Geocaching Australia

Hello valued users,

As you may be aware, the current server has pretty well reached it's end-of-life and is having some trouble keeping up with the size of the database (our logs database is about to tick over *10 million* logs!!)

We are slowly working towards a plan to replace the current box and are looking towards members of the community to help us procure a *NEW* server through any contacts they might have with hardware vendors.

We would be looking at:
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1RU rack-mount server (this is non-negotiable due to the rack space we are renting)

Quad CPU- More Cores/CPUs the better. (64bit obviously)

As many HDD bays as possible - HDD size isn't a big problem 4 to 6 SAS drives (15k) would suffice. We use about 300gb currently across the system, so 4x500gb 15k SAS would easily do us. (2x300 and 2x500 suffice too). Also would like to look at an SSD somewhere in the mix if there's available slots and money.

RAID Adapter to do at least RAID 1-5 in Hardware

Dual redundant PSUs

RAM - Lots and lots of RAM (32gb ++) RAM RAM RAM RAM RAM

No OS required - We'll take care of that end.

We are not fixated on one brand or another

Our biggest issue at the moment is IO latency due do only being on a 32bit platform (4gb RAM maximum) and the writing of the SQL tables to HDD is now becoming a HUGE drain on resources.

We have a hardware budget of approx $10K
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If anyone has any contacts who can help us, please let us know.

We are not really that keen to use second hand servers, as we will always be behind the 8 ball running on older hardware, this will give us a chance to step up. That said, if we can get a newish last gen system with a bucketload of RAM and a pretty good CPU setup we may be able to talk!

A new server will give us a chance to get back in to the game, and for you the user it will mean less time twiddling your thumbs waiting for those graphs to generate!

SO if you work in IT or have some good, reliable contacts who can help us procure the above, please let us know!

Drop us a line at support@geocaching.com.au if you can help.

I've been playing this game/hobby/sport for a few years and spend quite a lot of time using the services of the GCA server. Unfortunately I don't have any contacts in the serious tech industry but I do have something else than can help. Something that I think almost all GCA members would have....

I happily pay my few dollars to GC every year so why not donate a few to GCA? The GCA shop even has a convenient link to let you do just that.

Our faeries and admins spend a lot of unpaid time keeping our free service running at its best. Do we really expect them to spend their precious time trawling through supplier catalogues looking for the best product/price mix? If a few of us handed over just a small amount each then perhaps CR and C@W would be able to simlply ring a reputable supplier and spec an ideal system without having to ring around chasing a piece here and a piece there.

So, think about. It's only a small amount but it could save our admins a lot of time.

What is the GCA piggy bank looking like, anyway? I recall we had some left over from the last server fundraiser, but I don't have a feel for just how many parcels C@W's sent out since then!

There's enough in the kitty that we can pay about 10k without asking for more funds from members. There is a thread out there from earlier in the year with a full breakdown.

Update: Things are progressing well on the server front. We've been put in contact with a vendor who has given us a very good price on some awesome hardware.

More news as we advance thru the process.

Just a little (and exciting update)

A *NEW* new server has been procured (not secondhand new like the current box) and will arrive to me in the next few weeks.

Some specs for those who like them:

Dell R430 1U server
With:
2 x Xeon E5-2630 CPUs (8 Cores each, total of 16, current system has 2 dual core CPUs)
128 GB RAM (Current box has 4GB... count it 4GB...)
2 x 300Gb 15k SAS drives
2 x 600Gb 15k SAS Drives
2 x 200GB SSD drive (for Database)
PERC H730P RAID adapter
2 x Redundant power supplies
And even comes with a power cord (actually 2)

This should remove a lot of the bottlenecks we are currently experiencing, and should see an expansion and improvement in the delivery of what we can offer.

The transition period will be in a few months, basically I need to come up with a foolproof plan and test the living daylights out of it.
One change will be a shift to using CentOS rather than the current Ubuntu setup (no real reason, just DELL supports Centos and it's a little more enterprise grade)
Depending on how we go we may upgrade the forum software, but probably at a later date.

Congratulations! I'm glad you're excited.

What colour is the flux capacitor?

WooHoo. Fun times ahead. Looks fast.

Nice specs on the new box. That should kick along nicely. Looking forward to it being rolled into service.

Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!!!!

As well as faster horsepower under the hood, the new server also means a new version of MariaDB for our database, instead f the older version of MySQL we are currently running which has some fantastic improvements in performance once we set it all up.

AN example on my system was a test search of a word against a cache name, owner, short description and long description took a whopping 240 seconds the current way, and 0.2 seconds using the new FULLTEXT indexing feature.

I'm also currently investigating the addition of Solr, a full featured text search engine to perhaps speed up some elements of the omni-search. This would allow us to have 'type-ahead' type features.

Sounds exciting!

You don't know how cool it is to see 32 cores in the system monitoring display after seeing 4 cores maxed out for the past few years.

Now to configure the bugger......................

What to do with the extra 124Gb of RAM we now have..... what to do...

Nice. Nothing like some good hardware pron.