That’s the name of our new server here at Tripawds. The name is really more appropriate for Jerry’s three legged dog blog community, along with our snowbird blog and other sites. And from the first feedback, performance kicks ass over Elm. That was the name of our first server we upgraded to a couple years ago.
“Holy cow…. it’s so fast I’m getting dizzy.”
— krun15“SUPER FAST!!!!”
— cometdog
Remember? We had that 2010 fundraising campaign to help cover the expense of hosting our own web server to meet the demands of our growing membership. With more than 3379 members, 848 blogs, and 73280 forum posts, and counting, the Tripawds community continues to grow daily.
With increased traffic and use of a popular WordPress multisite network like Tripawds, comes the need to address server load capacity and bandwidth limitations. With that comes added expense. But first, the specs.
WordPress Multisite Server hardware requirements
WordPress network administrators and anyone considering building a niche blog network might want need to know what to expect regarding hardware if any sort of growth is expected. Our new box, in a nutshell:
- Xeon 3450 with Hyper Threading
- Server runs with 8 cores
- 4 GB of RAM
- 2 TB Bandwidth2 250 GB Hard Drives
- Cent OS 5 x 64 Bit
- cPanel Unlimited Domains
- On Call Server Management
We bit the bullet to outfit this system, but we want only the best for our members. And we don’t want to do this again anytime soon. We chose this system over a Core 2 Duo 8400 with 8 GB of RAM since CPU speed/power is generally more important in processor heavy sites and RAM can be increased if needed. Elm was a Pentium 4 with 2 single core processors and 2 GB RAM. It served us well over the past couple years, but recent sporadic spiraling server loads necessitated this upgrade.
Having a server manager is highly recommended for this type of job. That, or some serious command line confidence. While DNS propagation took a bit longer than expected, the actual migration went pretty smooth thanks to the hard work of our guys at Morse Media. And thank you to those Tripawds members who helped us iron out a few kinks.
What does this mean for Tripawds?
If you’ve ever had a comment not save when posting in the forums, or visited the site only to find it wouldn’t load, this upgrade is for you. Say goodbye to database connection errors, and feel free to join us in the chat with all of your friends. This upgrade means you are part of the largest online community for three legged dogs, and it will always be here for you.
Tripawds is a user-supported community.
Please do what you can to help keep it online.
It also means we did it without holding another fundraising campaign! With any luck, and a little support from members like you, we won’t need to raise funds this year either. Soon you will be hearing more about a certain Tripawds member who helped make this server migration possible. Others continue to give on a regular basis. Some of you quite generously. You know who you are, and we can’t thank you enough.
In the mean time, chat away and post in the forums to your hearts content. Publish blog posts, upload photos, search for answers, share your videos and do what you can to show your support for this site by shopping online and spreading the word about the Tripawds Featured Blogs. Together, we shall continue to show the world Tripawds Rule!
PS: We couldn’t do any of this without our WPMU Dev membership either, for the best WordPress multisite plugins, themes and support!
PPS: The quicker Rene and I can grow our team of home-based marketing executives, the sooner we will never have to ask for money to help keep Tripawds online, ever again. Please contact us directly for information about supplementing or replacing your income while working from anywhere.
