In this thread we will disclose exactly what we spend on PTO. From upgrade services, to license & equipment purchases, and finally for hosting and management of the servers.

I personally long for the days of $24.95/mo virtual hosting, but we outgrew that before we were a year old if memories serves me correctly. Today, PTO requires high performance servers and multiple "tech" admins to make it all happen. For those who are interested in the nuts & bolts, and financial expenses, here it is:


Site Upgrades, Licenses, Software Purchases, etc.


- VBulletin license renewal. $30/year
- AddOnChat live chat room. $125/year
- Kayako Help Desk Software. $299.95 to purchase owned license.
- Kayako Upgrade Renewel (lasts 6 months) $49.95
- Kayako InstaAlert licenses $20 ea. (Currently have 3. Expect to have 10 by upgrade completion)
- Photogallery license $40
- vBulletin Forum upgraded from version 3.5 to 3.7, hack upgrades & installation assistance $500.00
- AWCoders Donation System $65
- AWCoders custom awards addition to the system $50



Site Graphical Design, Coding, Installation, etc.

- PTO Custom Site Graphics, Coding and Installation $2,000.00





Server Hardware, Hosting & Management


PTO's Existing Server
The server that we purchase approximately 2 years ago and that we have outgrown will be converted for use as an attachment, backup and fail-over server. This will increase our safe operating margins and help keep loads off the new servers.

If you are interested in knowing more about this server you may want to visit the following threads relating to it:


New Database Server
PTO is what is considered a database intensive website due to very little of the content here being "static". Static content web pages or web sites rarely change and thus require little if any processing power. Online communities such as PTO are not static websites. Almost every page you view on PTO is created on the fly after you click a link to view a thread or take you to the different places in the online community. This requires much more processing power, faster hard drives and more RAM to achieve. Obviously, the more people you have doing this at the same time, the higher your loads are going to be.

The purpose of having a physically dedicated database server is so that it can focus all of its processing power on the task of creating web pages based upon the data stored in it, doing searches, optimizations, etc. When you have just a single server doing everything, there are fewer resources available for each task.

Below are the Specs for the dedicated database server we intend to purchase:



Dell PowerEdge III 2U Database Server
Quote Number: 425447904
(2) Quad Core Xeon E5430 Processor2x6MB Cache, 2.66GHz, 1333MHz FSB, PE2950
1 16GB 667MHz (8x2GB), Dual Ranked DIMMs
(8) 73GB 15K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 3Gbps 2.5-in HotPlug HardDrives
1 LOM NICs are TOE Ready
1 Riser with 3 PCIe Slots for PowerEdge 2950
1 PERC6i SAS RAID Controller, 2x4 Connectors, Int, PCIe, 256MB cache, x8 Bkpl
1 No Floppy Drive w/Filler Panel
1 No Operating System
1 Two (2) Integrated Broadcom NetXtreme II 5708 Gigabit NICsTOE Capable
1 24X IDE CD-RW/DVD ROM Drive for PowerEdge 2950
1 Bezel for PE 2950
1 1x8 Backplane for 2.5-inch Hard Drives, PE2950 III
1 Electronic Documentation and OpenManage CD Kit, PE2950
1 Integrated SAS/SATA RAID 1/ RAID 10, PERC 6/i Integrated
1 Universal Sliding Rapid/Versa Rails, includes Cable Management Arm
1 Redundant Power Supply with Y-Cord
1 Dell Hardware Warranty Plus Onsite Service Inital YR
1 Dell Hardware Warranty, Extended Year(s)
1 Basic Enterprise Support: Business Hrs 5X10 Tech Support 4HR Onsite Service

-DISCOUNT/COUPON APPLIED
-DISCOUNT: SPECIAL OFFER

Subtotal: $5,365.00
Shipping & Handling: $29.99
Tax: $445.11
Total Price w/Discounts: $5,840.10


New HTTP/Web Server
What do dedicated Web/HTTP servers do different than the database server? Well, pretty much everything else! It is the server that actually sends you the pages you see on your screen (just like this one) after the database server generates the information (data) used to create the pages. This server also handles all the emails that are sent out notifying you about things that have happened in the thread you have subscribed to, domain name services, site statistics, and many more things that you probably don’t want to know about unless you are a techie – and in that case, you probably already know.

