UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums UBB.classic UBB.classic 6 Support New product - mySQL concerns??

I'm pretty sure this is NOT the right forum for this, but I have idea where to start..

I'm a fairly experienced UBB user. After nearly 3 years my Forums have grown steadily to very near what my dedicated server can reasonably support, and the darn things are growing at about 25% a month. Thanks to many answers provided by Charles, and many others here, I have the warm fuzzy feeling that I have optimized my boards as well as possible, and I understand the limits with UBB.. so I've been looking for / into the next step for my forums.. Happily for me they are very (!) self supporting, so I will be looking for the best solution, not the cheapest one.. in fact, if just throwing additional servers at my Forums would work, I'd be very happy to do that.. but again, I have read that is not (usually) a solution that works for UBB..

I have had many concerns about Threads (I have watched a few migrations go VERY badly), and much that I have read has me concerned with the mySQL db too.. Maybe, however, that is only as mySQL and Threads work together? I don't know...

The new product will give me the upgrade path I need (I guess), but it is all a concern - Are the mySQL issues I have read about, and seen, only Threads related? Or is there some (large?) amount of education I need to get mySQL sorted for any BB type use? I have 25+ years software experience, I don't mind learning new stuff, but I don't want to waste my time..

For folks like me with a need to upgrade from UBB - to the new product (or Threads in the past)- what are the mySQL concerns? Any pointers to resources to learn about this to avoid the past problems?

I understand (too well) product development cycles, so I am not asking specifics about the new product, I realize we'll all have to wait and see (I just hope I can do that - wait I mean)..

Myself I've had a great amount of work with MySQL and PHP (basically the systems that the "new product" will be using (same as threads)). When the new product is out and you upgrade it'll definately run faster (as PHP/MySQL tend to "zoom" along faster than flat files).

One thing that I know that InfoPop will do is cater to those who have been using UBB.Classic and UBB.Threads for years; as they've stated it'll be more like classic than threads in the UI sense of things.

The only real thing that most likely won't be "imported" are PM's and styles; but in large boards one tends to prune PM's every so often as the space consumed at times can be great (as for styles just take and backup your color scheme from the "styles" page and then input them into the new system).

What type of issues are you awaiting? it'd be best to address them one after another... As the "new product" won't be Threads or Classic it's kind of a "start of a new" matter.

Bob:

Could you be a little more specific with your concerns? What, exactly, about MySQL (proper capitalization <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> ) concerns you? Setup? Maintenance? Optimization? In all honestly, only optimization takes more than trivial effort, and even then there are a set of general rules and guidelines that can be followed. (If you can configure Apache by hand, you can configure MySQL without breaking a sweat.)

Also, could you elaborate on exactly what you've seen go wrong with UBB.threads imports? I'm a little too familiar with the issues involved, so I may not be putting enough emphasis on certain issues that mean little to me but are of major importance to others.

Other than the complete, total change in UI, that is. That I understand completely - I transitioned a 5-series board to UBB.threads about a year and a half ago, and there was much grinding of teeth and complaining about the way things changed. However, people adapted after a week or three, nobody threw a hissyfit and left, and it all turned out well in the end.

At this time, we do not plan a major UI change for the new product - it will look much more like a Classic than a Threads, but it will be comfortable and familiar for both sets of users. (This may change before beta, however. Dave really wants to do something Eve-ish eventually, with the DHTML menus and all that. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

Also, addressing another concern - how well it can scale.

You mentioned adding another server if that's what it took... well, right now, under UBB.classic, you can't quite do that. We've never found an implementation of NFS that was stable enough to run a highly loaded UBB.classic.

Under the new product, doing that is easy. In fact, it's highly advised for REALLY huge boards to use one machine to host the application and another machine just for the database. For higher scalability, just add more application servers, and more powerful database machines. (Getting MySQL to balance load over multiple servers has been an... interesting task in the past. Their new Cluster product looks promising in this regard.)


Gizzy:
To clarify on this, we are not giving preference to either group of customers.

Untrue. We intend the migration scripts to do everything possible to import all settings and information from UBB.classic, including PMs and styles.

The original Classic->Threads migration script was written by a third party. Due to a number of design decisions, it can't do an effective job at importing quite a bit of the more subtle data that UBB.classic stores. I blame PHP. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

The migration script for the new product (from Classic) will be written in Perl and will be designed to operate as a nearly seamless component of the board. It will be able to move everything over, hopefully without a hitch.

Likewise, the migration script to the new product from Threads will be written in PHP, and do the same exact thing for the Threads board - use the internal access routines to move everything over.

That being said, there are some things that won't translate over correctly. We've removed a small handful of features (such as DaysPrune), and changed the way some others work. Logically, we can't import settings for features that aren't there. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Also, UBB.threads defines styles completely through CSS files. There is no portable CSS parser for PHP, so we might not be able to import the fonts and colors found in the available CSS files into the new style system.

Back more direclty addressing the topic...

We are aware that switching to an entirely new product is a daunting task. There will be a big learning curve for the admins, and a moderate learning curve for the end users. We are going to do our best to make sure that the migration goes as smoothly as possible.

Ahh, good to hear that all the PM's wont vanish when the time comes <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> ... Also; you always blaime php :x...

'eh daysprune isnt much of a loss, I disable it anyway to improve cache hits.

I can't wait to see what's done with styles; and I hope for CSS; I love CSS lol...

what about the person who's feet you kissed a couple days ago?

I was going to keep that hush hush... although it'd be cool to know how it's working lol

^^ I'm still trying to extract details about their setup from them. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

it is still rather cool that they did the impossible

It is. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I'd love to know how they did it, in detail, as in all my years I haven't seen anyone (including me <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> ) pull it off successfully. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Awwe, we still love you Dave <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> .

Oops - sorry - I've been away for a bit (back surgery - a small one, but so much 'fun' I might get to do it again)

Charles - I have no experience with MySQL, I have seen comments that suggested it had to be optimized / customised before it would function in a reasonable (performance and security) manner - specifically with Threads?

Regarding the UBB to Threads upgrade concerns - the biggest one came from a Pro photo forum in which I participate - they did the upgrade many months ago (I am going to guess you'll know them).. Their UBB forum was about the same size as mine from what I can tell, and their upgrade resulted in two months or so (as I recall) of outages- all software related from what they said. Some of the outages were multiple days.. (I can't even imagine the headache) I was happy to see that once they got it all sorted, most visitors came back, but it seems to me they lost a ton of visitors that never came back..

I don't know the details except for what they shared with the public... But it REALLY caused me great concern..

Welcome back from your surgery. I hope you're feeling well. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Bob, I don't recall the name of any photography forums that recently moved to Threads... could you provide a link? Their issues sound quite odd, and are certainly not the norm!

The default installation of MySQL comes with a handful of recommended configurations suitable for different server and load configurations. Usually it's best to start with one of those, and perform tweaking as needed.

MySQL tweaking is not a Threads-specific thing. It has to be done with any major application. As I noted above, there are a number of general rules and guidelines that can be followed. As we get closer to the beta period, I'm sure that we'll be posting tips and tricks.

Fair enough Charles, I will start my education on MySQL (now that I know how to spell it I guess I'm part way there <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> )

The photo forum http://www.robgalbraith.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php

They have, since getting it stable, gone with a consultant who has been doing a lot of customization (to display ads now)- but my impression was their initial conversion, and for the first couple of months, was just vanilla UBB to vanilla Threads - for a couple of months, it was scarily common (just about daily at times) to see the forums stop, and error messages appear.. all very discouraging to me of course (I mean as one with a UBB forum of similar size, looking to RG as an example of my next step.)

Bob