The New EMB's Hosting Package Growing Pains

[VaBeach_Eagle]

There's good news, and there's semi-expected news.

The good news is, donations to the GoFundMe were high enough that we have the resources to upgrade to a more robust hosting package, even a fairly expensive one. 

The semi-expected news is, that this was semi-expected. This is exactly why I wanted to be 'live' for the draft, to see if we'd be crushed or just what would happen. 

As soon as I saw the CPU usage spike (the image that I posted in one of the threads), I got right on the phone to GoDaddy lol. 

They have a few business plans that I can upgrade to. The most expensive of which, is about $2,000 per year. I still need some clarification from them as to the resources that we get with that package, but it sounded like it would be more than enough. 

The upgrade that we opt for, probably won't be in place for 24 to 48 hours after I commit, so we likely won't see the benefits of it during the draft. But we'll get it worked out. 

[20dawk4life]

Would it be better to wait until august to upgrade? That way it gets us through the entire season and draft next year?

[Mike030270]

Do you know what the old board used? We've crashed that one before too. I wonder if we should just get the max

[VaBeach_Eagle]

4 minutes ago, 20dawk4life said:

Would it be better to wait until august to upgrade? That way it gets us through the entire season and draft next year?

If I do it now, the money spent, gets credited to the new package. I'll have to ask how that would work if we wait. 

[20dawk4life]

1 minute ago, VaBeach_Eagle said:

If I do it now, the money spent, gets credited to the new package. I'll have to ask how that would work if we wait. 

Oh ok. That makes sense. 

[EagleJoe8]

It's good to hear there's enough left over. Hopefully, by the time you'd need to renew, there will be enough of us willing to pitch in to help. Really, if 200 people just threw in $10, that covers the cost right there.

[MeccaDon123]

My man.. thanks and thanks again.. we could be sitting here "boardless" by the 30th.. do what you think is best and props for keeping the board members informed. i don't think anyone would mind if you stuck some of that money straight in your pocket. 

[VaBeach_Eagle]

The CS rep at GoDaddy is helping, so I've asked him a few questions (in email). So I'll see what he says with regard to doing it immediately, vs. waiting until just before the season (assuming there will be a season). 

4 minutes ago, EagleJoe8 said:

It's good to hear there's enough left over. Hopefully, by the time you'd need to renew, there will be enough of us willing to pitch in to help. Really, if 200 people just threw in $10, that covers the cost right there.

Yeah, I'd hoped that this package would cover us, but knowing how the old board crashed at times, I suspected that we may need to upgrade. 

[EagleJoe8]

Just now, VaBeach_Eagle said:

The CS rep at GoDaddy is helping, so I've asked him a few questions (in email). So I'll see what he says with regard to doing it immediately, vs. waiting until just before the season (assuming there will be a season). 

Yeah, I'd hoped that this package would cover us, but knowing how the old board crashed at times, I suspected that we may need to upgrade. 

It's good to find out now of course. Game days could be worse, and of course, there's plenty of time between now and then.

[VaBeach_Eagle]

7 minutes ago, EagleJoe8 said:

It's good to find out now of course. Game days could be worse, and of course, there's plenty of time between now and then.

Yeah, and there's enough in the board's funds to upgrade to the most expensive package, if need be. Year 1 should be all set.

[IFB DOG]

Can you or they do a traffic/package analysis?

Can we optimize the boards now for speed (while not sacrificing features you deem important) and bandwidth, prior to asking you to spend the funds away on a package that may not be necessary?

Limit guests to specific forums without signing in?

Eliminate gif/images from signatures?

[JohnB]

how many users have been online at once so far? That's a feature on miss about the previous Invision board (before the EMB upgrade). You could just look at the bottom to see who was online. The reason I'm asking is because ultimately message boards activity is waning. Wouldn't it make more sense to stash some of that cash for next year, instead of upgrading now? Just a thought. 

[VaBeach_Eagle]

1 minute ago, IFB DOG said:

Can you or they do a traffic/package analysis?

Can we optimize the boards now for speed (while not sacrificing features you deem important) and bandwidth, prior to asking you to spend the funds away on a package that may not be necessary?

Limit guests to specific forums without signing in?

Eliminate gif/images from signatures?

Some of those things might help, but we definitely will need an upgrade for the actual season. When I limited guests to just the sign-in/sign-up screen, that helped. But it looked like that made some guests register, so it only helped for a little while lol. 

Maybe one of the old EMB's admins can look back at the internal stats during the season and give us an idea of how many members were on the board during games and we can compare that to tonight (and tomorrow night). But I feel confident that an upgrade will be necessary. It's just a matter of whether the most expensive one is needed or the one just below that one. 

[VaBeach_Eagle]

1 minute ago, JohnB said:

how many users have been online at once so far? That's a feature on miss about the previous Invision board (before the EMB upgrade). You could just look at the bottom to see who was online. The reason I'm asking is because ultimately message boards activity is waning. Wouldn't it make more sense to stash some of that cash for next year, instead of upgrading now? Just a thought. 

