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By zach harkey on
One of the main reasons I was attracted to Drupal was some reports I read about how well it stood up under extreme traffic. So far, I haven't really used it for any heavy traffic sites but I intend to.
In the meantime, I access drupal.org frequently throughout the day (particularly the support forums and handbook pages) and I'm kind of surprised at how poorly the site seems to perform; it is not unusual for me to experience 1 minute page load times for a page (all-text, no images). Frequently I can't connect at all and my browser times out. I'm pretty sure it's not just my connection because other sites won't be affected.
I don't expect 100% uptime, and I understand that there are times when traffic is going to spike and hurt performance, but the frequency with which I've been encountering delays recently has started to concern me.
First of all, is this in my head? Does anyone else notice it?
Does drupal.org need more server resources to keep up with the traffic on the site? Is there a "server fund" we can specifically contribute to? or is this even the problem?
Is it unreasonable for me to expect more out of drupal.org than of other sites?
Comments
Servers needed
Drupal.org is on a single server, and is shared with other sites and tasks. There is work in progress to get new systems place.
The big "donate" button is always appreciated to be pressed.
The other issue is a matter of a limited number of people with access to the server to help maintain it, again because of the shared nature.
how about text link ads
Is there any policies or traditions or something against placing text-link ads on the site? As many of you could be familiar, there is a big demand for text link ad space, especially from high PageRank sites. There is a huge residual income potential.
People pay hundreds of dollars a month to be able to add a link to their site from high PR sites.
Drupal has a PR8 and every link can be charged at least $200-$300 a month. If you allow 10 links on a side block, you can receive $2000 a month easy.
I am sure that many hosting companies will die for a placement on Drupal since it will not only mean receiveing a high PR link to their site for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)purposes, but also exposing their businesses to potential customers.
Those who are more into SEO will know what I mean.
My two cents!
kc
Point of Clarification
Boris are you saying that Drupal.org is on one shared server? I don't care how you slice it over the last year that is an amazing record. I don't know of any application. (please help me out here) off the top of my head that can say it has under actual heavy load held up this well on ONE SERVER that is SHARED. Can anyone else come up with examples? I'm genuinely curious.
If you can use some distributed server space I for one can volunteer some.
yes
It is hosted on one shared server.
-sp
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Test site...always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
drupal.org, June 28, 2005 @
drupal.org, June 28, 2005 @ 4.40 pacific standard time
Fatal error: Got error 28 from table handler query: SELECT i.* FROM aggregator_category_item ci LEFT JOIN aggregator_item i ON ci.iid = i.iid WHERE ci.cid = 1 ORDER BY i.timestamp DESC, i.iid DESC LIMIT 0, 6 in /home/www/drupal.org/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 73
The server was down for quite some time
It must be everyone
It must be everyone congratulating Dries on his engagement.
Seriously, this has been a problem of late, but I think the very rapid acceptance of Drupal is the reason, - and a nice issue to have it is! I have noticed a huge increase in the number of registered and anonymous users on the sit in the past six months.
Davec
Forest Lake Online
donate
The server drupal.org is hosted on is donated space on an server that does other work. This resource is owned by an individual and managed on a volunteer basis for drupal.org by a few individuals. This last occurance was not a Drupal CMS issue, but a space issue. It also occured in the wee AM hours for the owner of the resource involved who does have a life and the need for sleep.
Yes, this is in your head, but states of consciousness and perceptions of reality are not what this forum is for. :).
Yes, there is a fund you can contribute to: It's the paypal button on the front page unless you removed it from your profile.
This is a question you will have to ask yourself, not us. I am satisfied with the efforts so far of the three core volunteers who provide the bulk of backend services for the site.
In the last seven months, site maintainers have been added to help with Drupal.org itself, a documentation team that has done extensive work on the existing documentation, a marketing team. Drupal conferences and additional development continues. Two companies have Drupal based distribution and services as do a growing number of other independant devlopers. A number of 'theme' and design companies have lately begun to pepper the forums.
Discussions are going on for what can be done in the future, but as with all things, this takes time to do it in a manner that will last. Drupal is undergoing a huge growth right now and the organization is also growing.
