New server for API

2008-05-07 23:51:52 | johann | #

After the Browsershots servers were overloaded for several weeks, I have finally added a new powerful machine for the FactoryInterface. It's a brand new Dell PowerEdge 2950 with two Xeon 5405 processors (8 cores total) and 8 GB of RAM, and I'm renting it from our hosting sponsor ExpertHost.com. The subdomain api.browsershots.org has been switched to this new server, and factory admins don't need to change anything. This upgrade resolves the 503 Server overloaded message that has been so common recently.

The web and database server are still running on two dual-core virtual machines (using VMware). Since the primary web server doesn't have to handle screenshot uploads anymore, the response times for the web interface are also improving. However, the new bottleneck is now the database server. I'm planning to reduce database server load by introducing memcached in the next weeks.

Update: I had to bring back the dreaded 503 Server overloaded message because the database server was overwhelmed. The load average was above 15, and browser redirects would take several seconds, resulting in too many blank screenshots. I'm working on an object-level cache for Django to take some load off the database.