weeks or so, the daily update will be somewhat later.

Thanks and have a nice vacation! ;-)

Ralf