• sirena
  • sirena
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  • Registered: 2006-04-06
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Topic: PunBB hardware

I recently stumbled upon this interesting page, where some of the hardware behind some of the biggest vBulletin etc forums is highlighted:

http://www.big-boards.com/servers.php

There were no punBB forums on that list. smile

It is an interesting list, if only due to the way it reveals how some (relatively) small vBulletin forums seem to need pretty awesome clusters of hardware behind them - 6 front-end servers, 4 DB servers, etc etc.

Scary stuff, due to the extra $$$ and sysadmin complexity this implies.

It highlights some of the architectures people used to cope with high traffic - separate web and DB servers, separate static file/attachment/image servers, load-balancers etc.

It also underlines (to me) the importance of planning for growth if you have a forum in a topic that has broad appeal, although I presume that (if you don't load it up with too many mods and tweaks) a punBB forum should in general scale better than for eg a VB one - ie the threshold point where you would need to start thinking about kicking in some big iron to ensure good performance in a punBB board should be quite a bit higher than it may be for vb or phpBB.

Out of curiosity, can anyone running a big punBB board tell us their hardware specs?

  • From: -8 GMT
  • Registered: 2004-05-04
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Re: PunBB hardware

looking at some of those setups it makes me not want to run a very popular board. wink

~James
FluxBB - Less is more
  • sirena
  • sirena
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Re: PunBB hardware

That was my first thought too. What a hassle.

Did you see the one that reported that they handle '10k emails daily' ? Yeesh. Who wants to deal with that?

4 Reply by MattF

  • MattF
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  • Registered: 2007-03-15
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Re: PunBB hardware

sirena wrote:

That was my first thought too. What a hassle.

Did you see the one that reported that they handle '10k emails daily' ? Yeesh. Who wants to deal with that?

That is a small scale e-mail throughput, by some peoples standards. big_smile If one has a *nix OS on the server, the likes of Postfix or Exim wouldn't even be sweating with that throughput on even modest hardware. big_smile

MattF's Website

5 Reply by Apolo (edited by Apolo 2007-05-11 04:41)

  • Apolo
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  • Registered: 2006-07-26
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Re: PunBB hardware

Some of those forums are still running on single servers. I know a couple of them running on single or dual processor systems with 2-4 GB of RAM.

We're running our forum on a Dual Processor Dual Core AMD 265 with 4 GB of RAM, but it's not a dedicated machine for the forum. smile

And PunBB is extremely light and fast! smile

ComunidadHosting

Apolo's Website

  • sirena
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Re: PunBB hardware

MattF wrote:

That is a small scale e-mail throughput, by some peoples standards. big_smile

True. But actually I was thinking of that from an admin's point of view. The hardware and software may handle the load OK, but I bet a lot of that email was also the sort of stuff that a human somewhere would need to look at and respond to, inc the admins or moderators of the boards. If even a small percentage of that was queries from users, problem reports etc, that would be the real hassle factor. smile

7 Reply by MattF

  • MattF
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Re: PunBB hardware

sirena wrote:

If even a small percentage of that was queries from users, problem reports etc, that would be the real hassle factor. smile

Definitely agree with you there. big_smile

MattF's Website

8 Reply by hsl

  • hsl
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  • Registered: 2006-08-11
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Re: PunBB hardware

We have a dedicated server for MacMinds.net, We're not that big yet,
(only a little over 1800 members) where running on a 3.0Ghz dual Xeon-dual.

hsl's Website

  • Registered: 2006-05-03
  • Posts: 102

Re: PunBB hardware

Is there a simple way of outputting time it takes a server to render a punbb page?
It might be a useful mod to make (I might have a go).

The number of concurrent users, number of searches, page views etc. will all contribute, but in my experience (I do IT capacity for a living) it's very hard to model that without resorting to a complex simulation for each setup and usage profile which will be different for every site.

As your server/setup reaches capacity, the average page render time will increase, and that's what you want to keep down to a level acceptable to users. Ideally you'll also not want to stretch your setup to the point where you couldn't carry out admin functions like backups etc.

--Alan

AlanCollier's Website

  • Registered: 2007-02-25
  • Posts: 18

Re: PunBB hardware

MattF wrote:
sirena wrote:

That was my first thought too. What a hassle.

Did you see the one that reported that they handle '10k emails daily' ? Yeesh. Who wants to deal with that?

That is a small scale e-mail throughput, by some peoples standards. big_smile If one has a *nix OS on the server, the likes of Postfix or Exim wouldn't even be sweating with that throughput on even modest hardware. big_smile

indeed. i know folks who run mail servers that are scaled to handle like a million e-mails per day.

  • From: U.S.A.
  • Registered: 2005-08-26
  • Posts: 1,607

Re: PunBB hardware

AlanCollier wrote:

Is there a simple way of outputting time it takes a server to render a punbb page?
It might be a useful mod to make (I might have a go).

It's printed in the footer when debug mode is enabled (but it doesn't log it, if that's what you want).

Looking for a certain modification for your forum? Please take a look here before posting.
  • Registered: 2006-05-03
  • Posts: 102

Re: PunBB hardware

pogenwurst wrote:

It's printed in the footer when debug mode is enabled (but it doesn't log it, if that's what you want).

Thanks, I thought I'd seen it somewhere.
I did mean a mod to record it somewhere.
The danger of course is that a recording mod puts even more strain on the server!

--Alan

AlanCollier's Website