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I Don't want to be negative but


I1
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[quote]Anyone tried MySQL, it's free and seems well developed? We use SQL itself here, so I have not played with MySQL personally, but I here good things. S[/quote]

I'd second that - give MySQL a look. In its latest version (5.02) it contains many of the advanced features needed to support enterprise applications, and is an excellent performer.

No flat file or application based database (Access, FileMaker etc.) can really provide good performance with large datasets or more than a single user. Once your application starts to grow, "real" RDBMS systems such as Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server or SyBase are your only real option.

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[quote]There were unfortunately some problems with one of the servers last night, which is why some of you may have been experiencing occasional "out of memory" errors.The problems have now been resolved, an...[/quote]

So what is it that is so dodgy ?

The “problems with the servers last night” seems to be something of an ongoing issue (http://forums.livingfrance.com/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=29&MessageID=53652).

Whilst MS SQL Server might not be the most robust database going its not that bad. IIS again is not great, but works better than seems to be experienced here. Hardware failures would normally mean something works properly or not at all (and you would normally get logs in your Event Log). So we are left with this forum software.

Questions:

1. When the switch to the new forum software was made, did Archant IT have a contingency plan ?

2. If so, what level of problems experienced by users do Archant find acceptable ?

3. Do Archant consider the forum software “fit for purpose” ?

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[quote]So what is it that is so dodgy ?The “problems with the servers last night” seems to be something of an ongoing issue (http://forums.livingfrance.com/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=29&MessageID=53652).Whilst ...[/quote]

I1,

To answer your questions:

We don't currently know why IIS is having so much of a problem running this site. IIS runs fine with fairly light loads. As soon as you try to get it to scale all manner of problems arise, unless you can copy Microsoft and throw 300 webservers at a single website.

We are currently in dialogue with MS technical support, and they are reviewing the server logs to try and pin this down.

Concerning the forum software, while it seems to have a few unknown rough edges, on the whole it's running ok. The same software is driving all our other forums without any sort of issues. Part of the work we're doing first thing next year is to merge both forum installations, migrating the LVF forums to our existing (and stable) installation.

SQL server isn't anything to do with the problems. The servers are running at a maximum of around 3% peak load at the moment - well within the hardware's capacity.

And on to the points

1) Yes we did. We could have rolled back to the previous installation and started from scratch. We decided against this route and opted to run with the issues, working with the forum developers to resolve them.

2) We don't find the current levels acceptable. Our aim is 100% uptime and reliability, which is reflected throughout the hosting platform, hardware and network architectures in use.

3) Yes, and the problems are isolated to these forums. Other installations of the software are running fine. Once we've completed the migration and moved these forums onto the same installation used by our other sites, hopefully all the issues will be resolved.

Kind regards

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  • 2 weeks later...
"We decided against this route and opted to run with the issues, working with the forum developers to resolve them."

In that decision, not only did Archant IS decide to run with the issues but Archant IS also decided that all the forum users would also run with the issues, etc. Is the level of dissatisfaction from the users surprising ? Is it surprising that people are “defecting” to other forums (I saw one such person introducing themselves to another forum and several responses from others who had also “defected”.
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