Yesterday we took the plunge and ordered a monster server as phase one
of our BeerAdvocate.com upgrade! This is most exciting and much needed
for us!

Our biggest bottleneck has been our database (db) server, which
typically requires a ton of resources. Our current server is quite
limited, we're getting upwards of 6 million page impressions per month
now, and every page is db driven. As a result we can't serve visitors
fast enough, the site gets slow during peak times, people are getting
frustrated, and we're turning people away. I also waste a lot of time
tweaking things in order to squeeze as much as I can out of our
current setup. The new db server will eliminate this and allow our
current server to focus on being strictly a web server and the new
server to handle strictly data. The benefits of this are massive, well-
worth the additional costs, and begins building the structure to
support our fast growth.

I also ordered a private network that will allow us to add on more
servers as we need them, an automated back-up system (hell yeah!), and
a few others upgrades to make things more safe and smooth.

The order was processed last night, and I hope to start building and
testing before the weekend. If all goes well I'll migrate the data
over, reconfigure our web server to handle more users, and "flip the
switch" soon after so we can test things out real-time.

Phase two will involve upgrading the web server (hardware and
software) sometime in the first or second quarter of 2008. Phase three
will be adding load balancing and redundancy + an email server.

Also ... we might experience some down time while they sync our
current server to the new network, but I'm scheduling this in the wee
hours and will post an update when I get more info. I'll also keep
everyone up-to-date on my progress.

Cheers, more to follow soon, and thanks for dealing with our growing
pains!