SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
As you probably have noticed, our site has been a bit sluggish lately.
We are aware of the issue and are developing plans for dealing with it. The primary issue lies in the database structure and contents. On-the-fly joins across multiple tables cause a performance hit which is exacerbated by the number of stories we have posted over the years (yes, it HAS been that long... YAY!). Further, stories which have been "archived" — allowing no further comments or moderation — are still sitting in the in-RAM DB and could be offloaded to disk for long-term access. Once offloaded, there would be much less data in the in-RAM database (queries against empty DBs tend to be pretty quick!) so this should result in improved responsiveness.
A complicating factor is that changing the structure on a live, replicated database would cause most every page load to 500 out. So the database has to be offlined and the code updated. That would likely entail on the order of the better part of a day. Obviously, shorter is better. On the other hand "The longest distance between two points is a short cut." We're aiming to do it right, the first time, and be done with it, rather than doing it quick-and-dirty, which usually ends up being not quick and quite dirty.
So, we ARE aware of the performance issues, are working towards a solution, and don't want to cause any more disruption than absolutely necessary.
We will give notice well in advance of taking any actions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Wednesday October 10 2018, @07:27PM (6 children)
Indexes?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 10 2018, @10:27PM (5 children)
Got plenty but do need a couple new ones added, yes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday October 11 2018, @12:24AM (4 children)
I don't remember knowing what database you're using, but if it's MySQL, have you tried phpMyAdmin?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 11 2018, @12:33AM (3 children)
Install PHP on critical servers? Are you mad?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday October 11 2018, @01:01AM
Hopping! I inherited WordPress servers, so... It hasn't hurt me in 10 years. Maybe I gots magic. :)
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday October 11 2018, @01:03AM (1 child)
BTW, you could rsync the db to a cloned but otherwise offline server (2nd Ethernet if you're really paranoid) and run phpMyAdmin on that box.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 12 2018, @03:01AM
Or I could just do it from a mysql prompt. It'd be a whole lot quicker than installing and configuring PHP. We really don't want our db servers talking to anything outside our network.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.