Thanks for reminding me, I meant to mention that in my previous post and forgot. I'll have to dig into the stats, but just a quick glance at the online list while it was 'hectic', showed 418 online. Whether it went higher, I don't know. I also noticed that there were 111 guests at the time that I turned off guest access to the forums (which is back on right now). 

[IFB DOG]

6 minutes ago, VaBeach_Eagle said:

Some of those things might help, but we definitely will need an upgrade for the actual season. When I limited guests to just the sign-in/sign-up screen, that helped. But it looked like that made some guests register, so it only helped for a little while lol. 

Maybe one of the old EMB's admins can look back at the internal stats during the season and give us an idea of how many members were on the board during games and we can compare that to tonight (and tomorrow night). But I feel confident that an upgrade will be necessary. It's just a matter of whether the most expensive one is needed or the one just below that one. 

If you need help with negotiating, I'd be more than happy to help. Literally my job entails working with our vendors to secure better terms. FedEx, engines, you name it. What they are selling has ridiculously high margins.

[VaBeach_Eagle]

21 minutes ago, JohnB said:

how many users have been online at once so far?

 

11 minutes ago, IFB DOG said:

If you need help with negotiating, I'd be more than happy to help. Literally my job entails working with our vendors to secure better terms. FedEx, engines, you name it. What they are selling has ridiculously high margins.

I'll let you know, I'm going to talk to them again tomorrow so that some of my questions can be answered. 

[judunno]

1 hour ago, VaBeach_Eagle said:

Yeah, and there's enough in the board's funds to upgrade to the most expensive package, if need be. Year 1 should be all set.

I agree with the other folks you should hold off on upgrades until the season starts. Doubtful that we will have spikes like this post draft again until we're closer to some real games (if they even happen).

Oh, and get some ad banners on this thing. Try to recoup something. Should at least be able to get a few hundred a month to support hosting costs if not more depending on traffic.

[VaBeach_Eagle]

3 minutes ago, judunno said:

I agree with the other folks you should hold off on upgrades until the season starts. Doubtful that we will have spikes like this post draft again until we're closer to some real games (if they even happen).

Yeah, and that makes sense. At least until training camp. By then we should know more about whether there will be a season or not, or what form it may take. I'll have some more talks with GoDaddy and get all the details, though and then we can go from there.

 

[judunno]

4 minutes ago, VaBeach_Eagle said:

Yeah, and that makes sense. At least until training camp. By then we should know more about whether there will be a season or not, or what form it may take. I'll have some more talks with GoDaddy and get all the details, though and then we can go from there.

 

You rock dude. I gotta say I was skeptical that this could be pulled off before the deadline. Glad the board rallied together to keep it going with your lead.

[devpool]

I'll pay yearly to keep the boards up if we need to. I pay for the athletic, this is just as important for me 

[VaBeach_Eagle]

2 minutes ago, judunno said:

You rock dude. I gotta say I was skeptical that this could be pulled off before the deadline. Glad the board rallied together to keep it going with your lead.

I didn't know if it could either, I figured that it would be close, but I was initially factoring in the potential of getting the old database and then integrating that into a new installation of Invision software. Take that out of the equation, and it's a much simpler task. 

 

2 minutes ago, devpool said:

I'll pay yearly to keep the boards up if we need to. I pay for the athletic, this is just as important for me 

I'm going to look at various possibilities. One of my brothers gave me an idea to help fund it. That's to become an 'affiliate' of a couple of entities. Amazon is one, which was what my brother suggested. That made me think of Fanatics, but I wasn't sure if they have an affiliate program or not. I just checked, and they do. 

I'll have to read a little more about it, but that would be where if a member here is going to buy an Eagles hat, or jersey or something like that, and if they buy it through the boards 'affiliate' link, then the board will earn a percentage of that sale. 5% or 10% probably. Though that may be a bit high, it may only be a couple of percent. I'll look into it though. 

[UK_EaglesFan89]

2 hours ago, EagleJoe8 said:

It's good to hear there's enough left over. Hopefully, by the time you'd need to renew, there will be enough of us willing to pitch in to help. Really, if 200 people just threw in $10, that covers the cost right there.

Less than $ a month. And actually at one point yesterday I was told we had 300 members online! I would happily pay $2-3 a month. I mean I'd pay slightly more but not sure we'd need to.

Still think a package approach works better though as some will go elsewhere if they have to pay and we don't necessarily want that. 

[EagleJoe8]

5 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

Less than $ a month. And actually at one point yesterday I was told we had 300 members online! I would happily pay $2-3 a month. I mean I'd pay slightly more but not sure we'd need to.

Still think a package approach works better though as some will go elsewhere if they have to pay and we don't necessarily want that. 

Making donations mandatory would certainly drive people away. But being able to contribute what one can when they can could possibly make it work. The one down side is if too many people assume others will fund enough of it to cover the cost. 

[pallidrone]

Mandatory donations will not work. Maybe having a donate button on the front page and when money is getting low, just posting about it and asking for donations maybe enough to keep it going.

[EagleJoe8]

8 minutes ago, pallidrone said:

Mandatory donations will not work. Maybe having a donate button on the front page and when money is getting low, just posting about it and asking for donations maybe enough to keep it going.

Pretty much my thoughts.