Help keep CelticsBlog online today
by webmaster on Jun 28, 2007 12:14 PM EDT
in CelticsBlog
Email
PrintOverall, the new CelticsBlog VPS is performing much better than our former BlueHost server account but still, it is clearly inadequate for our needs. Because of that, I've already started the process of moving us to a dedicated server. That process will be painless. Unfortunately, it is going to take three more days for that setup to be completed so we won't have it until around July 1st. We'll survive this day, but it isn't going to be easy.
The one thing that can help us today is if all of you visiting CelticsBlog today will slow down your activity around here. Take your time reading, posting and browsing around the website. I realize all of our adrenaline systems are working overtime today, but it is the frantic pace of activity around here that is forcing me to shutdown the site temporarily at times. So, slow down.
We asked people to slow down their clicking around the site on Lottery day this last May. It really helped us stay online more and also have more visitors here. So, slow down, take a deep breath and cut down the rapidity of your browsing around here in half. It is not going to kill you and it will help this site stay online more today. If CelticsBlog does go offline, wait one minute before trying to access the site. Slow down!
A short while ago, I suspended CB and noticed that our cpu usage remained at over 26% even though people could not access the site. That is because many of you maniacs were hammering our site link and/or doing page refreshes several times a second. This type of activity only hurts us. Slow down! Take your time. You can do more to help CelticsBlog stay online today than anything we can do.
Many of you already know to slow down on busy days like this although some of you may have forgotten. We've also had 400 or more new registrants on CelticsBlog since Lottery day that may not realize how adversely heavy activity during these busy times affects CelticsBlog. That's more new members than we've seen since this past January. So Newbies and Veterans...slow down!
Here's a little note about how many people are online over here. You see those numbers in the left column that tell you how many people are visiting CelticsBlog and the ones in the forums that tell you how many are in there? Forget about them. I have performance enhancing caching schemes running on this site that skews those numbers dramatically. More than likely, if you see 500 to 600 people online...or however many, there is probably at least twice that number here if not more way more. So, slow down.
With that many folks, here's what happens. Every time one of you visits the homepage or clicks to any other page or page function on CB, anywhere from 20 to 25 mySQL database queries are generated. That is actually quite good for a completely dynamic website like CelticsBlog that runs so many services and has so much interactivity possible. The problem is though, that when many people are on average clicking new links every second, or few seconds, you generate hundreds of thousands of sql queries per second and millions per minute. Our VPS service simply can't handle that level of activity without threatening to crash the server. So, slow down.
I've already had to shut this place down ten times in the last three hours. I'll do it all day if I have too. I have no choice. When people are sending millions of sql queries to the server in a minute's time, it threatens to crash the whole machine and take down the other websites on the VPS server as well. I can't allow that to happen. Clearly, many of you are just frantic today. I don't blame you for that, but unless you slow down, we are going to be offline quite a bit today. So, slow down.
We may be offline a lot anyway. No doubt this day is going to produce record numbers for visitation at CB. I'm doing everything I can to optimize the site for performance based on what I'm seeing. I've already implemented one tuning adjustment and will be adding some mySQL query caching as soon as I can make time to determine the proper parameters for it. I'll do my best to keep CB online as much as possible and minimize downtime, but I need additional help and the only place that can come from is you. So, slow down.
Like I said, we'll survive this day and in a few days, we'll be on a new dedicated server where we can rock like never before. At that point, the greatest blog in the sports universe, is just going to get better and I can hardly wait. Meanwhile, if we all pull together as a community and do what we can to help CB stay online today, we'll make this particularly stressful day somewhat more tolerable. All we need to do is...slow down.
I'm not going anywhere. I stocked up on food, coffee, tea, kool-aid and beer yesterday. I'm pretty much glued to the server and the website until the wee hours of tomorrow morning. The only time I'm leaving is during these 2 to 4 minute shutdowns. During those times this morning, I've managed to fix two cups of espresso, clean up, brushed my teeth, get dressed and use the bathroom twice. During the next inevitable shutdown I am going to take out the trash. During the ones after that, I'm going to be trying to catch up on CelticsBlog email I've gotten. Otherwise, I'm right here with you as will the rest of the CB staff. Of course, we'll all be slowing down our activity around here.
So CelticsBloggers...let's rock! Let's just rock more slowly than usual though. By doing so, we'll all be able to make our experience around here more enjoyable today. All we need to do is, you guessed it...slow down. Here's a toast to a good Draft Day for us all. Go C's!
Did I mention my request for everyone to please slow down?
Love,
Bob
19 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
so, its not enough to put astericks in place of a curse word, you have to pull the entire comment. It was a meaningless, tiny joke. Really, you guys gotta lighten up. Even mass media uses those words, including major websites that just put * in place of the word.
For the sake of all our healths, accept the joke, star the letters of the curse word, and laugh!!!
by cos on Jun 28, 2007 12:47 PM EDT reply actions
cos,
Please do not use profanity, masked profanity, or allusions to profanity. If you do so, the entire post will be deleted — both here and on the forums — and you risk a suspension. The fact that you reposted the comment after it was deleted to “see if you paying attention” is unacceptable. The rule against profanity is clear and absolute, and there’s no exception made for jokes.
Hobbs, glad you to find out your the one that removed the comment. I was in the process of putting up a forum on this issue to find out what the deal is. Now I’ll just have to send it to you as a personal message.
by cos on Jun 28, 2007 1:00 PM EDT reply actions
Bob,
Obviously you understand that people are here to use the site, and your advice to just try to do it is well taken. I’ve run a few websites in my day, have you looked into implementing a lo-fi version of the site (remove the images and cut the glut, basically) in order to at least help on the CPU side?
by teddykgb on Jun 28, 2007 1:07 PM EDT reply actions
yeah ainge is doing a great job with all his patience…….(smashes head through monitor)
by ced on Jun 28, 2007 1:08 PM EDT reply actions
Rather than kill the server with needless stress — how about the RSS feeds get fixed, and a more simple home page that requires less resources be used?