-sp
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Test site...always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Please give the Donate button better exposure!
This project clearly needs to raise enough cash - now, and on an ongoing basis - to prevent space and bandwidth limitations undercutting everyone's hard work, by damaging confidence in the professionalism of that project through lapses in how its own brand-marquee site operates.
let's:
1) quickly pick a significant number as a short-term funding target
2) until that amount is raised:
-- move the Donate block to the top of a column
-- make its appearance non-discretionary (not selectable per site visitor)
-- make it appear on every page
3) ideally, have that block display a) the goal amount and b) the amount raised to date, or the delta remaining.
this is a long-proven web money-raising technique (e.g. Dean For America campaign) for things a community believes in. I believe Drupal is worth asking for our community's serious support.
cheers,
Adrian
Adrian Russell-Falla
ps. yes, after reading this thread, I just made a small between-projects donation via PayPal. I'll do more in future.
welll
There is no Drupal foundation or non-profit organization setup. Discussions are occurring. Stuff just takes time to do right. So donations are going to indivduals and while I don't have a problem with that, others do.
-sp
---------
Test site...always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
and another thing: opportunity for donor acknowledgement
suggest you add
" I am a financial supporter of the Drupal project."
to the Drupal contributions section of the site's user profiles, along with the other checkboxes. use the present tense, to encourage ongoing commitment.
cheers,
Adrian
Adrian Russell-Falla
I absolutely agree. it
I absolutely agree. it wouldn't be a bad idea to offer a drupal t-shirt or coffee mug for donations over a certain amount.
: z
There are so many great ways
There are so many great ways to raise money for something like this. kexp.org is a great example of how to put a face on the what it takes to keep things going.
-zach
harkey design
: z
The server drupal.org is
This answer makes me feel excluded and on the outside. Who is this individual? and how much space is currently donated? I mean, what are we working with here? What is the $ value of the currently donated hosting service? $50/month? $300/month? $2500/month? more?
Is there anywhere we can peep some stats? Many of us own server resources, if we could get a less ambiguous and behind-the-curtains picture of what is needed, I think you'd might be surprised at what people would offer. We just don't know how big the nut is that we are trying to crack.
-zach
: z
hmmm
Ok. And? You are not excluded any more then I am included, I know this from my active participation in mailing lists and forums not from any 'behind' the scenes conversations. I am not going to do your research for you here.
The stats are not relevant but you can look here http://drupal.org/node/10000 and scale it up. Steven has posted other numbers/graphs that show the usage increase. I am trying to remember one of the posts from Dries about bandwidth requirements in the 80-90GB/month. So look up the price of that. How much value do you derive form this access is perhaps a more relavant question? $50/100/1000 per month?
At current, you are using this service for free. Why would knowing these numbers help you decide to donate cash? You already donate time, perhaps that is enough.
No I wouldn't be surprised. There are several offers by several groups and individuals, Bryght and CivicSpace among them. There are discussions. As I said, these things take time. Some people are finishing up finals, others have their day job responsibilities and recent marriage proposals.
To accept money means you now have income. Some countries that is more of a tax problem then others. To establish a non-profit that works internationally, research, discussions amoung the primary stake holders (Dries, Steven, KJ) and other core project maintainers need to be done. (Note: Not me)
Architecturally going forward; multiple web front ends with a dedicated MySQL database server backend? One beefy dedicated box for the site? Seperate out the mailing lists/cvs functions? What....... These take time and knowledgable folks to engineer a solution that is agreeable to the project owner.... Dries. In the meantime I am confident that it is being worked on as Dries has already posted in this thread that detail will be forth coming soon.
-sp
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Test site...always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Working on it.
We're working on a solution. More about this later this week.
Could we maybe get some
Could we maybe get some Drupal merchandising? Lots of people are wearing Ling Long bands we could have Drupal ones. T-Shirts are always a good idea.
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http://www.stephenhendry.net
Tshirts available online
Tshirts available online,
http://www.cafepress.com/drupalpowered
Clarify
Please clarify, are the earnings from these going 100% to Drupal.org? I think if you're going to use the Drupal material directly on something as arbitrary as Cafe Press, then the money should go completely to Drupal.org.
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