Another benefit of moving to a multiple server setup is that as PTO continues to grow we can simply add additional HTTP/Web servers (that are cheaper than this one) to handle the primary loads. This is called a load-balancing setup where they end up sharing additional loads between then, while using one database server to feed them. The end result here is we can scale up much more easy in the future and for much less money and time.

Below are the specifications for the dedicated Web/HTTP server we intend to purchase:


Dell PowerEdge 2u Web/HTTP Server
Quote Number: 425448867
(2) Quad Core Xeon E5430 Processor2x6MB Cache, 2.66GHz, 1333MHz FSB, PE2950
1 8GB 667MHz (4x2GB), Dual Ranked Fully Buffered DIMMs
1 LOM NICs are TOE Ready
1 Riser with 3 PCIe Slots for PowerEdge 2950
(2) 73GB 15K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 3Gbps 3.5-in HotPlug Hard Drives
(4) 146GB 15K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 3Gbps 3.5-in HotPlug Hard Drives
1 PERC6i SAS RAID Controller, 2x4 Connectors, Int, PCIe, 256MB cache, x6 Bkpl
1 No Floppy Drive for x6 Backplane
1 Two (2) Integrated Broadcom NetXtreme II 5708 Gigabit NICsTOE Capable
1 24X IDE CD-RW/DVD ROM Drive for PowerEdge 2950
1 Bezel for PE 2950
1 1x6 Backplane for 3.5-inch Hard Drives
1 Electronic Documentation and OpenManage CD Kit, PE2950
1 Integrated SAS/SATA RAID 1/ RAID 10, PERC 6/i Integrated
1 Universal Sliding Rapid/Versa Rails, includes Cable Management Arm
1 Redundant Power Supply with Y-Cord
1 Dell Hardware Warranty Plus Onsite Service Inital YR
1 Dell Hardware Warranty, Extended Year(s)
1 Basic Enterprise Support: Business Hrs 5X10 Tech Support 4HR Onsite Service Post Problem Diagnosis Init YR
1 Basic Enterprise Support: Business Hrs 5X10 Tech Support 4HR Onsite Service Post Problem Diagnosis 2YR Ext


-DISCOUNT/COUPON APPLIED
-DISCOUNT: SPECIAL OFFER

Subtotal: $3,937.00
Shipping & Handling: $29.99
Tax: $327.31
Total Price w/Discounts: $4,294.30
Additional & Related Equipment Purchases
(2) 100 Mbps Switchs to connect servers together and future expansion Aprox. $200 ea.
(2) Dell Remote Access Card (DRAC) to remotely access servers like you were in the Data Center $200 ea. + tax


Colocation Hosting & Server Management

-Professional Optimization of vBulletin and the servers to run vBulletin. $250.00

-Monthly Server colocation space for 3 Servers and Switches with 4Mbps @ 95% premium bandwidth $375.00 + tax/ Month
---Additional 1Mbps overage cost is $60 per each Mbps. (This is if we go over our 4Mbps average we have now)
-Monthly Management of 3 servers (a linux professional is req'd to maintain them. Currently pay $150 for 1) $250.00 + tax/ Month
Total Monthly Reoccurring Expenses: $625.00 + tax

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

lol No Doubt!

David - you should send that to every PTO member. Seriously - that blew my mind and I'm no dummy. I'd wager that 99% of your membership have no clue.

I believe it was listed in the mass email that was sent out earlier, though not prominently displayed.

I'd wager that 99% of your membership have no clue.


I would be part of that 99%!!!

I got lost after the first paragraph!! So I will just say Yippee!!! And pretend to know what the heck it all means!!!

I followed it until it got to all the server info and then my eyes glazed over. But holy crap - I sincerely had no idea and now I am on a mission to help offset some of this expense.

GO CALIFORNIA!!!

DONATE NOW!!

We're the reigning champs. REPEAT...REPEAT!!

:D:D:D:D:D:D

what email? wow did not ever know it cost anything for you to run this site. i will see what i can do about getting some money for all of us in the kentucky forum. it may not be much but like someone said ever little bit helps.