Just a thought — but there’s way too much going on with the homepage as it is, and an RSS feed (aside from being useful) is much more easy on the server.
Or, we could revive the old CelticsBlog. But that would be akin to us having the #1 or #2 pick tonight.
by Eric Lander on Jun 28, 2007 1:18 PM EDT reply actions
It doesn’t have anything to do really with graphics on the frontpage – the structure of the entire Celticsblog site is built around a front end content management system and a database. Virtually everything done here generates a database query, there’s no getting around it. A lo-fi version of the site isn’t going to help things appreciably.
lander, love that last line. I still can’t get over not having the opportunity to draft Oden/Durant.
If DA is going to get fired (which I hope he doesn’t, and even if he doesn’t) I want him to continually plant the seed in Durants head that we want him and were going to throw as much money as we can to get him. By the time his rookie contract is up, Wally/Pierce will be gone, Rondo/Jefferson will be ready and the Celtics will be back where they belong. On top of the league for years. I don’t care what petty little fine Stern sends our way, he can’t stop us from signing him, or stop him from choosing to sign with us.
Thats all I want, just keeping planting that seed. And it can’t hurt to mention how high his legacy would grow if he was here to push us over the top.
by cos on Jun 28, 2007 1:30 PM EDT reply actions
More Marvin Gaye, less Pantera. Got it 8)
P.S. I love you too, Bob.
by MikeDfromNP on Jun 28, 2007 1:43 PM EDT reply actions
I’m so excited about tonight! I can’t wait! What team will surprise us with a trade or pick? Who will Atlanta take? Does Memphis go for someone like Noah or Brewer? Who will be there when the C’s pick at #5, and also at #32? Will my fratello Marco Bellineli, ciao amici, be there? How about the Finish pg Petrowhateva? Woohoo!
by Real World on Jun 28, 2007 2:01 PM EDT reply actions
teddykgb said: Bob, Obviously you understand that people are here to use the site, and your advice to just try to do it is well taken. I’ve run a few websites in my day, have you looked into implementing a lo-fi version of the site (remove the images and cut the glut, basically) in order to at least help on the CPU side?[/quote]All aspects of CelticsBlog are being optimized in various ways. Images are kept very small and images, as well as every other aspect of this site including html, CSS stylesheets, javascript, multimedia files, and PHP scripts are held in at least two forms of caching and only refreshed according to certain update rules. I really do wish we could create a version of the site that required lower bandwidth and server load, but that is at least a few months away. It is in process though. Basically right now, I’m just trying to get the most we can out of what we have to work with.
[quote]Eric Lander said: Rather than kill the server with needless stress — how about the RSS feeds get fixed, and a more simple home page that requires less resources be used? Just a thought — but there’s way too much going on with the homepage as it is, and an RSS feed (aside from being useful) is much more easy on the server. Or, we could revive the old CelticsBlog. But that would be akin to us having the #1 or #2 pick tonight.[/quote]Eric, the RSS feeds work fine but I understand where you are coming from. Some RSS readers may not know how to process the RSS feed links we provide. We provide five different versions. Most readers and virtually all other websites read them fine to the point where some are cross-publishing a lot of CB content. A few don’t though. Not to take you away from however you are trying to get CB RSS, but if you are having problems getting the RSS feeds, I would recommend trying a different approach. The XML that is generated from our feeds pulls up just fine in IE and Firefox will provide you with both the live feed and the ability to subscribe to the feed. Many other readers do the same.
You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned keeping the CB pages simple. We do that as much as possible given the every-growing demands we are meeting that want us to provide this and that and the other, ‘nuther. All in all, any CelticsBlog page is currently going to generate around 20 to 25 database queries. That’s pretty good for a fully dynamic core technology like CB is built upon. The biggest problem is that we are too big for our britches. That’s OK. I’m making us a new pair. They should be ready in a few days.
[quote]dobbs said: It doesn’t have anything to do really with graphics on the frontpage – the structure of the entire Celticsblog site is built around a front end content management system and a database. Virtually everything done here generates a database query, there’s no getting around it. A lo-fi version of the site isn’t going to help things appreciably.
Bingo! Dobbs is absolutely correct. CelticsBlog is what we call a fully-dynamic website. One of the things that means is that there are no actual web pages residing on the web server. Instead, what happens is that when you visit the homepage or click on a site link here all pages are “built on the fly.”
When you click, that generates a call from our site programming to our database. That call pulls content (all of the articles, comments, forum posts, etc.) out of the database as needed and combines that with site design (css stylesheets and html templates) to dish up web pages.
In addition to the new dedicated server we will shortly be moving to, we have some other performance enhancements that will be made possible with that transition that I’ll be able to incorporate here. Part of that will come immediately and part of it later. All in all, it spells a bright future for CelticsBlog.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
NBA Playoffs Content Module
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recent FanPosts
In Association With
Ball Don't Lie - NBA - Yahoo! Sport
- Behind the Box Score, where the Spurs won Game 1 with an inspired fourth quarter
- Kendrick Perkins does not think much of Andrew Bynum’s relative intelligence
- Behind the Box Score, where the Boston Celtics are moving on to the conference finals
- NBA Playoffs Fan Fiction: San Antonio Spurs vs. Oklahoma City Thunder
- The Indiana Pacers? Gone till November
