The Downtime Issue
First of all, I must thank all the members and moderators for all the support you've given me so far.
The problems we are trying to solve is either
1. Reduce our CPU / Memory Usage to some arbitrary levels
2. Upgrade our plan by dishing out more money which still does not promise better performance or uptime.
I will try to be unbiased in the story you are about to hear, but that would be impossible =)
The Story
Gen7Accord.net's host is: http://www.advancednetworkhosts.com, and they seem to be a reseller for some other obscure web host. All a little sketchy, but I guess it works. We are using the Mega Plan, which is the cheapest plan they have, which allows plenty of bandwidth and disk usage for what we need. Now, checkout the plan in detail if you're interested, but here are the main items of concern:
We are well below the disk storage usage, using much less than half. Our bandwidth even with our post whores don't even reach 20% capacity (please don't go and postwhore now please). So why isn't the site up 99.9% of the time?
The only way to break the uptime, is to violate the Terms of Use. Now the section they said we violated was specifically:
So apparently we've used an arbitrary amount of CPU time and memory usage with the script they offer (phpbb2), on the machines they've hosted the website on, even though we are within bandwidth ranges and disk usage. It's amazing what they hide in the fine print huh?
Better yet, this is up in the air as an arbitrary number that some obscure person thinks is too high. The host obscure person is the "sole arbitrator" of what is acceptable.
If that's the case, how can I take the option of reducing the usage? They are giving us two options: reduce usage or pay more money for more arbitrary usage. Now, I can't reduce usage if I don't know what the threshold is. I could totally cut out all the forums, and only load one image, and hell, for all we know they could "arbitrate" that we're using too much CPU or network resources. It's completely bogus, and a huge loophole that they can use however they want.
They're also pushing me to purchase a better plan, with no promises again, since it's still held within the same Terms of Use. For all we know, we'll be paying more, but still breaking the CPU time and memory usage that some obscure person is deciding. He could be drunk or in a bad mood and just shut down our website.
I'm currently fighting with them to get some kind of numbers so that we can see if it's feasible to reduce our usage, but since no numbers can be provided (I've asked about 12 times now in the past few days for anything) I can't really decide and judge what to reduce.
And I can't pay more money for a better server because:
1. I'm not in a position, funding wise, to put more money into this club
2. We have no promises on better performance
There are a few things we can do:
1. Limit searching to only once per 30 seconds, and posting to once every 30 seconds. A little annoying but much better than putting thousands of ads on the website to get more money for a better host. Hope that this will fix our problem for now.
2. Move to a different host and hope for the best, and maybe go through the same crap
3. Put more money into getting a new host or upgrade to a dedicated server
4. Find a server farm to host our site on for little cost =/ and be very lucky and happy.
The Next Step
So what's next? I've finally promised to try to reduce the usage, and the host has been kind enough to unsuspend our site. Of course I have no numbers to go off of, so there's only a few things I can do. Basically change search and post frequencies and hope for the best. Again, we may be hit with some more downtime, but that's the cheapest route to go at the moment. The more users we have, the worse this will get. This will only be a temporary solution.
The next step would be to find a better host that will be able to host us on a server which can keep up with our needs. Instead of these old crappy servers, we may need to dish out more money for better servers. This means advertisements as a form of making money. We all don't have enough time to keep selling decals and tshirts, and one can only buy so many decals and tshirts =P Plus, I haven't gotten ANY money from these items yet... so those who've actually been organizing this, can you please let me know how much funding we've come up with and paypal me? That would be helpful.
But we'll basically have to resort to something like google's AdSense. It will be one ad and hopefully it won't be annoying or obtrusive. But that's what it's going to have to come down to. The ads will be purely for keeping our site running, and not to make any money at all. Given it pays enough, the more members we have, the more money it will generate, and the bigger servers can be bought.
Once we've started making a steady stream of money to move to a better host, we'll look for a potentially better host.
What You Can do to help
There's a few things you can do to help:
1. Continue to try not to post whore
2. Do not search and post like you're on speed
3. Help find good web hosts that can match our current disk usage and bandwidth, which may also be able to keep up with our CPU and Memory usage. I need all that information, and it may be buried in the fine print. But if you guys can help me dig these things up, that would be a huge help.
4. Come up with other fundraising ideas, send me the money that we've made so far (for those who are holding it for me), such that we can get stuff moving faster.
5. If we can come up with a bigger donation that can sustain us for awhile on a bigger server, that would be great. We could move to a dedicated server and put the ads on immediately, hopefully generating enough money to sustain in the long run.
In Closing
Thanks for all of your support and patience. This club is really one of a kind, and all the members are amazing. Please keep up the great work, and we'll get all this taken care of soon enough.
