90 votes

Meet the new server, functionally the same as the old server (hopefully)

Welcome back!

Right after making this post, I'm going to update the DNS records to point tildes.net to this server, so everyone should start trickling in as those updates go through.

The switch and upgrades all seem to have gone fairly well, though there were definitely a few issues here and there that I had to work through. I'm glad I decided to do a longer downtime instead of needing to rush through figuring some of it out.

A summary of what's changed so far:

  • Running on a different physical server (but in the same datacenter)
  • Operating system is now Debian 10 instead of Ubuntu 16.04
  • Python version is now 3.9 instead of 3.8 (and updated a couple libraries that needed it)
  • PostgreSQL version is now 13 instead of 12
  • Redis version is now 6 instead of 5
  • Everything was deployed and configured using Ansible instead of SaltStack

There are still a few more changes and updates I want to make soon, but I can just do them normally while the site is running. I'll also update the open-source code soon, once I finalize a few pieces and finish cleaning things up.

Please let me know if you notice anything that seems to be behaving strangely, it's definitely possible that there are some things broken in subtle (or not-subtle) ways.

10 comments

  1. AugustusFerdinand
    Link
    I survived the great Tildes outage 2021, AMA! Thanks @deimos for all the hard work.

    I survived the great Tildes outage 2021, AMA!

    Thanks @deimos for all the hard work.

    22 votes
  2. k2l8m11n2
    Link
    Hello and welcome back!

    Hello and welcome back!

    11 votes
  3. Ayax28
    Link
    The switch was fast! I thought it would take a couple of hours more, but here we are!

    The switch was fast!
    I thought it would take a couple of hours more, but here we are!

    9 votes
  4. AreaDev
    Link
    First of all, I checked in the morning (Moscow time) if the site is working. Everything is great! Thanks @deimos, this is a great place. A lot of interesting.

    First of all, I checked in the morning (Moscow time) if the site is working. Everything is great!

    Thanks @deimos, this is a great place. A lot of interesting.

    8 votes
  5. rmgr
    Link
    Thanks for all your work @deimos!

    Thanks for all your work @deimos!

    7 votes
  6. ras
    Link
    I didn't realize how many times I click my Tildes bookmark until it stopped working. Glad the upgrade went well, @deimos. Thank you!

    I didn't realize how many times I click my Tildes bookmark until it stopped working. Glad the upgrade went well, @deimos. Thank you!

    7 votes
  7. [2]
    Amarok
    Link
    My inner geek is curious what hardware improvements moving servers after three years gets for a project. Newer CPUs, sure, but what about the memory and disks?

    My inner geek is curious what hardware improvements moving servers after three years gets for a project. Newer CPUs, sure, but what about the memory and disks?

    7 votes
    1. Deimos
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Not too huge of a difference. Old server ($124 CAD / month): Intel Xeon E3-1270v6 - 4 cores / 8 threads @3.80Ghz 32 GB RAM (DDR4 / 2400Mhz) 2x450GB NVMe SSD in RAID1 New server ($108 CAD / month):...

      Not too huge of a difference.

      Old server ($124 CAD / month):

      • Intel Xeon E3-1270v6 - 4 cores / 8 threads @3.80Ghz
      • 32 GB RAM (DDR4 / 2400Mhz)
      • 2x450GB NVMe SSD in RAID1

      New server ($108 CAD / month):

      • Intel Xeon-E 2136 - 6 cores / 12 threads @3.3 GHz/4.5 GHz
      • 32 GB RAM (DDR4 / 2666 MT/s)
      • 2x500GB NVMe SSD in RAID1

      So it's ~10% cheaper, and a 50% increase in CPU cores/threads is definitely the most significant change. If we get to the point where it's useful, I could upgrade it to 64GB of RAM and it would be about the same price as the old server.

      15 votes
  8. 3_3_2_LA
    Link
    Thank you @deimos, this is one of the few places on the Internet where I can find and engage with genuine people!

    Thank you @deimos, this is one of the few places on the Internet where I can find and engage with genuine people!

    5 votes
  9. alex11
    Link
    Needs more cowbell.

    Needs more cowbell.

    4 votes