Upgrades to ATS Infrastructure in the works! Important question for members.

Thanks to all our kind and generous members, we've been able pay-off most of our bridge loan as well as stash away the necessary resources for a rather expensive transition to new hardware. The resulting infrastructure isn't more expensive than our current set-up, it's just that we need to be able to afford the monthly cost of both the new and existing systems while a time-consuming transition takes place… as well as the expertise of someone to consult on new technologies we'll be deploying.

We're moving away from a pure LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) implementation, and moving on to more modern and specialized server software and database solutions.

We're also going with server specifications I call, "Thor's Hammer" with 96GB of ram, dual Raid-10 hard drive arrays, and 24 cores. (for those who know what that means, it's pretty good)

In addition, we're making significant changes to our CDN (content delivery network) which spurts out more than 20TB of content every month. This is our single-biggest expense where even a move to the relatively cheaper Amazon CloudFront will cost nearly $2,000/month to maintain current service. Most of that 20TB bandwidth is comprised of the images our members have uploaded. I ran reporting for one day (it's uber-expensive to run all the time) on the CDN, and nearly 40% of that is because your/our images are used on other websites… something we never explicitly denied.

Question to our members…

Are any of you using your upload service here as a means for image-sharing on other websites? And if so, would it kill you if we stopped?

If we disallow sites other than ours from using our CDN bandwidth, we'd be able to see a significant cost-savings.



We'll keep you updated on our progress… much of which relies on me learning the differences in the software/database. But we expect about three months before the old servers are turned off. So that's three months of double the hosting costs, and some significant hours of technical consulting. None of which would have been possible without the donations from our members.



More as I know it.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

That's great news on the upgrades!

As for the images, I've occasionally linked people to images on here through IMs, but not on websites.

I'm not linking back to pictures here at all, so stopping that wouldn't affect me at all.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

Likewise.

Not an issue for me. Good to hear everything is back on track and ATS is moving in the right direction!

go with the cost savings it's not an issue personally.
f

That is such great news! Have no issues either. Save what you can , never know what the future may hold. Hopefully ATS is here till the day I go walk about for one final time .

I only use ATS upload for things I post on ATS.

Doesn't bother me at all. Anything that makes this site better, I'm all for. Especially if it saves money.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Any images I use here, I use here only.


If it saves ATS money, then do the right thing and save money!

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Nope. I don't use ATS as an image hosting/sharing source, kill away.

BUT,

A few years ago I went through my images I had saved here and deleted a bunch I had no intention of using again. I then discovered they had also disappeared from the threads they had been posted in, which led to clunky nonsensical threads that are no longer coherent without the pictures.

So I guess my questions is, if we post a picture in a thread, does it now take up twice as much space since it's in two different locations?

And if so, is there a way to be able to post it and remove it from my personal images without messing up threads?

Or maybe I'm just an idiot?

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I dont link externaly no.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Are any of you using your upload service here as a means for image-sharing on other websites? And if so, would it kill you if we stopped?

The techno info stuff is beyond my feeble brain

But as far as using uploaded images here on other sites ... No I do not do that
I share my images to other sites by uploading them directly to that site ... IE I do not link my images here on ATS

So no it will not kill me ... But if it does you shall hear from my lawyer

Appreciation for all your hard work

a/p

I do occasionally share url's to my images, but it won't bother me none if you disallow it. I have other storage areas on the cloud for my images.

CdT

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I have no images so no sweat bead off my nose, to quote Steve Martin. I don't even know HOW to use or embed images...I am ok with that : )

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
Are any of you using your upload service here as a means for image-sharing on other websites? And if so, would it kill you if we stopped?

Quick answers's. No and no.
Thank you for all the work and patience with everyone who uses this important world forum.
Good luck with the transition. It only proves vision and future to the platform.
One day ATS could be on the wall street

I only upload images to ATS I use here. I assume we can always download them if we need to use them elsewhere. I would go with the savings and put it in the "DoS/DDos/Hackers are a pain" account.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I do occasionally upload images here, but have never used one here on another site. I use Photobucket for that. So, for me, as long as we can still upload for the site only, I wouldn't care at all.

I've seen some of my images (usually screenshots from NASA reports or research papers or original work I've done in visualization software) end up on other sites.

A good example of a site which used work I did (including images linked from AT) here...
alienspacesciencenews.wordpress.com... l/

originally posted by: Lysergic
I only use ATS upload for things I post on ATS.

Ditto!