The problems we are trying to solve is either
1. Reduce our CPU / Memory Usage to some arbitrary levels
2. Upgrade our plan by dishing out more money which still does not promise better performance or uptime.
I will try to be unbiased in the story you are about to hear, but that would be impossible =)
The Story
Gen7Accord.net's host is: http://www.advancednetworkhosts.com, and they seem to be a reseller for some other obscure web host. All a little sketchy, but I guess it works. We are using the Mega Plan, which is the cheapest plan they have, which allows plenty of bandwidth and disk usage for what we need. Now, checkout the plan in detail if you're interested, but here are the main items of concern:
Disk Storage: 30,000 MB
Bandwidth Allowed Per Month: 300 GB
99.9% uptime guaranteed
Message Board (Available script they offer)
We are well below the disk storage usage, using much less than half. Our bandwidth even with our post whores don't even reach 20% capacity (please don't go and postwhore now please). So why isn't the site up 99.9% of the time?
The only way to break the uptime, is to violate the Terms of Use. Now the section they said we violated was specifically:
Server Resources*
Any web site that uses a high amount of server resources (such as, but not limited to, CPU time, memory usage, and network resources) will be given the option to either pay additional fees (which will depend on the resources required), reduce the resources used to an acceptable level, or upgrade its service to a Dedicated Server plan. Advanced Network Hosts shall be the sole arbiter of what is considered to be a high server usage level.
Any web hosting account deemed to be adversely affecting server performance or network integrity will be shut down without prior notice. This includes accounting running services on ports higher than 80.
So apparently we've used an arbitrary amount of CPU time and memory usage with the script they offer (phpbb2), on the machines they've hosted the website on, even though we are within bandwidth ranges and disk usage. It's amazing what they hide in the fine print huh?
Better yet, this is up in the air as an arbitrary number that some obscure person thinks is too high. The host obscure person is the "sole arbitrator" of what is acceptable.
If that's the case, how can I take the option of reducing the usage? They are giving us two options: reduce usage or pay more money for more arbitrary usage. Now, I can't reduce usage if I don't know what the threshold is. I could totally cut out all the forums, and only load one image, and hell, for all we know they could "arbitrate" that we're using too much CPU or network resources. It's completely bogus, and a huge loophole that they can use however they want.
They're also pushing me to purchase a better plan, with no promises again, since it's still held within the same Terms of Use. For all we know, we'll be paying more, but still breaking the CPU time and memory usage that some obscure person is deciding. He could be drunk or in a bad mood and just shut down our website.
I'm currently fighting with them to get some kind of numbers so that we can see if it's feasible to reduce our usage, but since no numbers can be provided (I've asked about 12 times now in the past few days for anything) I can't really decide and judge what to reduce.
And I can't pay more money for a better server because:
1. I'm not in a position, funding wise, to put more money into this club
2. We have no promises on better performance
There are a few things we can do:
1. Limit searching to only once per 30 seconds, and posting to once every 30 seconds. A little annoying but much better than putting thousands of ads on the website to get more money for a better host. Hope that this will fix our problem for now.
2. Move to a different host and hope for the best, and maybe go through the same crap
3. Put more money into getting a new host or upgrade to a dedicated server
4. Find a server farm to host our site on for little cost =/ and be very lucky and happy.
The Next Step
So what's next? I've finally promised to try to reduce the usage, and the host has been kind enough to unsuspend our site. Of course I have no numbers to go off of, so there's only a few things I can do. Basically change search and post frequencies and hope for the best. Again, we may be hit with some more downtime, but that's the cheapest route to go at the moment. The more users we have, the worse this will get. This will only be a temporary solution.
The next step would be to find a better host that will be able to host us on a server which can keep up with our needs. Instead of these old crappy servers, we may need to dish out more money for better servers. This means advertisements as a form of making money. We all don't have enough time to keep selling decals and tshirts, and one can only buy so many decals and tshirts =P Plus, I haven't gotten ANY money from these items yet... so those who've actually been organizing this, can you please let me know how much funding we've come up with and paypal me? That would be helpful.
But we'll basically have to resort to something like google's AdSense. It will be one ad and hopefully it won't be annoying or obtrusive. But that's what it's going to have to come down to. The ads will be purely for keeping our site running, and not to make any money at all. Given it pays enough, the more members we have, the more money it will generate, and the bigger servers can be bought.
Once we've started making a steady stream of money to move to a better host, we'll look for a potentially better host.
What You Can do to help
There's a few things you can do to help:
1. Continue to try not to post whore
2. Do not search and post like you're on speed
3. Help find good web hosts that can match our current disk usage and bandwidth, which may also be able to keep up with our CPU and Memory usage. I need all that information, and it may be buried in the fine print. But if you guys can help me dig these things up, that would be a huge help.
4. Come up with other fundraising ideas, send me the money that we've made so far (for those who are holding it for me), such that we can get stuff moving faster.
5. If we can come up with a bigger donation that can sustain us for awhile on a bigger server, that would be great. We could move to a dedicated server and put the ads on immediately, hopefully generating enough money to sustain in the long run.
In Closing
Thanks for all of your support and patience. This club is really one of a kind, and all the members are amazing. Please keep up the great work, and we'll get all this taken care of soon enough.
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