Database Migration Complete

The database migration from the shared hosting environment to the dedicated Virtual Private Server (VPS) environment was started at 10:30 PM EDT and completed before 11:00 PM with no surprises. Both the main database and forum database reside there now with plenty of room to grow.

For those with some database background, you may be interested to know that the new database server has been set up with replication to a “live backup” server which means the main production database will no longer require nightly cpu and io consuming backups.

The web server is still running in the shared hosting environment for now.

Growing Pains

BCaching continues to grow and the native mobile apps department is taking off, at least for Android devices.

This week, both GeoHunter and OpenGPX published new versions that integrate with bcaching to retrieve geocache data. GeoBeagle is also planning integration in the near future.

The database is still growing and unfortunately is now banging on the ceiling of the maximum disk space available with the current hosting plan (3 GB). Since a plan upgrade is unavoidable in the near future, a choice had to be made about which plan would be best. We could purchase additional disk space on the current shared hosting plan or upgrade to a higher tier shared hosting plan with additional disk space.

There is another problem that bcaching has been encountering of late, and that is slow database query response times or time-out errors. This could in theory be due to excessive bcaching use, but based on the logs and the errors it doesn’t appear to have much to do with bcaching activity. The current belief is that it is due to being on a shared hosting plan and we are at the mercy of other applications on the same servers that are not playing nice with the given resources.

The best option for the long run therefore appears to be to migrate to a dedicated hosting service, namely a virtual private server, where the database server will be for bcaching alone and not shared with any other applications. It is more expensive but should be worth it for the headaches it saves. It also offers about 20 GB of free space which should be a decent amount of breathing room.

The process of setting up the new environment is under way and will hopefully be completed within a week or two. The first stage will be to move the database to the new server and the web site will have to be brought down for an “extended” period while this is completed. Hopefully the down time will be less than an hour.

Stay tuned.