At different times I have tryed to post replies to different things and nothing came up. I have only been able to chat the one time. With the new system is it going to be easier for me to respond and and have my responce posted?
How much of a donation is needed? How many people really use this sight? Most of the posting come from years ago.

There are over 100,000 members I believe and literally thousands of posts a day are made. Which forum are you looking at because there should be posts being made all day every day?

If you all are not too far down the path of purchasing everything, I'd like the oppertuintity to help out. I'm a full time web developer, and believe I have all the necessary hardware to help out with, and skills needed to revamp this website.....My mother sent me to this thread, and I have had a brother in prision, and would like to help out where needed.

I see this as a great way to do some charity work.


Thanks,
Rusty.

At different times I have tryed to post replies to different things and nothing came up. I have only been able to chat the one time. With the new system is it going to be easier for me to respond and and have my responce posted?
How much of a donation is needed? How many people really use this sight? Most of the posting come from years ago.

There is a 25 posts and 2 week minimum requirement to access the chat room. Whether someone donates or not will not affect that, sorry.

You should already be able to post unless the system is overloaded and doesn't take it. If you don't see the post you made after you refresh the thread, please try and submit it again. The new servers will help alleviate this considerably, with little if any delay in submitting posts/threads.

We average over 3,000+ new posts a day and usually between 100-150 new members a day, if that tells you anything. ;) We don't delete old threads so if you are searching for something, you may pull up the information if it were posted up to 6 years ago, but usually much newer.

If you all are not too far down the path of purchasing everything, I'd like the oppertuintity to help out. I'm a full time web developer, and believe I have all the necessary hardware to help out with, and skills needed to revamp this website.....My mother sent me to this thread, and I have had a brother in prision, and would like to help out where needed.

I see this as a great way to do some charity work.


Thanks,
Rusty.

Hi Rusty,

Welcome to PTO! Glad your mother sent you here and hope you will become active.

Thanks for the offer. Do you have a pair of 2U rack mount servers with the same or better spec's as listed above? Having high-speed 15K RPM SAS drives, high-end RAID proc cards, and very powerful CPU's is a must.

What type of experience do you have with designing, slicing and coding vBulletin templates? If you have a lot, please let us know as we are always in the market for that. I have already hired someone to do this: www.Relivo.com (http://www.Relivo.com) , but who knows what we may need to do in the future.

Thanks!
David

Hi david,

we have 6 HP DL380 G5's sitting in a colocation at a level 3 datacenter in Houston, TX.

2 Web Servers
2 Database Servers
2 Application Servers

Set up on a cluster for automatic fail over.

We cannot provide physical hardware at the current momment, but can provide to host your application.

We have tons of design expirence and have done many implementations into OS Commerce, Propertairy Commerce Solutions, blogs, and Basic website design.

There is really not a task that we cannot handle.

We would be offering a one stop shop solution free of charge hosted on our servers. We I'll provide more details when I get back from my meeting.

We specialize in high-end solutions incorporating many different technologies.

With everything you mentioned in your post above we can handle.


Thanks,
Rusty Riley.

Thanks again for you offer Rusty, but we are going to use our own equipment and network that we have complete control over. I'm sure you can appreciate our reasoning and desire to host this way.

We have also already contracted (and paid) someone that specializes in vBulletn forum design & customization, though if you do traditional web design, I'd be interested in discussing that with you at a later date as we have a lot of ideas and plans for expanding the site completely outside the forums.

I've got your info and will give send you an email when we get to that stage. If you have a portfolio I can look at, please PM it to me as well.

Thanks!
David



Hi david,

we have 6 HP DL380 G5's sitting in a colocation at a level 3 datacenter in Houston, TX.

2 Web Servers
2 Database Servers
2 Application Servers

Set up on a cluster for automatic fail over.

We cannot provide physical hardware at the current momment, but can provide to host your application.

We have tons of design expirence and have done many implementations into OS Commerce, Propertairy Commerce Solutions, blogs, and Basic website design.

There is really not a task that we cannot handle.

We would be offering a one stop shop solution free of charge hosted on our servers. We I'll provide more details when I get back from my meeting.

We specialize in high-end solutions incorporating many different technologies.

With everything you mentioned in your post above we can handle.


Thanks,
Rusty Riley.